Tim Tyler  wrote:-


> > JE:-
> > Reducing r to
> > now become only a comparison to the relatedness you would expect from
> > "a randomly-chosen  member of the population" simply replaces one
> > probability with yet another. However, now no way exists to
> > actually measure relatedness! Please provide the so far
> > entirely missing
> > measuring  mechanism for calculating so called shared genes that
> > is not just an IBD measure so you can _know_ that a negative r means
> > an "individual shares even fewer genes with you than a randomly-chosen
> > member of the population".


> TT:-
> http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1420-9101.200
4.00775.x/full/
....has a history of the idea with references.

JE:-
The above link only produced an error.

TT:-
It points out that Hamilton originally argued that relatedness should
be interpreted as Wright's correlation coefficient of relationship.
However, the interpretation of Price eventually won out.
The page describes relatedness as follows:

``Specifically, relatedness is the regression (slope) of the recipient's
  genetical breeding value on that of the actor (Hamilton, 1970, 1972;
  Taylor & Frank, 1996; Frank, 1997a, 1998). As regressions can be
  negative as well as positive (and zero), relatedness can feasibly take
  any real value (from negative infinity to positive infinity).
  Discussions with Price led Hamilton to acknowledge that negative
  relatedness can plausibly arise between social partners [...]''

JE:-
The above proves that the concept of relatedness
employed remains a non refutable heuristic, i.e. not
a refutable scientific concept. Since c constitutes
a refutable scientific concept but rb does not
within Hamilton’s Rule, employing regression analysis
to replace IBD does not help. Indeed IBD is a better
measure for Hamilton et al’s independent level of selection
(which remains absolutely required for fitness at the
gene level to contest and win against fitness at
the Darwinian fertile form level) producing organism
fitness altruism at the Darwinian level of selection.

> JE:-
> Neo Darwinists bumbling  attempts to replace IBD with a
> regression analysis reduces relatedness to 100% relative
> nonsense.  I repeat, negative r only constitutes a _biologically_
> meaningless term. Either you are related or you
> are not. Assuming you can be less than not related
> will always constitute Mad Hatter nonsense.

TT:-
Negative relatedness does have a biological meaning - it indicates
when "spiteful" behaviour would be favoured by selection.
See, for example:

``Spite: Hamilton?s unproven theory''

 - http://www.sekj.org/anz/anz3834.htm#229

JE:-
Spite:-
“an action that harms a recipient at no direct
benefit to the actor, could evolve if interactants
were negatively related”.

The above remains about as rational as negative time!
Anybody here “walking backwards for Christmas?”
(a famous song by Spike Milligan of the Goon Show
fame who, like Swift and the people who created
Monty Python, appreciated the logic of the absurd).
Here, without any doubt, the abolute fitness
of everyone is supposed to be selected FOR.
The utter misuse of heuristic mathematics
to justify spite remains _hopelessly_ incorrect.
If any _unbiased_ person wished to prove to themselves
that Hamilton’s Rule was and is entirely misused within
the biological sciences I invite them to read the
supposed evolutionary rational for the evolution of
spite using Hamilton’s Rule.

No THEORY of relatedness can be negative because
you cannot be BIOLOGICALLY related less than zero.
Either you are or you are not related, no exceptions.
However, it is possible to oversimplify such a theory
to produce just a heuristic value of relatedness that
can be negative. It remains absurd for such a heuristic
to complete and win against the theory it was
simplified from.



My Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

PO Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105
Australia

edser{at}tpg.com.au
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