"William L Hunt"  wrote in message
news:cnp903$1f23$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 18:52:18 +0000 (UTC), Tim Tyler 
> wrote:
> >phillip smith  wrote or quoted:
> >> in article cnjpem$2jc5$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org, John Edser at
edser{at}tpg.com.au
> >
> >> > Phillip, you are only attempting to reinvent the
> >> > wheel. Darwin (implicitly) defined fitness as
> >> > the total number of fertile forms reproduced
> >> > into one population by one parent.
> >>
> >> To measure the fitness of an individual you must know how
many offspring it
> >> will have and how many offspring they will have etc. In other
words you must
> >> know the reproductive future  of the individual. How you can
do this with
> >> out a time machine.
> >
> >Tho usual approach here is to use the term "expected
fitness" if the
> >outcome is not yet known with certainty.
> >
> >Expected fitness represents a guess at the evential fitness - based
> >on currently-available information.
>
>   A odd consequence of this method of tabulating fitness by counting
> offspring is that there is some point in the future where everyone
> alive today will be in one of two sets. One is the set that has no
> descendents at this future point in time. The other is the set where
> everyone alive at this future point in time is your descendent.
> Estimates are that about 80% of us will be universal ancestors.
>  So in this sense everyone today has zero fitness or Edser's fitness
> maximand but we don't know which without our time machine.
>

In the same vein, since John's name was dragged into this:

Suppose I am one of the unlucky (unfit?) 20% who leave no descendents.
My Time Machine Fitness (TMF) is zero.  But suppose my full sib's TMF is
maxed out.  Does that mean that my inclusive TMF (ITMF) is 0.5 of the max?
We need to run our time machine in both directions to compute the ITMF.

     Still Perplexed.
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