***** Continued From Previous Message *****
eaper than those 
> pears, what would you require to
> know to be able to carry out such 
> a rule?

That you're not secretly going to video me doing so and use my wilful
destruction of other persons' property as evidence in an
out-of-context character assassination . . . ?

>  
> NAS:-
> Unless you are talking about
> the necessary tradeoff between b and c in models of altruism, in which
> case Hamilton's rule isn't meant to be used to glean information about
> the tradeoff.  The tradeoff is fed in when we assign functions to the
> b and c components, and Hamilton's rule tells us what selection will
> favour.
> 
> JE:-
> It cannot tell you even that because it 
> is arbitrary. Nobody knows how many units
> of rb = one unit of c. Unless you define
> this and keep to it, the rule is arbitrary.
> 

b and c are measured in the same units, as they are both direct
fitness of individuals.  The r is the currency converter which tells
us how to include the cost to the actor and the benefit to the
recipient on a single scale as a measure of the inclusive fitness of
the actor.

> > 
> > 7) Hamilton suggested that he
> > had explicitly formed a theory
> > of selection at an INDEPENDENT gene
> > level that can force fitness altruism
> > at the organism level when he
> > did nothing of the sort. Real
> > (absolute) gene fitnesses must
> > include the numbers of genes
> > replicated by each cell mitosis as
> > well as just, genes replicated over
> > organism generations via meiosis.
> > Nothing in the rule or subsequent writings
> > by anybody I have read, has _explicitly_
> > included gene replication by mitosis
> > within any Hamiltonian reasoning for
> > organism fitness altruism. All Hamilton
> > did was count genes replicated into
> > just the very next organism generation of
> > that gene. This is just a _vast_ over
> > simplification of fitness at the organism
> > level i.e. basic Darwinian
> > fitness where one organism reproduced was
> > just assumed to equal one gene replicated.
> > Only such a simplification allows the _mathematical_
> > deletion of the term "organism" and its
> > substitution with the word "gene", within
> > all subsequent mathematical but not
> > biological, processing. This is the foundation
> > of all gene centric approaches including
> > Hamiltonian gene level fitnesses. They all
> > delete real genetic epistasis
> > (which is 100% included within Darwinian
> > organism centric fitness).
> 
> NAS:-
> It might be interesting to reformulate population genetics to take
> account of the actual number of copies of genes, within every cell of
> every organism, in the population.  I can see that it would make a
> difference in the short term, as fitness could be enhanced both by
> reproduction of new offspring but also simply by increasing the number
> of somatic cells.  But since these cells have no future across
> generations, I doubt there would be anything worthwhile to glean from
> that exersize.
> 
> JE:-
> When you say "since these cells have no future across
> generations" then all you are suggesting is that they
> and their gene copies only have a _dependent_ fitness
> to each Darwinian organism fitness, i.e. it is pointless
> counting each  mitotic replication of each
> gene because they are all, without exception,
> selected simultaneously at just the Darwinian organism, level.
> In this case no kin selection fitness was required to explain
> them, i.e. Hamilton's supposed independent gene level
> of selection is simply, not required. Exactly the same logic
> is applied to each gene replicated over organism
> generations of that gene, i.e. no organism fitness
> altruism can be, or is being selected for, at any supposed,
>  _independent_ "selfish" gene level.

Another section for the manuscript.  John, this paper is writing
itself!

> 
> > JE:-
> > Just redefining genetic epistasis to include
> > additive gene relationships is intellectually
> > dishonest because additive epistasis is just,
> > zero epistasis, i.e. you can't get out of
> > it by redefining black as white.  In short,
> > Hamilton himself and subsequent, consistent,
> > Neo Darwinistic misuse, has misrepresented
> > Hamilton's theory of an independent gene level
> > of selection, even within his own model: Hamilton's
> > rule.
> 
> NAS:-
> Again, what precisely do you mean by epistasis here?
> 
> JE:-
> Non additive (dependent) genomic gene 
> relationships.
> 

Okay, see the comments above.  I would be interested in seeing a
derivation of this Hamilton's rule incorporating epistasis.

> NAS:-
> The simplified Hamilton's rule (r b > c) 
> describes when natural selection will favour
> an increase in a trait's value.  
> 
> JE:-
> Incorrect. Hamilton supposed an _independent_ gene 
> level of selection _below_ the Darwinistic organism
> level in order to explain what he considered to 
> be Darwinian organism fitness altruism that he
> thought would be able to explain the evolution of
> things like the eusocials. He was _not_
> supposing that Darwinian _organism_ 
> "natural selection will favour
> an increase in a trait's value",
> he was supposing that selection acting
> at an _independent_, contesting, gene level 
> could win against Darwinian selection acting
> at an independent organism level.
> The only problem was, not a single independent 
> gene fitnesses has ever been documented
> within nature. When it comes to the crunch
> all anybody can actually come up with are meiotic
> drive genes. However, even they cannot 
> win against the Darwinian organism level
> so they are not _proven_ to be independent.
> 
> >snip<
>  
> > 8) Eusocial insects do _not_ require Hamilton's
> > reasoning to explain them. Indeed, multiple
> > male mating in the Hymenoptera _excludes_ kin
> > selection as a probable cause of
> > eusocial evolution. Of course the Isoptera
> > never employed the haploid/diploid skewed genetics
> > that the Hymenoptera employ so even in Hamilton's day,
> > it was obvious  that Hamilton's reasoning was never
> > essential, even if it was a novel way
> > for explaining eusocial evolution.
> > Eusocial mole rats which, like the Isoptera,
> > are just normal diploids prove that eusociality
> > evolves whenever a species is almost entirely
> > enclosed because offspring sterility is regulated
> > by pheromones from the fertile parents. Thus
> > the most simple (parsimonious) view only
> > needs to suppose just the _one_ original, level
> > of selection: the FERTILE organism level. As long
> > as absolute Darwinian Fitness is defined as:
> > 
> > 	the total number of fertile
> > 	forms reproduced per adult,
> > 
> > then genes in any sterile eusocial form are
> > not selected within their own sterile bodies,
> > not only because they cannot pass on any genes while
> > they are sterile (rather obviously) but because
> > the eusocial phenotype and its genes is controlled
> > and thus selectable, within the bodies of their
> > parents from whence they came. Nature proves, yet
> > again, that genes cannot form an independent level
> > of selection, even within the eusocials. In Darwinian
> > reasoning, eusocial castes are fitness zombies
> > that have evolved as useful but _modular_, body
> > extensions of their parents, i.e. working robot
> > slaves. They are more like washing machines than
> > independent organisms. Thus raiding for slaves
> > observed in some ants is like running off with
> > somebodies washing machine. No fitness altruism exists
> > or is needed to exist, to explain eusocials since
> > like a cell or an organ, they have a zero independent
> > fitness to just ONE parental Darwinian fitness.
> 
> NAS:-
> Most 'sterile' workers can reproduce to a limited extent.  For
> instance, honey bee workers lay about 7% of the male eggs in their
> colonies.  Why not plough all their resources into their own
> reproduction?  Kin selection.
> 
> JE:-
> Just another "varification" with zero
> points of refutation, offered. You may
> as well say that astrology, using a precise
> mathematical model, "explained" it...

But if i wasn't able to produce a precise mathematical model, then you
would only have my word on it.  However, i can point you to a vast
literature containing mathematical models.  Try starting with Hamilton
1964a&b.

> 
> My understanding is that the fertility of 
> sterile workers is controlled by pheromones
> emanating from the fertile queen which requires
> an enclosed space to circulate. Maybe,
> if we could get our washing machines to
> reproduce themselves we may, now and
> again, allow them to do so, as long as they
> only reproduced sterile versions of themselves.
> I doubt if we would let them reproduce if 
> the reproductives were fertile because they
> might reproduce us out of house and home. 
> Watch out for the self replicating nano 
> machines that may just gobble you up if 
> you build fertile versions of them :-)
> 
> 
> > JE:- 
> > 9) Group selection is only the
> > same as kin selection within
> > oversimplified models of both
> > theories. Here, like Hamilton's
> > rule, cause and affect are very
> > easily reversed in the maths
> > but CANNOT be reversed within
> > TESTABLE theories of either.
> 
> NAS:-
> I don't agree with the first statement, and i don't understand what
> you are trying to say with the second.  Group selection and kin
> selection are mathematically equivalent.
> 
> JE:-
> I am sure the
> accountants at Enron pleaded
> the same, _amazing_ level of ignorance.
> Cause and affect do not
> necessarily exist within just
> mathematical models, e.g. accounting columns
> etc, but MUST exist within any testable
> theory from which all such models are 
> simplified. Within just modelling mathematics, 
> cause and affect can be 100% reversed
> but here, nobody may even notice!{at}#
> Fraudsters have known this for years.
> I am sure the Enron accountants were
> _very_ good at maths and never made a 
> single _mathematical_ error. They 
> just turned red ink into black ink
> like Jesus turning water into wine.
> We should all rejoice, they worked 
> a miracle but sadly, nobody was 
> grateful. In the same way
> Hamilton created the miracle of
> allowing organism fitness altruism
> within Darwinian evolutionary theory
> but here, everbody was grateful, except
> myself (or so it seems).

So, where does the reversal of cause and effect come into the group
selection / kin selection disparity?

> 
> > JE:-
> > 10) Hamilton's rule remains
> > arbitrary if no constant term
> > is included within it.
> > (see all of the above).
> 
> NAS:-
> (see all of the above)
> 
> JE:-
> ditto.
> 
> >snip<
>  
> > JE:-
> > Is it not obvious to you that to address
> > the problem of an alteration or deletion
> > of a constant within a model, where this
> > must change entirely the theory
> > the model represents and effect every
> > application of that model, complex or simple,
> > you only need to choose the most simple example
> > of the model and not the most complicated example,
> > to prove any supposed deletion/alteration
> > of a constant? You seem to have missed
> > what this discussion is really about. Hamilton's
> > rule is just another, oversimplified
> > model of _Darwinian_ fitness. Evolution
> > by just random genetic drift is another.
> > Many, many more exist. All of them are
> > commonly misused when they are allowed to
> > contest and win against the theory they
> > were simplified from.
> 
> NAS:-
> New theories shouldn't be allowed to compete with old theories?  Why
> is that?  Oh, because they might actually win?  Why, that would be
> terrible . . .
> 
> JE:-
> New theories are NOT just existing theories with massive
> amounts of important stuff deleted to help make them easier 
> to evaluate mathematically. If you allow an over 
> simplified model of a valid, testable theory to compete and 
> win against the theory it was just a simplification from, 
> then you allow an absurdity. If reducing a variable like 
> selective mating to be zero, or allow just a 
> hypothetical infinite modeling population, where
> either produces "a better fit" than the theory that 
> knows by observation, both are never zero in nature, 
> can you throw out the theory in favour of the simplied model
> version of it? Can you walk about the place crowing,
> hey, don't believe your eyes, populations are REALLY 
> infinite! Hmm ..see that pretty blond, she really doesn't 
> care who she sleeps with...

Wouldn't that "pretty blond" be a "blonde"?  

Anyway, this is a pretty lame attempt to discredit theory, John. 
There are models of mate choice, pretty extensive models, and lots of
them.  And lots of finite population stochastic models too.  If you
really think there has been an oversight, such that you can derive
radically new predictions by relaxing assumptions like these, then by
all means, do the analysis, submit the paper, and tell the world. 
Don't gripe on a newsgroup about models being useless because they are
merely abstractions of the real world.

Anyway, what has this to do with kin selection theory?  It doesn't
fall apart when pretty blondes have high standards or when populations
are finite . . .

> 
> > JE:-
> > Absolute Darwinian fitness is consistently
> > evaded by Neo Darwinists posting here.
> > Despite over 4 years of effort by myself to
> > try to introduce his basic concept into
> > Neo Darwinism, nobody here will concede,
> > even just the possibility, that it must
> > be _explicitly_ included within evolutionary
> > theory including oversimplified models.
> 
> NAS:-
> Maybe we are all just too stupid, John.  I think this is perhaps the
> wrong springboard for your insights. 
> 
> JE:-
> Your words and not mine.

The first sentence is speculation - the other option of course being
that you are just a crazy and little notice is being taken of you for
good reason.  The second sentence I am more sure of.  I really do
think that this is the wrong forum for your ideas.  I'm not suggesting
that you go and take them elsewhere, I am merely suggesting that
should you pursue these other avenues in addition to posting on
newsgroups, then your ideas might get the attention they deserve, the
attention which they have not found here in the last four years.

> 
> The concepts I have discussed
> are just simple, testable and easily 
> refuted. The problem is, you people
> still think that it valid to proffer
> non testable views, such as 
> Hamilton's, that entirely
> reverse cause and affect within the 
> science of biology. I am sure the Enron
> accountants argued that cause
> and affect is not important,
> as long as the mathematics is 
> correct. It appears to me that you 
> have been so badly taught that you cannot
> begin see what a travesty of science
> any non testable reversal of cause and 
> affect, produces.
> 

I noticed that you snipped my comments about submitting all this
paradigm-shifting work to a journal, such as the Journal of
Theoretical Biology.  You haven't responded at all to this suggestion.
 I really do think that, if you are on to something, this would be the
best course of action for you.  And if there is an error in your
reasoning, it is more likely that the appropriately qualified persons
will be able to read your article and point out this flaw. That way,
you wouldn't waste another four years of your life pushing these
ideas.  Surely, whether you are right or wrong on these issues, you
agree that submitting to a reputable journal would be the best thing
to do.  And if not, why not?  I honestly am very interested in what
you think about this.
---
þ RIMEGate(tm)/RGXPost V1.14 at BBSWORLD * Info{at}bbsworld.com
---
 * RIMEGate(tm)V10.2áÿ* RelayNet(tm) NNTP Gateway * MoonDog BBS
 * RgateImp.MoonDog.BBS at 11/5/03 3:21:35 PM