Name And Address Supplied 
wrote or quoted:
> "John Edser"  wrote in message
news:...
> > Tim Tyler  wrote:
> > Name And Address Supplied
  wrote or quoted:

> > > > NAS:-
> > > > The appropriate maximand is something which might be
called 'relative
> > > > fitness'.  This obviously doesn't increase over time, since the
> > > > expectation of relative fitness at all times is 1.
> >  
> > > TT:-
> > > That sort of relative fitness has some problems of its own.  Who else
> > > do you include in the population?  Only other members of the species?
> > 
> > JE:-
> > The biggest problem with the concept of "1" 
> > as relative fitness comparison maximum is that
> 
> 1 is not the maximum; the average is 1.

Relative fitness is often defined as being a value between 0 and 1 - e.g.:

``Relative Fitness

  The selection coefficient is used to model the health of an individual 
  relative to the health of the rest of the population. 

  The relative fitness of an individual, denoted w, is defined to be 
  w=(1-s)^n where n is the number of mutations the individual carries. 
  Note that w is also a value between 0 and 1, where 1 indicates a 
  perfectly healthy individual (no mutations) and values less than 1 are 
  relatively unhealthy individuals.''

 - http://csep1.phy.ornl.gov/mu/node18.html

I guess you are probably referring to something like offspring / average 
offspring - but fitness is notoriously a tricky term - so you might want 
to spell out what you are talking about yourself.
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