"John Edser"  wrote in message
news:ce8ibf$301d$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> > > JE:-
> > > I am happy to follow this modelling
> > > simulation. IMHO the outcome is
> > > predictable.
>
> > JM:-
> > Follow?  My impression was that you would participate -
> > i.e. answer the questions to the best of your ability.
>
> JE:-
> You can "do" an experiment but you can only "follow"
> a model. That is one of the big differences between
> them.
>
> > JM:-
> > I went to considerable effort to make the mathematical
> > requirements simple - only biological intuition is needed
> > to participate.  Simply answer the questions appearing in
> > the post "Experiment - Peshwari cat and Peshwari pig".
>
> JE:-
> I appreciate the effort you are making.
> However you are attempting to test
> Hamilton's rule in the hardest
> possible way.

You continue to misunderstand.  I am NOT attempting to test
Hamilton's rule.  This is fictitious data.  It cannot test
anything.  The only purpose is to UNDERSTAND what Hamilton's
rule says.

You seem to be suspecting that I am going to produce a second
year of data and claim that the increase in altruism in this
second year somehow "proves" Hamilton.  NO, NO, NO.  There is
no second year of data, and even if there were, it would not
prove a thing.  The data is, I say again, fictitious.  You can't
prove anything about the real world with fictitious data.  One
doesn't need to be an expert on Popper to realize that!

What the fictitious data (and there is only one year's worth of
data, already published) does allow us to do is to discuss what
we mean by terms such as "fitness", "fitness cost",
"b", and "c".
That discussion, clarified I hope by the fact that it can use
unambiguous numbers rather than ambiguous words, is the whole
point.  To repeat, this exercise will do nothing to justify Hamilton.
It will only clarify whether your understanding of what Hamilton
claims matches with the neo-Darwinist understanding of what Hamilton
claims.
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