Guy Hoelzer  wrote:

> >>>> GH:-
> >>>> Reproduction and heritability are necessary, but insufficient,
> >>>> conditions for natural selection to occur under the
> >>>> neo-Darwinian paradigm.

> >>> JE:-
> >>> However they are sufficient conditions
> >>> for natural selection to occur
> >>> under the Darwinian paradigm as long
> >>> as total Darwinian fitness has a
> >>> heritable componant.
> >>> The unresolved question: is Darwinism
> >>> a subset of Neo Darwinism or the reverse?
> >>> Is Neo Darwinism a step forward or a step
> >>> beckwards compared to Darwinism?

> >> GH:-
> >> This is an interesting question.  I think that you and I would 
> >> agree that
> >> neo-Darwinism a subset of Darwinism because it explicitly explores the
> >> consequence of genetic mechanisms (constraints) on the process of
> >> Darwinian
> >> evolution. 

> > JE:-
> > Yes, I agree. However, you failed to mention
> > the most critical fact: Neo Darwinian exploration of
> > "the consequence of genetic mechanisms (constraints)
> > on the process of Darwinian evolution" was only
> > via simplified/over simplified models and not via
> > contestable theories, YET these models were misused
> > as contestable theories to Darwinism, e.g. Hamilton's rule.

> GH:-
> I don't see this as a "failing."

JE:-
I most certainly do.
How can it be valid for just a heuristic
fitness MODEL to contest and then replace the 
fitness THEORY it was derived from via a
process of over simplification?


> >> GH:-
> >> I would not, however, consider this a step backwards; rather it was an
> >> important thing to do once the mechanistic connection between 
> >> genetics and
> >> inheritance was recognized.

> > JE:-
> > The employment of population genetics to
> > cut down the Darwinian foot in order to
> > make the Neo Darwinian shoe fit was
> > a gross misuse of population genetics.
> > 
> > Do you agree or disagree that Hamilton's
> > rule was misused when it replaced group
> > selection to support organism fitness
> > altruism within nature?

> GH:-
> I will not use the term "misused", because to me it implies
conscious and
> purposeful wrong-doing.  

JE:- 
This may or may not have been the 
case and remains a separate but 
entirely valid question to ask no
matter how unpalatable it must appear
to those with purely their own partisan 
sensibilities.

> GH:-
> You may not mean to imply as much, but I 
> would use
> different words.  

JE:-
Please state explicitly  what 
"other words" you argue are 
appropriate?

I am attempting to be very exact:
Do you agree that Hamilton's Rule was
misused to justify organism fitness
altruism when group selection failed
to be able to do so?

> GH:-
> I think that the pendulum swung too far in the direction
> of favoring kin selection to the exclusion of group selection.  This is a
> common phenomenon in science, and I think the pendulum is 
> currently swinging
> back (slowly) in the other direction.

JE:-
AFAICS kin selection and group selection
are the same viewpoint unless b is only
paid to just one recipient and not recipients.
The vast majority of applied inclusive
fitnesses require recipients and not just
one recipient so they are classically
group selective.

 
> >> GH:-
> >> Unfortunately, the enormous success of the modern synthesis 
> >> blinded (IMHO)
> >> many from the possible roles of other mechanisms of 
> >> inheritance that can also
> >> play a role in the broader Darwinian view of things.

> > JE:-
> > Could you please list these other
> > mechanisms of inheritance.

> GH:-
> Here is an incomplete list.  I don't know the limits of the full list.
> Cultural inheritance
> Inheritance of cytoplasmic factors
> Inheritance of place/environment (this is huge IMHO)

JE:-
The first two are extremely
important. However I do 
not agree with the last on 
your list. For evolutionary theory 
to work selective forces must be
supposed to be separated from
selectees, i.e. one selectee can
constitute a selective force on
itself if and only if tht selectee
as an environmental force and
the same selectee as one
unit of selection that must respond 
to itself as a selective force
remain logically separated.

> > JE:-  
> > With regard to what you snipped:
> > Do you agree or disagree that Neo
> > Darwinism, which incorporated random
> > processes as "evolution" and not
> > variation, only reduced Darwinism to
> > another iron man just like so called
> > "creation science" that is now being
> > taught as a valid science within some
> > USA high schools?

> GH:-
> My answer to this is still "I DISAGREE" after all these years.

JE:-
I never expected anything else.
Tribal psychology predicts
such (please note I am not 
trying to be disparaging).

Do you condone the logic
of so called "creation science"?
If not why not, i.e. without
discussing creationism per se 
what do you object/concur re;
the logic of such a "science"?

> > JE:-
> > Isn't it obvious that unless a theory
> > of nature meets a minimal standard
> > of testability, anything can and
> > is, becoming "science"?

> GH:-
> I agree with this statement as written, but I think we have 
> discovered that
> I have a broader understanding of what constitutes the "minimal 
> standard of
> testability" than you do.

JE:-
Yes, but that is not the real issue.
That issue remains: can it be argued
that this "broader understanding"
only represents an invalid dilution of
this "minimal standard of testability"
reducing evolutionary theory and thus
the science of biology to the same
non testable status as supposed
"creation science"?

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

PO Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105
Australia

edser{at}tpg.com.au
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