Tim Tyler  wrote:

> I observe that there are some simple factual errors in: 
> ''The Information Challenge'' 
> http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/Dawkins/Work/Articles/1998-12-04in
> fochallange.s$ 
> The above will likely trigger the s.b.e long URL bug - so:
> http://tinyurl.com/4eqbh

>snip<

> ``natural selection feeds information into gene pools''
> ...are also not correct - for the same reason: natural
> selection usually eliminates information from gene pools -
> by destroying individuals that carry it.


JE:-
Dawkins:
" ..the whole gene pool of the species as a whole, not 
the genome of any particular individual, which is best 
seen as the recipient of the ancestral information about 
how to survive.

Dawkins' argument remains classically 
group selective based on Hamilton's 
rule:

	rb > c

Here organism recipients (plural)
and not just one organism recipient 
may benefit from the supposed donation 
of b within the rule. 

In the science of biology information is only 
fed into _strictly_, independently selected 
genomes and not into "gene pools". Dawkins has
misused an additive gene pool model. The irony
remains that Hamilton's rule, which was employed
to replace classical group selection over 50
years ago, was itself group selective when 
more than one recipient is involved which
is most of the time.


> TT:-
> This area is critical point in the essay.  Dawkins apparently gives
> completely the wrong answer to the question his essay is addressing.
> Dawkins stated position appears to be not remotely defensible -
> it is completely mistaken - he totally reverses the roles of
> mutation and natural selection, as far as their effect on
> information content of genomes is concerned.
> It appears that St Richard is fallible after all ;-)

JE:-
Dawkins reversed cause and 
effect within the science 
of biology via a consistent
misuse of Hamilton's rule. 
The sociobiologists have done
same thing where such an event
represents a gross error within
the science of biology.
I have argued that this has been 
the case for over four years in 
sbe discussion. Independently 
selectable "selfish genes"
do _not_ cause organism fitness
altruism within nature reducing 
bodies to mere, "gene containers".

Dependently selected genomic 
genes are all selected at  
a single Darwinian fertile organism
level of selection within each
independently selected fertile
form. Genes are slaves to organisms,
organisms are not slaves to genes.
Of course naturalists of the older
school have always understood 
that this was (obviously) the case.

Hamilton's misuse of his own rule 
can be traced back to R. A. Fisher,
one of the founding fathers of modern
population genetics. His view that
only additive genetic associations
constitute heritable and thus selectable
information could never apply to gene 
fitness epistasis. Additive population genetic 
models of heritability were misused when they
were employed, without any evidence, to
gene _fitness_ epistasis. While additive
heritable events have been documented, e.g.
polygenes, no polygenetic genomic gene
fitness has ever been documented within
nature. Thus all genomic genes are dependently
selected and not independently selected.
Hamilton's view that genes can be independently
selected at their own level in competition
to an organism level of selection only constituted
a model heuristic that has been consistently
misused by gene centric Neo Darwinism. This
view entirely dominates evolutionary theory.

The level of selection each gene remains
dependent on is just a SINGLE level: the 
Darwinian fertile organism level of 
selection. It can be shown that only this 
level provides a testable fitness maximand,
i.e. a objective (measurable) total, maximal 
fitness that can be tested to refutation 
meeting a _minimal_ Popperian standard for 
the sciences.



Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

PO Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105
Australia

edser{at}tpg.com.au
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