Species selection

[email hidden] (Jim McGinn) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I suspect that Jim Menegay will reply to this with
something along the lines that since this can be described
from the perspective of individual selection/behavior that
therefore it is individual selection but this is a
nonsense argument similar to saying that since distance
can be measured in inches that therefore it can't be
measured in meters.

Your suspicion is slightly off target. I appreciate the
point that different perspectives or points of view are not
mutually exclusive. In fact, I have occasionally publicly
made this point. However, this does not mean that I think
that all points of view are equally useful or fruitful in
all cases.

Quoted message said:

Jim's a smart guy, however, and I'm sure he'll eventually
get it. (Along these line, Jim, it will help if you work
to maintain the epistemological distinction between units
of selection, which are units of measure or points of
view, and levels of biological phenomena, which are real,
measurable, empirical.)

Gee, I'll try to maintain this distinction, but I am
relatively ignorant of the technical terminology of
philosophy. For example, I have difficulty with the
difference between epistemological distinctions and
ontological distinctions.

PostA25

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TT: The speed of a herd of deer is a group phenomenon
- which is not simply the additive sum of the running
speeds of individual deer.

JE:- The "speed of a herd of deer" is just an additive value
equal to the average speed of each individual within the
defined herd.

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TT:- If it were, the fastest deer would migrate to the
front, and the herd would stretch out into a long line.
The deer would also have no reason to head in the same
direction.

JE:- Not necessarily. If the speed of the herd is only
selected at the individual level then the average speed per
individual (the speed of the herd) would be selected to
maintain _optimal_ bunching as the herd travels. The point
of herding is mutual protection and food location. Many eyes
are better than two. Rotating positions within a herd can
provide an increased mutualised fitness benefit per herder
since those on the inside gain more protection than those on
the outside. Keeping the young more on the inside than the
outside of the herd can benefit the parental Darwinian
fitness of each separate herder.

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TT:- Factors such as the size of the herd will influence
their collective running speed -

JE:- Herd size will be selected to maintain maximal, but not
necessarily equal, fitness benefits per Darwinian selectee.
A bigger herd provides more protection but will be much
harder to keep together, may travel more slowly and be more
difficult to feed. If the herd is migrating then speed may
be at a premium. Many factors must interplay to explain
herding behaviour at a single Darwinian additive fitness
level: the fertile organism level. However, the net outcome
of all these factors must result in an _increase_ in the
absolute Darwinian fitness re: members of the herd compared
to not herding. This increase is hardly likely to be equal
so that NS still operates _between_ individual group
members. Mutualised selection at the Darwinian level shifts
the "environment" to become more and more, conspecies,
providing mutualised benefits.

If each herd is now regarded as a single unit of selection
such that it is selected in preference to the Darwinian
fertile organism level, then each herds fitness is just the
total number of fertile herding groups reproduced from each
competing herding group as one "parent", where each herd as
one selectee exists within a herding group metapopulation.
If the Darwinian level was the FIRST additive level (which
it is) then the group level has no other choice but to
compliment and not contradict, selection at a lower
Darwinian fertile organism level of selection. If it
contradicts selection at any lower additive level to itself,
this forces a mutual _decrease_ in the _absolute_ fitness of
selectees existing within _both_ levels. As this continues,
both levels of selection just become extinct.

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TT:- and are simply not a factor for an individual deer.
In practice, the idea of group or species traits being
simple sums of individual traits rarely stands up to
close inspection. Often, there are some emergent
properties of some kind involved.

JE:- Group emergent properties must increase the absolute
fitness of each Darwinian selectee to be selected within
Darwinian theory. This means the total number of fertile
forms reproduced into one population must be shown to trend
to an increase because of the group behaviour. This
prediction provides a point of refutation to test Darwinism.
If selection at the group level can be documented to lower
the absolute fitness of most fertile forms within it, then
Darwinism (exactly as Darwin stated it) stands refuted.
However if the absolute fitness of group members increases
compared to just going it alone, then the supposition of a
_contesting_ level of group selection is not verified. This
means non additive group emergent _fitness_ properties have
_not _ been verified so a contesting group level of
selection can be validly removed using Occam's razor.

Regards,

John Edser Independent Researcher

PO Box 266 Church Pt NSW 2105 Australia

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