"Guy Hoelzer"  wrote in message
news:bbopam$fqs$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> in article bbnhn1$2g8$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org, John Edser at
> edser{at}ozemail.com.au wrote on 6/5/03 6:48 AM:
>
> I have snipped out this particular sentence because I think it is very
> telling.
>
> > JE:-
> > Absolute fitness is assumed
> > to be  a heritable trait.
>
> When fitness is heritable, natural selection happens.  This has been
crystal
> clear since the 1930's thanks to Fisher.  Assuming this is true makes
> natural selection perfectly untestable.  Testing whether natural selection
> is happening (or has happened) in a particular system requires embracing
the
> possibility that fitness is NOT heritable.  This is the most succinct way
to
> conceptualize one of the most important open questions in the field of
> evolutionary biology (IMHO).  To what extent and how often is fitness
> heritable?  The answer to this question would resolve the debate between
the
> neutralists and the selectionists.

Perhaps - unless, in the first place, the argument is a form of
philosophical fidgetting-around in a forever to be forlorn attempt to find
and formulate impossibly fine details of fitness and phylogeny.

By definition (and IMO) a complementary EPT understanding of how we (and
other forms of life) became how we are does basically require a deliberately
Tolerance Principled thinking in terms of the dichotomy and dialectics of
"Opportunity and Adversity type evolutionary pressures" - just to start
with.

P
---
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 6/7/03 3:14:02 PM