William Morse  wrote


>WM:-
> .. 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.

The irony is, cooperation and competition 
remain complimentary and not contradictory. 
Political dogma via both the left and the right 
argue otherwise. This dogma has been incorrectly 
transplanted into evolutionary theory without being 
critically examined, i.e. evolutionary theory, both 
in the past and today, mostly reflects the
political prejudice of the times.

> WM:-
> Absolute fitness, as the term is most standardly used,

JE:-
It is not enough to refer to just a "standard" use
because it can be proven that such usage may only
constitute model misuse.

Please define both absolute and relative fitness and
state how both can be measured within evolutionary
theory.


> WM:-
>.. 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".

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

PO Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105
Australia

edser{at}tpg.com.au
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