"John Edser"  wrote in message
news:cftapp$1t78$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
[With correction of "WM" to "JM" - JE has  misattributed again]
> >JM:-
> > .. Fisher emphasized that the continual increase in fitness
> > from natural selection (assuming variance in fitness exists) is
> > generally counterbalanced by the fact that mutation usually decreases
> > fitness and more importantly by the fact that the environment is
> > continually deteriorating.  So the concept that you are looking for
> > is, in some sense, a fitness that would result if the environment
> > (including competition with conspecifics) were held constant.
> > Clearly, since the environment is not held constant over the course
> > of evolution, such a concept is purely theoretical.
>
> JE:-
> It is possible for the environment within one population
> to evolve to change for the better. This is what sets apart
> the unrealised process of fitness mutualization (a mutual
> absolute fitness increase) from other social processes.
>
> As forms increase cooperation while at the same time competing,
> the selective environment increasingly follows the Baldwin
> effect, i.e. con species cooperation takes over as the largest
> single  environmental selective force.  This event has been
> mistaken for group selection and/or reciprocated altruism
> based on  a misuse of Hamilton's rule within Neo Darwinistic
> gene centric models. Note that as cooperation increases
> and fitness totals slightly increase within one population,
> (but not necessarily  equally) it may increase the difference
> between compared absolute fitness totals within one relative
> fitness result. This means Darwinian competition may become
> _more_  intense and not _less_ intense as cooperation
> increasingly becomes the dominant selective force.
> This forms a positive fitness feed back loop pushing
> to the limits, a species social ability. [snip JE political rant]

Could you expand on the above argument?  My understanding of the
"Baldwin effect" is that it suggests that one way to get from
"no" to "yes" continuously is to pass thru various stages of
"sometimes 'no', sometimes 'yes', it depends on the circumstances".

In this case, you seem to be using "competitive behavior" as your
"no" and "cooperative behavior" as your
"yes".  But I am not
clear what you take to be the "circumstances" in the intermediate
stages.

Also, please clarify what you mean regarding Darwinial competition
becoming more intense.  And finally, could you spell out the
feedback loop in more detail?

> > JM:-
> > Absolute fitness, as the term is most standardly used,
> > [snip JE rant about definitions] .. is not
> > measured with the environment held constant.  It is measured
> > using the current environment.  Hence, it does not really make
> > sense to compare absolute fitnesses, or any other measurable
> > kinds of fitnesses, between past and present, nor between
> > present and future.
>
> JE:-
> A relative fitness result is just a default comparison
> of a minimum of two fitness totals, i.e. two absolute
> fitnesses that need not be simultaneous in time within
> one population but which can only be compared by simple
> default at just _one_ point in time, i.e. only at one
> exact point in time can all the fitness totals of
> one generation become complete within one population.
> However, not all these parental fitness totals
> need to be completed simultaneously within one population.
> In reference to the above please explain what
> you mean by "it does not really make sense to
> compare absolute fitnesses, or any other measurable
> kinds of fitnesses, between past and present, nor
> between present and future".

My "it does not really make sense" was probably an overstatement.
Basically, my point was with regard to fitness comparisons used
as some sort of measure of biological merit.  When the time frame
(between the fitness measurements being compared) is small, then
we can separate out the genetic causality from the various kinds
of environmental causality.  It can be assumed that the environment
hasn't changed much in this short time frame, and that the change
that did take place is probably linear with time.  But when the
time frame between compared measurements is large, then the total
change in the environment is also large, is probably non-linear,
and will be very difficult to factor out from the heritable genetics.
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