Re: Red Queen Inching Forward? Does Collective life have a direction?
John Edser
> Hi John,
>
> I agree with your two points. However, we disagree on your
> subsequent claim.
JE:-
Hi Guy,
Ok, however, you did not answer my question:
what population type, i.e. biological object type 2 do you (or anybody
else here) define which cannot also constitute an independent selectee
i.e. biological object type 1 ?
A proposed evolutionary theory which cannot define at least ONE
population which remains prohibited from being selected remains
irrational _because it reduces the proposed theory to an empty tautology_.
Would you agree that as far as testable levels of selection are
concerned, the most simply falsifiable number to start with is one?
If so, in principle, how can this basic monocentric theory be falsified
empirically?
> In my opinion a population can also be a unified entity upon which
> selection can act.
JE:-
I understand that the above represents the Neo Darwinistic consensus
view. However, I strongly disagree with it for two reasons:
1) At least one defined population of independent selectees has to
remain unelectable otherwise the theory is rendered invalid.
2) Simple additive in fitness entities cannot be naturally selected at
any additive in fitness level.
The _superficial_ act of selecting one population over another does NOT
mean that the selective mechanism must also be operating at the same,
additive population level. This entirely depends on how the biological
entities are associated. If they are just reversibly associated then
selection is necessarily passed on down to the first independent level.
If they are non reversibly associated then they can only be set nested
and therefore, comprise the one, same selectee. This can only be
selected via the fitness of the largest nested sub set.
Please define a population. My definition: any biological entity which
has a fitness which remains the simple sum of the fitness of each
independent selectee that comprises one population. The fitness of
individuals within a foreign population are not added simply because
such a population is separate and must evolve separately, by definition.
Foreign populations have be defined as separate i.e. as separately
intersecting sets of independent in fitness biological individuals
because any population definition which allows group competition
demonstrates that the proposed differently evolving populations are only
the same evolving population in which selection at the Darwinian fertile
individual level remains operative. IOW, definitions of populations
which allow selection at the population level remain contradictory.
Populations independently evolve but only because the individuals which
comprise them can be independently selected. If the reverse holds then
the proposed evolutionary theory becomes reduced to (yet another) tautology.
The principle of non competing populations does not prohibit once free
individuals from being absorbed into the one, same fitness nested
entity (organism). For example it does not prohibit ribosomes as once,
fitness independent individuals from becoming fitness dependent cell
parts and it does not prohibit bodies forming complex ecosystems
of freely associating (reversibly associating) selectees e.g. symbiotic
bacteria etc. These represent populations of populations i.e.
metapopulations. What the Darwinian _separation of populations
principle demands is that that all of these events can only be selected
FOR when they provide mutualized TDF's for each population entity
disallowing any lowering of fitness at the fertile organism level via
proposed group selection. Unless the total number of strictly fertile
forms reproduced by each independent adult form within group selected
populations increases (but not necessarily equally), a population cannot
be naturally selected FOR.
Neo Darwinists cannot/refuse, to separate simple, additive in fitness
populations from much more complex organism parts which remain non
reversibly, i.e. hierarchically set nested within a single organism
"population" of parts. A nested fitness is not selected in the same way
as a non nested fitness. At some stage Neo Darwinists will have to
confront this issue.
Regards,
John Edser
Independent Researcher
John Edser
to have been reposted to the group ]
> Nils Eldredge, asks " If you look at the fossil record, you do get
> bigger and bigger brains as you go through time, but it's a stepwise
> pattern, not a gradual thing. The raw statement of punctuated
> equilibria removed the old convenient element of directionality for
> long term trends in the fossil record. But if you concede that
> there's a directionality over time, what is the explanation?
JE:-
Punctuated equilibria cries out that the majority of complex traits are
not just additive. IOW, even if genes independently segregate at meiosis
and are added/subtracted in just an additive gene-by-gene way, mostly,
their composite phenotypes are NOT. Indeed, not one, single gene fitness
has been empirically demonstrated to be additive, no matter how you
define fitness. The net result of this is that genes can only be
selected via their phenotypes, i.e. never via their genotypes. The fact
of revised central dogma underlines this: the genotype always appears
invisible to selection because phenotypes cannot code for genes only the
reverse.
Non empirically based Neo Darwinian models CHOOSE to allow each gene to
be selected via it's genotype because these models REQUIRE genomic genes
to provide an independent fitness to the organism and it's complex
phenotype, they remain within. The net result is that Neo Darwinian
models are reduced to just an empty tautology with regards to fitness
(or anything else).
Apparent directionality is just the artifact of empirical fitness being
a MAXIMAND per adult form per population. Since every adult form has no
other choice other than to maximize the total number of adult forms it
reproduces per population, directionality arises from this entirely
unconscious directive of nature.