Earle Jones  wrote:-

> > JE:-
> > The direction of evolution is always to
> > increase the Darwinian fitness maximand
> > as measured per Darwinian selectee per
> > population. This maximand is defined as:
> > 
> > The total number of fertile forms reproduced
> > per parent into one population.
> > 
> > Everything that living
> > nature has or will produce is deducible from
> > just this _one_ maximand embedded within
> > a self consistent theory structure.
> > This Darwinian theory of evolution
> > by natural selection _can_ be tested to
> > refutation via an experiment using a
> > natural population (not just a model).
> > Please note: Neo Darwinism revisions of
> > Darwinian theory cannot be tested to
> > refutation only to non verification
> > where only refutation is definitive.
> > 
> > Regards,
> > 
> > John Edser
> > Independent Researcher

> EJ:-
> *
> What the hell is a *maximand*?

JE:-
Earl, thank you for this question. I will 
do my best to answer simply and completely.
If you (or anybody else here) thinks I am
evading anything this was not my intention.

A maximand is something that must always be 
maximised, NO exceptions. A testable maximand 
cannot be negative, zero or infinite. As an example,
a finite universe maximises entropy in all cases
so entropy represents a maximand of physics.
Life is neutral to this maximand because it increases
entropy within a localised part of the universe
equal to the decrease in entropy that life produces.

To be able to measure a maximand you must be able 
to measure one selectee's finite TOTAL. Such a total 
can be mathematically represented as a constant term 
eg: E=Mc^2, where c is a constant and not just 
another variable. Note that c  provides THE 
frame of reference for Einstein's mathematics. 
In Einstein's famous equation, c represents a maximand 
because it is the maximal velocity of light that is 
possible in a vacuum, i.e. the velocity of light can 
be  less but not more than c. If c was just another
variable then Einstein's equation would just become
meaningless. Some equations e.g. Newtonian gas laws
may not contain a maximand because it is understood
that they refer to the default Newtonian 
mechanics maximands of mass and time, i.e. these 
equations only refer to a modelling part of 
Newtonian mechanics and not to the theory.

The Newtonian maximands of mass and time were 
refuted empirically when it was shown that
at high velocities mass decreased within
a local time frame, i.e. time did not pass 
at a constant rate everywhere in the universe
and mass did not remain the same at high
velocities as Newton predicted they must
as a point of refutation for his testable
mechanics.

Maximands must also exist within testable biology 
and therefore within evolutionary theory. 
Neo Darwinians consistently misuse evolutionary 
theory via common over simplified model 
misuse because THESE MODELS DO NOT HAVE A 
MAXIMAND and do NOT refer back to any Darwinian
maximand from which they were all derived in the
first place. Such models quite invalidly seek to 
contest the Darwinian maximand. The best example 
is Hamilton's rule which is supposed to measure
when fertile organism fitness altruism could 
evolve (a condition prohibited by the Darwinian
maximand):

	rb-c> 0

The value "0" is just zero. It is not a general 
algebraic term  so it cannot represent a maximand 
value even if a valid maximand could be zero, which 
it cannot.  All  the other terms are just variables 
where rb is compared to c by simple subtraction.
Thus no frame of reference exists for Hamilton's rule.
Because you cannot deduce what any totals
were by only knowing what a comparison result
was between them (note m a baseline fitness 
remains deleted from Hamilton's rule) it is not 
possible to deduce the TOTAL fitness of the actor 
from any of the terms represented within Hamilton's 
rule. However, the testability of any proposition 
is solely dependent on finite, positive totals.
Therefore, any proposition (such as Hamilton's
rule) which remains 100% relative cannot be tested
to refutation. In Hamilton's rule any proposed 
Hamiltonian  maximand total remains _unknown_.

Unless the total fitness of the actor is
represented within Hamilton's rule, no competing 
Hamiltonian maximand can even be formulated (let
alone compared) to any contesting maximand. 
Unless the rule refers back to a 
Darwinian maximand (which it doesn't) then the rule 
cannot validly compete and win against the Darwinian 
maximand it was oversimplified from. Without the maximal
fitness of the actor included as the Darwinian maximand 
within Hamilton's rule it remains logically _impossible_
to tell when cost c (which is spent by the actor) represents
a mutualized (mutually selfish) investment or just an 
altruistic  give-away, i.e. it was always impossible for 
the rule to measure the difference between a fitness
credit and a fitness debit. The same hopelessly
incorrect 100% relativistic logic was used by Enron 
Accountants. It allowed them to invalidly rewrite 
debits as credits bankrupting Enron in the
process. Hamilton's rule makes the same error
because it has been misused to account for organism fitness
altruism and organism mutualism for over 50 years
using just the sign of c within the rule. This
has always remained arbitrary. The reason it must be
arbitrary is because the total fitness of the actor (which
represents a contesting Darwinian maximand) is simply
deleted from the rule. Until all the deleted baseline
fitness m is put back into the rule the rule must remain
just another incorrect piece of 100% relativistic logic 
justified by so called "Post Modern" epistemology. None 
of the Neo Darwinists that post here will admit that
population genetics in general and Hamilton's rule
in particular, is entirely Post Modern. Yet Dr
O'Hara and Dr Hoelzer have admitted that the
definitive term "frequency" has been misused 
within population genetics because it cannot represent 
a total just a comparison of totals from which the original 
totals cannot be deduced, i.e. population genetics is 100%% 
relativistic in its logic and is thus, entirely, Post Modern 
in its epistemology.

The Darwinian fitness maximand is:

	The total number of fertile forms
	reproduced into one population by 
	each parent.

The above Darwinian maximand can be tested to refutation, 
i.e. it DOES meet a minimal Popperian testability standard 
for the sciences. I have outlined an EXPERIMENT (not just 
a  model) that could test it. The Neo Darwinians that 
post here refuse to meet this challenge because (as
NAS admitted) they do not have any fitness maximand,
i.e. they have nothing to contest such a Darwinian 
maximand with. The Neo Darwinistic King has no clothes
but only myself who represents just a little boy who 
posts to sbe is prepared to day so.... 
For years Neo Darwinians have utterly misused over
simplified models of Darwinian theory (Darwinian theory 
is not the same thing as just the principle of selection) 
to contest and win against Darwinian theory! Quite 
obviously such an event constitutes an absurdity.

Please note that the Darwinian maximand represents
an EPISTATIC fitness TOTAL, i.e. it allows for
_multiplicative_ fitness associations between
all genomic genes within each parent to be 
_heritable_ to some unknown extent. Because 
Fisher's over simplified population genetics 
MODEL (which to this very day dominates population
genetics) deleted ALL epistatic gene fitness 
information as  "non heritable" and thus "non 
selectable"  as just his over simplification,
Darwinian fitness and thus the Darwinian 
maximand became deleted. This Neo Darwinian 
error  remains to this very day: the 
deletion of epistatic genomic gene _fitness_. 

Please note that pleiotropic effects (the flip 
side of epistasis - one gene coding for more than
one phenotype)) can halt so called "selfish genes" 
from so called "cheating"  (see post re: slime mould 
slug formation).

For years Neo Darwinistic models have _incorrectly_ 
measured when supposed fitness altruism can evolve  
because the Darwinian fitness maximand (which is solely 
represented  by the total organism fitness of the 
actor) was just deleted from Hamilton's rule and 
then ignored. My view is that this sad event happened 
because of political bias and/or incompetence. 
Either way the Neo Darwinians that post here remain
recalcitrant in the face of reason. They refuse to 
just discuss: 

1) The invalid  deletion of the Darwinian
maximand from within Hamilton's rule.

2) The lack of any Hamiltonian maximand
to replace the deleted Darwinian maximand
reducing gene centric Neo Darwinism to
just non refutability.

3) The testability of the Darwinian maximand
to refutation.

Haldane, Fisher and Wright were the 
founding father's of population genetics. Wright 
did not agree with Fisher and Haldane. Haldane
created the basic set of population genetics
equations that are used today. They were 
based on the Hardy Weinberg equilibrium
(which was just a binomial expansion providing a
random distribution for two alleles at one locus)
which included the term s for "selection". Waddington
included another term "developed in x" as a just
a token to start to include some epistatic information.
Waddington's revision of Haldane remains entirely 
ignored, to this very day. Haldane's Dilemma (now quietly 
forgotten) represents an interesting expression of this 
basic Neo Darwinian error: the deletion of gene 
fitness epistasis. Please refer back to the lengthily 
and heated discourse between Walter ReMine and Prof. J. 
Felsenstein  (an acknowledged expert on Haldane's Dilemma) 
completed in sbe about 3 years ago. 


J.B.S Haldane proposed that not enough time existed to 
evolve a man and an ape from a common ancestor over about 
5 million years because he incorrectly imagined that
today's human and ape genomes must consist of 100'000's 
of genes where differences between modern man and ape
must be extensive because gene fitness heritability was 
reduced to just _additive_  information (non epistatic) by 
Fisher et al. They excluded _non additive_ (epistatic) 
information, which actually constituted a gene fitness 
testable REALITY,  by defining gene fitness epistasis 
as "non heritable"  and therefore "non selectable"  
even though it could be "inherited". Haldane had no 
choice but to guess that only a large primate genome existed. 
Of course the human genome has been proven to be tiny. It 
has  recently been downsized from 30,000 or so genes to just 
20,000 by some experts where the difference between it and
the chimp genome is less than 1%. This means that as
far gene substitution goes, Darwinian selection acting on 
random variation (mutation and genetic drift) had more than
enough time to evolve man and chimp from a common ancestor
over about 5 million years. However the only possible way 
that millions of heritable phenotypes could be coded for
by just DNA/RNA is via _heritable_ epistatic information, 
i.e. Fisher was hopelessly wrong where the silence is
deafening.

If Fisher was wrong then Hamilton must also be wrong
because valid epistatic gene fitness information reduces
Hamilton's (heuristic) model of an independent gene level of 
selection to just the single DEPENDENT Darwinian organism 
fitness  level it invalidly seeks to compete and win against.
If Hamilton was wrong then Dawkins must be wrong and so is 
Wilson, Triver's and a host of others i.e. the last 50 years 
or so of Neo Darwinism could be argued to be waste of time and 
taxpayer's money because it mostly represents the misuse of 
models that have no fitness maximand which were simplified
from Darwinian theory which _does_ have a refutable maximand.
In short, mathematicians who only work with irrefutable
axioms have gutted evolutionary theory either by ignorance
or bias and refuse to make any apology/amends for what they 
have done.

My Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher


PO Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105
Australia

edser{at}tpg.com.au
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