"John Edser"  wrote in message
news:ccei6m$mo1$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...

John, as usual, your post contains a lot of stuff with which
I disagree.  I am only going to respond on one issue, snipping
the rest.

> > JM:-
> > So now to the inevitable follow-up question: Is Hamilton's
> > model testable against nature?  Well, the key ingredient
> > of Hamilton's model is that carriers of the allele for
> > altruism do better than the general population BECAUSE
> > they receive more altruism than does the general population.
>
> JE:-
> You have very clearly outlined the absurdity
> of Hamilton's proposition. IF "carriers of the
> allele for altruism do better than the general
> population BECAUSE they receive more altruism
> than does the general population" THEN
> the population must fall because the absolute
> fitness of all the other members of the population
> must have fallen, UNLESS the recipients and the
> general population made absolute gains.
> In this instance no altruism
> is evident. As the hapless altruistic gene only
> relatively spreads (spreads as just a ratio of altruist
> genes to wildtype genes that = 1) the population
> shrinks to pay for it. A relative gain for just an
> absolute loss = an absolute loss, always, no
> exceptions. No rational evolutionary theory can
> select for extinction. The only possible way
> the gene can spread is when it INCREASES
> the absolute fitness of the other members
> of the population. This process is mutualistic
> and not altruistic.

Your UNLESS clause holds.  The gene does, on average, increase
the absolute fitness of the recipients and the general
population.  On average, it increases the absolute fitness
of the carriers of the gene, as well as their relative fitness.
If you choose to call this mutualism, rather than altruism,
then go ahead, but don't expect anyone to understand you.

Other people call this altruism because the ACT of altruism
really is a net minus to your relative and absolute fitness.
You want to call it mutualistic because the average altruist
was lucky enough to be born into an altruistic family and
thus was more than compensated.  Other people focus on the
fact that the really lucky ones are born into the altruistic
family, but manage to avoid inheriting the gene for altruism.
Such individuals will have the highest measured absolute
fitnesses.  (Their children will not be so lucky, though.)

The other possibility that you mention - that the absolute
fitness of the population as a whole falls - simply cannot
happen with a Hamilton ALTRUISTIC gene.  Such a gene has
rb>c, which has to mean b>c since r cannot be greater than
one.  However, it can happen that the fitness of the
population as a whole can fall in the case of a Hamilton
SPITEFUL gene.  This can happen if r<0.  But this theoretical
possibility must be very rare, if it happens at all, within
real-world biology.
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