William Morse  wrote:-

> WM:-
> I hope you understand the difficulty in trying to interpret current 
> behavior in evolutionary terms. The thought that high wealth should be 
> combined with low fertility makes no sense from the standpoint of 
> maximizing reproductive success - in fact one should expect the opposite.

JE:-
Not necessarily re: Darwinian fitness as I have objectively
defined it (I have disregarded hand waving and non testable
fitness definitions). All that matters is the total number 
of _infertile_ forms raised to _fertile_ adulthood by each 
parent within  one population. IMHO it can be experimentally 
demonstrated that only by forcing this total to become 
artificially equal within one population can all 
Darwinian evolution by natural selection be halted. 
NO OTHER WAY EXISTS TO HALT ALL EVOLUTION IN AN
EXPANDING POPULATION. Only this fitness definition 
meets a minimal _scientific_ standard,
i.e. meets a Popperian standard by providing a point
of refutation. This is: if the above does not halt all
evolution within one population then it stands refuted
otherwise it stands verified. In this case the verification
is _unique_ because no other way has been offered to halt
all evolution within a viable (expanding) population.


For Darwinian fitness a highly fecund tic and a lowly
fecund human do about the same; 2.something where this number
represents an average absolute fitness for each parent. 
Fecundity is only defined as the total number of fertile OR
INFERTILE forms reproduced into one population by each
parent. Please note that today's gene centric Neo Darwinism
which almost entirely dominates evolutionary theory mostly
does not:-

1) Identify any total as an objective fitness measure.
2) Discriminate between fertile and infertile forms.

Thus Neo Darwinistic concepts of fitness are mostly
just a random snapshot of only one instant in time of
just the number of genes replicated into one population 
irrespective of the fertility of the soma (body)
they must be selected by. Only such a snapshot is compared
per parent per population to provide a selective result, 
i.e. the fitness numbers that are being compared to provide 
a relative fitness measure are inaccurate because they are 
hopelessly incomplete.

Despite the tic example, the more complex a system is 
the harder it mostly is to _entirely_ reproduce itself 
but the more adaptive such a  system becomes for a 
much larger range of environments. We may be less 
fecund but we can adapt to more environments
so that gives us an enormous advantage. This can mean
that we successfully compete against a whole range of
species forcing them to extinction because we replace 
them. More complex systems more often reproduce a smaller 
Darwinian total compared to less complex systems. However,
in biomass terms the more complex system may reproduce
more because it mostly has a larger, more complex,
soma (body). Note that neither biomass or fecundity 
are  accurate measures of absolute fitness. It is an
objective, refutable, absolute fitness concept that 
remains _entirely_ missing within Neo Darwinistic 
reasoning.

Humans have a lot in common with eusocial insects because
we do things absolutely differently. We have evolved
a complex brain, live in mutualised tribes and consciously 
trade. This unique form of adaptation has been a spectacular 
Darwinian success. A major part of that success is the
evolution of modular somatic extensions. Hermit crabs
have them: shells. However they do not invent, manufacture
and trade them within culturally different populations.
One of the reasons that a very low human fecundity has been
such a spectacular _success_ for 1st world countries is
that fact that less infertiles die. The high cost
of the nurture that is required to maintain a humane
moral standard requires a massive investment in
machines as well as bodies. To strive for a 
washing machine and not just another baby is a 
net result of this higher moral standard. OTOH,
eusocials use their babies as their machines. 
Insects don't have much of a brain but they are very
fecund. Their strategy is to turn excess babies
into machines that serve their parents. They can be 
used as soldiers, workers or just storage receptacles 
and are entirely disposable. Like us, eusocials have
their own kind of disposable society. We
dump old washing machines but they evolve
an infertile worker bee to die at a specific 
time, dump it and breed a new one. Both 
types of "societies" require the mass 
reproduction of modular somatic extensions 
and not just parental bodies, to maintain 
their complex adaptation. Because these modular 
somatic extensions are not factored into
fitness, they remain an invisible investment.


 
Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

PO Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105
Australia

edser{at}tpg.com.au
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