Quoted message said:JM:- My "ploy" to avoid being dragged into this issue is to claim that there is a distinction to
be made between "fitness" and "reproductive success", and that fitness is the cause of
reproductive success. I then shut my mind to those who point out that there is no other way to
measure or estimate fitness than by measuring reproductive success. This ploy may be
epistemologically naive, but it works for me!
Quoted message said:JE:- Fitness is what is left after reproduction, environment and everything else has done all it
can do, i.e. it can only be the total number of fertile forms a parent reproduces! Once a fitness
unit becomes fertile it becomes an _independent_ unit in its own right. Thus the fitness unit
cycle is not endless as Neo Darwinian (but not Darwinians) insist that it is. Mostly, Neo
Darwinian's are mathematicians and not biologists. One parent can be any unit/units you define it
to be, i.e. a gene, a cell, an individual, a group or a meta group. Once you define your unit of
selection, which is the easy bit, you then have to be able to test it against nature. This is the
very _hard_ bit that everybody is trying to evade or protect themselves or others such as
Hamilton, from. You can't choose all the sweets (units of selection) in the sweetshop, 5 year olds
learn this quite early. However, it appears most Neo Darwinians never reached that age ;-)
JM:- John, This seems to be as good a place as any to ask this... You frequently invoke Popper. Has
old Sir Karl written anything about how to formulate natural selection so as to make it
epistemologically respectable, or are you giving us your own Popper-inspired ideas here? If Popper
has written on these issues, could you provide references?
JE:- Popper's writings on evolutionary theory were brief. I do not have any references to hand as I
write this post. Originally he found Darwinian evolution to be a tautology (a circular argument).
However this conclusion was based on Herbert Spencer's misrepresentation of natural selection. Ask
anybody, even today, what they think Darwinism is and they will reply with Herbert Spencer's
"survival of the fittest". The cause of "survival of the fittest" was "only the fittest survive".
Thus A causes B, only because B causes A!
Here: A-->B (thesis) B-->A (antithesis)
are combined within the one causative view.
Such a view is just an absolute contradiction as a theory of cause and affect. In essence a
tautology is only a valid statement of equality such as: Fitness = the total number of reproductions
of one parent. Here:
A=B
where:
A= Fitness. B= Total reproductions of one parent.
You can validly define A as B and vice versa. Just a lone definition is _not_ a testable proposition
it is just an assumption. The only valid use a tautology can have to science is to allow definitions
of things within a testable view. Such views must logically link _many_ different defined things
together in a _non_ reversible logical order within each view e.g.:
A-->B OR
B-->A
These are known as a processes. These two processes are 100% contradictory so that if one is true
the other cannot be. Thus if one is verified then the other is refuted. Obviously, if both are
incorporated within the same causative proposition then such a view is a meaningless causation
simply because it has become tautology. If both can be verified then the proposition was invalid.
Note that:
A-->B-->C
AND
A-->C-->B
have something in common re: the position of A. Thus these two views are not totally contradictory.
Note however:
C-->B-->A
absolutely contradicts:
A-->B-->C
We can only explore such causative processes via any (deductive) patterns that they can make because
_all_ the information we receive is perceptual. Thus the process is a "concept" with a pattern is
just a "percept". The building of these conceptual processes requires an imagination (induction). An
induction is just a guess at causation. Not all imagined causative processes are equal. This being
the case, they cannot all be equal truths of nature. Thus science only concerns itself with proposed
processes that are testable so it can sort them out. This sorting requires points of verification
and refutation to be provided. These are respectively, patterns that are caused by the processes
that can verify the thesis or patterns that verify its anti-thesis. If just one anti-thesis pattern
is observed within nature the view is refuted. If a verification pattern is not observed when
expected then the view is not refuted, it simply remains non verified. Many reasons can exist as to
why a view has not been verified. Thus non verification is not definitive. Note that verification
without any possible refutation, is also, not definitive. Mostly, people confuse non verifications
with refutations or simply do not understand that a refutation is a verification of the antithesis
of the proposed thesis in question. BOTH have to be explicitly understood. If I can't provide an
antithesis I may not understand the thesis I am proposing, even if I think I do. Providing points of
refutation for your ideas proves you know what you are talking about.
Hamilton's writing referred to Darwinism using Spencer's jingle. If the professionals can't get it
right then what hope have the general public? Hamilton's rule like Spencer's "survival of the
fittest" was also, just a tautology because c can be anything from positive, zero, or negative
within the _same_ rule. This means that mutualism (when c=0 or is negative) and altruism (when c is
positive) are both incorporated within the _same_ rule as complimentary when if fact they are
totally self contradictory. One is the anti- thesis of the other. If you incorporate thesis and
antithesis within the same causative proposition then what you are saying is 100% meaningless
because cause and affect are 100% reversed in each case. In reality the altruistic side of the rule
refutes in favour of the mutualistic side. This is easily proven empirically since only the
altruistic side of the rule allows the absurd situation to develop where relative inclusive fitness
gains produce an absolute inclusive fitness loss, allowing the extinction of an entire population.
This irrationality within the rule only becomes apparent when a term for absolute fitness is
appended to it. When it is, it can be shown that organism fitness altruism caused by selfish
geneism cannot be verified, anywhere, using a rational Hamilton's rule. Thus supporters of Hamilton
are only left with the "uninteresting" mutualistic side of his rule. It is only uninteresting to
them because they mostly appear biased for organism altruism existing within nature. Note that such
an event always refutes Darwin. Indeed the rule only became prominent because classical group
selection failed to allow organism fitness altruism within nature. Hamilton's rule was rushed in to
fill the vacuum.
I can only conclude that the massive bias for the altruistic side of the rule was political. It is
either that or just plain, stupidity. The more parsimonious view is that Neo Darwinistic bias was
politically motivated. This is verified when one examines the political correctness of the times and
the sad history of the political manipulation of evolutionary theory from its very inception.
Spencer, on the Looney Right, destroyed Darwin using a tautology. [censored] verified his war using
Spencer. Millions died. Hamilton on the Looney Left, also employed a tautology causing a phoney war
to exist within evolutionary theory between "selfishness" and "altruism". Millions of research
dollars were wasted because of it. The victim of this war was fitness mutualisation. It is this
neglected view that has been waiting in the wings for over a century. It represents the most
powerful explanatory paradigm that exists today within evolutionary theory.
Outside of evolutionary theory, group selective altruism (group selective logic can be proven to be
present within Hamilton's rule as the group fitness total, b) justified the logic of Marx, Lenin and
Stalin. Millions died. The big issues are epistemological. Today epistemology is reduced to the
equivalent of basket weaving, i.e. mostly being provided as entertainment for bored retirees who
have nothing better to do. This is because post modernism assassinated this discipline. Today,
nobody takes epistemology seriously. Science graduates "ho hum" their way through such courses
because they are mostly, just post modern waffle.
Darwin and Wallace independently came up with the same name for the process they both proposed
caused evolution within nature: "natural selection". This was simply because this name very
accurately reflected that process: competition by _default_, i.e. no _intention_ can ever be
construed to cause any natural selective competition. Such default action excludes any cognition
being required to judge who wins and who loses. God as the great dictator became redundant for the
genesis of man. Tribal mankind, given his freedom on a plate, has never got over it because he lost
his super tribal leader.
Best Wishes,
John Edser Independent Researcher PO Box 266 Church Pt NSW 2105 Australia
[email hidden]
