joe{at}removethispart.gs.washington.edu wrote 

> > I myself, in my 
> > own models, am very careful not to include 
> > assumptions other than those that are verifiably 
> > part of nature/reality.  The reason I'm so careful 
> > about this is because I've found that the most 
> > common mistake that many theorists make in their 
> > evolutionary models is to include assumptions that 
> > are not well grounded in evidence.  Hamilton rule 
> > is a perfect example of the confusion that ensues 
> > when such care is not taken.
> 
> 
> OK, we are at an unresolvable impasse.  I tried to set up a simple
> model (yes, with assumptions, that's what you use to construct models,
> assumptions).

Don't you think it's important to hash out the necessity 
and causal validity of our assumptions?  Wouldn't it be 
shirking our scientific responsibilities to just accept 
these assumptions unexamined?

> You set up a toy case and see what rule it obeys (in the
> case I was getting to, Hamilton's original formula).  Then someone comes
> along and looks to see if the result can be extended to more general cases.
> This goes on, and we see whether the result is special to the toy
> models or holds in a much wider variety of cases, and in what ways it needs
> to be extended or generalized.

Well, I don't think I have any dispute with what you are 
saying in this paragraph.  As I indicated above, the 
problems that I see have to do with your approach.  
Specifically the problem involves the wholescale inclusion 
of whole sets of unexamined assumptions.

> 
> McGinn wants to go straight to biological reality.  

I think it's important to take whatever effort 
is necessary to insure that the model reflects 
biological reality rather than biological 
just-so-stories.


> Actually
> he doesn't, because he hasn't presented any mathematics at all.
> 
> I can show Hamilton's rule working in a toy model.  There are
> papers examining it in less special (but still oversimplified)
> models, for example:
>   Charlesworth, B.  1978.  Some models of the evolution of altruistic behavior
>      between siblings.  J. Theoretical Biology  72: 297-319.
>   Yokoyama, S. and Felsenstein, J. 1978. A model for kin selection for an
>      altruistic trait considered as a quantitative character.  Proc. Natl.
>      Acad. Sci. USA 75: 420-422.
> and Hamilton's rule emerges in the second case and very nearly correct in the
> first case.

You are asking us to take your word for it?

What about these authors?  Did they verify their 
assumptions?  If they did then maybe you can borrow 
from them to make your case.  Of course if they 
didn't then, well, then the problem starts to 
snowball.  And who knows where that'll end.  Could 
end up in one of them there paradigm shift 
thingamajigees.

> 
> McGinn's statement that 
> > Hamilton['s] rule is a perfect example of the confusion
> > that ensues when such care is not taken
> is misleading.  When such care *is* taken, what ensues?

One of them there paradigm shift thingamajigees.

> Where is a model
> that makes realistic assumptions?  

You got me thinking about the question, what is a 
realistic assumption?  What methods/practices would 
be employ to verify wether assumptions are 
realistic instead of fantastic?

> What results does it give?  Where are
> McGinn's equations?  All of his past discussion is verbal.  He has no model,
> no mathematics, no result.

Just me, my paradigm, 

> 
> [McGinn]
> >The offer still stands.  Moreover I extend the 
> >challenge to anybody else.  Anybody that things 
> >they can make sense of Hamilton's rule is hereby 
> >invited to take a shot at it.
> 
> But they aren't to be allowed to make a model and analyze it mathematically,
> apparently!  

Well, I'm not making any rules to that effect.  But 
if that's the approach you want to take, hey, go for 
it.

> Some offer!  On that basis McGinn's $1,000 is quite safe, even
> if his assertions are totally wrong.

I agree with part of what you're saying here.

> 
> Unless McGinn can list some assumptions and show the mathematics that
> comes from them, his lofty dismissal of existing theory is just hot air.

I'm just conforming to standard (and mundane) 
scientific practices.  I really don't think I'm 
being dismissive.

> 
> Hamilton's rule is verified in models (including the ones cited above and the
> one I was going to present).  

I'm not doing anything to stop you, should you 
so endeavor, from using these models to make 
your case and/or using them to continue to 
explicate how these models verify Hamilton's 
rule, assuming they do.

> No biologist is going to pay attention to
> McGinn's assertions that it is wrong unless he can agree to some list of
> assumptions that allow some mathematics that yields a different result.

You got a good point here--in other words, if I 
stick to my guns "no biologist," is going to fully 
engage themselves and come to comprehend what it 
is I'm saying.  So I really have nothing to lose 
by, in the least, giving my tacit agreement to some 
set of assumptions. You're starting to sway me to 
be more open to the idea of accepting your 
assumptions.  But there is little or no chance that 
I would accept your 12 neoDarwinistic assumptions 
unexamined.  So I guess we are at an impasse.

Jim
---
þ RIMEGate(tm)/RGXPost V1.14 at BBSWORLD * Info{at}bbsworld.com

---
 * RIMEGate(tm)V10.2áÿ* RelayNet(tm) NNTP Gateway * MoonDog BBS
 * RgateImp.MoonDog.BBS at 11/1/02 12:03:53 PM