John Edser  wrote or quoted:
>  "Perplexed in Peoria"  wrote:-

> > > > JM:-
> > > > Yes.  Well, to be more precise, it will be either zero or (-1/N),
> > > > depending on whether you count yourself as a member of
the population
> > > > for purposes of calculating the correlation.
> 
> > > JE:-
> > > The value r cannot be zero unless life was not decended
> > > from just one common ancestor.
> 
> > JM:-
> > There are two different versions of "r" being confused here.
> > What you say is correct for "IBD_r".  I was referring to
> > "regression_r", which can be zero or negative.  
> 
> JE:-
> Regression does not help because
> a negative r only remains biologically 
> _meaningless_ and just a zero r means all
> life is not descended from just the one
> common ancestor no matter what mathematics
> is that is employed to calculate r. EITHER we 
> are all descended from just the one common ancestor 
> or we are NOT. The rule of parsimony insists that 
> we must assume that all life is descended from the 
> one same ancestor until it is proven otherwise. To
> ignore parsimony is to reduce the efficiency
> of the biological sciences, i.e. waste time and 
> money on pointless research (even if it is other
> peoples money!).

To recap, "negative r" means that in individual shares
even fewer genes with you than a randomly-chosen member
of the population would.

In a resource-limited environment, actions that help any
individuals with negative r, would usually [*] have a
negative impact on the proportion of the helper's
genes that can be expected to survive.

[*] if you ignore species-level selection, etc.
-- 
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