jimmenegay{at}sbcglobal.net (Jim Menegay) wrote 

> > Hamilton's thinking has to do with solving a nonproblem.  
> > Supposedly the problem is that the origins of cooperative 
> > behavior is some kind of mystery at odds with principles 
> > of natural selection.  In reality no such principles 
> > exist.  There is no principle that says that individuals 
> > are the focus of NS.  There is no principle that says that 
> > the relatedness of individuals is determined by the path 
> > by which they recieved their genes rather than by the 
> > total composition of their morphology.  No such principles 
> > exist.  Consequently Hamilton's thinking is a solution to 
> > a nonexistent problem.
> 
> It is important to realize that both of these principles are fairly
> well founded, 

False.

though they are by no means cast in stone.  If you
> wish to topple these principles, you must first understand their
> solid foundations

They are completely unfounded.

, so that you can find the weak points and mount
> a careful, clever campaign of demolition.  These principles are far
> too well-based to be vulnerable to simple invective.  We will examine
> them one at a time.
> 
> Principle #1 - Individuals are the focus of NS.
> 
> To my mind, this principle (or rather the widespread acceptance of this
> principle) is based on four foundational pillars: (1) Occams razor,
> (2) Some glaringly obvious empirical observations, (3) A growing body
> of mathematical modeling, and (4) The absense of much empirical
> data contradicting or evading #3.
> 
> Occam's razor is involved because theories that postulate a single
> "level of selection" are manifestly simpler than multi-level theories.

Occam's razor is not simply about simplicity.  And it is applicable 
to hypotheses, not assumptions.  "Level of selection" is an 
assumption, not a hypothesis.

> An assault on this foundation point seems difficult, but not impossible.
> Once all of the elaborations are taken into account, "inclusive
fitness"
> for example, no one can claim that our single level theories are
> truly simple.  Perhaps multi-level theories can achieve levels of 
> simplicity comparable to elaborated single-level theories with the
> aid of Price's equations.
> 
> Given that Occam's razor drives us to a single-level formulation, the
> decision to focus on the individual level is easy.  One observes that
> most selective deaths occur at the individual level, most births are
> individual births, births and deaths at other levels are naturally
> interpreted as individual births and deaths.  There is no contest -
> this pillar is not a reasonable target for assault, IMO.

This makes no sense at all.  It's completely inescapable that a 
death at one level effects that at all other levels.  

> 
> For those few phenomena that do not fit easily into the individual
> selection mold, models such as Hamilton's have been constructed that
> are capable of explaining the phenomenon as an individual-level
> epiphenomenon.  These models are complicated,

These models are worthless.

 and they might conceal
> errors, so this is a potential target for assault.  This strategy
> takes some considerable work, though - IMO you can chip at the foundations
> in this way, but you are unlikely to topple anything.

It's unnecessary to topple something that has yet to be established.

> 
> And finally (closely related to #3) we have the absense of any compelling
> reason for change.  There are anomalies, to be sure, but they tend not
> to bother anyone because they don't seem to have any particular pattern.

I can't make any sense of this statement.

> 
> If you want to topple the principle, it seems to me that the best 
> strategy is to construct a (relatively) simple multi-level theory

I don't consider myself to be under any obligation to topple 
something that exists only in your imagination.

 that
> explains a few anomalies that have no current explanation, but more
> importantly that explains some things that are already explained, but
> are explained in a complicated, unsatisfactory way.  My analogy is
> to Hamilton, who explained a few anomalies (altruism), but more 
> importantly explained some important, obvious things (parental care) 
> in a better, more natural, way than had been possible before.

These "anamolies" are appear anamolous only if you mistakenly 
start from the assumption that the above mentioned "principles" 
are principles rather than just general truths.  I think you 
need to first get a better understanding of what a scientific 
principle actually is.  

> 
> Principle #2 - Relatedness is (approximately) IBD.
> 
> Here, I think that the problem is in your understanding - you don't
> fully comprehend why Hamilton chose a rather baroque definition of
> relatedness

It's not barogue it's nonsense.

 (Wright's, which is approximately IBD when inbreeding is
> unimportant) when simpler definitions are possible.  The reason is
> that this definition of relatedness, and no other, is the one that
> works.

It doesn't work.  

  The details are buried in the algebraic manipulations of
> Hamilton's 1964 paper, and you will probably have to wade through 
> them to fully appreciate my point.

You have presented no points.

  But, I think that I can give a 
> kind of hand-wavy argument that shows one of the virtues of Wright's
> definition in this context.  Unfortunately, I have to make the
> unrealistic, but standard, assumption of haploid genomics.

Do you think it's appropriate to make unrealistic assumptions 
in the context of a scientific discussion?  I don't.

> 
> Notice that if r is computed by IBD, then if the frequency of the 
> gene in the population is 10% and the frequency in me is 100%, then
> the frequency in my full sibs is 55%.  On the other hand, if the
> frequency in the population is 90%, and my frequency is again 100%,
> then the frequency in my sibs is 95%.

On average, yes.  But what's your point.  This is simple 
statistics.

  Regardless of the frequency of
> the gene in the population, the Wright-Hamilton definition of r
> provides an interpolation factor placing my relative between me and
> the population.

Yeah, so?

  The Wright definition of relatedness is the only
> definition of relatedness with this property of independence from the
> population frequency.

You've provided no definition of relatedness here.  You've done 
nothing but indicate a simple frequency distribution and then 
you stated the phrase, "The Wright definition of relatedness is 
.. . ."  How does this supposedly make sense?

> Why is this important?  Sorry, beyond my powers
> to explain.

Don't feel bad.  The reason you can't explain it is because there 
is nothing there to explain.  

> See the algebra in the 1964 or 1971 paper.

I've seen that the king is not wearing any clothes.

> 
> I don't think that you are going to overthrow this principle, unless
> you set out to overthrow Hamilton entirely.  

AFAIC the onus is on you to demomstrate that the "problem" 
that Hamilton supposedly solved has anything to do with 
reality as we know it.  Like yourself he just assumed the 
validity of these "principles."

> But there may be a point
> of weakness - what exactly is the "population" of which I was speaking
> in the previous paragraph?  Maybe the appropriate population is not
> the breeding population, but rather the interacting social population.
> So, there may be some chance of overthrowing this principle, if you
> are particularly good at algebra.

I am particularly good at algebra.  I'm also pretty good at 
realizing when it is and is not applicable to a problem.  
This does not qualify.  If you wish to convince me otherwise 
your first step would be to get a better understanding of 
what is and is not a scientific principle.

Good luck.

Jim
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