[118677] in Cypherpunks
Evolutionary Biology, ESS, game theory, etc. - a book reference
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jim Choate)
Tue Oct 5 14:32:27 1999
From: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>
Message-Id: <199910051825.NAA24844@einstein.ssz.com>
To: cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 13:25:49 -0500 (CDT)
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Reply-To: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>
Hi,
I forgot to add this one earlier, it should be of interest to anyone who is
interested in the application of biological concepts and processes to other
fields such as game theory or economics.
Slanted Truths: Essays on Gaia, Symbiosis, and Evolution
Lynn Margulis, Dorion Sagan
ISBN 0-387-94927-5
$27 US
Of particular interest to game theory (and expecialy ESS proponents) will be
chapter 20. I've been looking at the research and applicability of ESS and
found a major problem as its applied to biology and evolution. It revolves
around the base or axiomatic assumptions made as to its applicability to the
real world of biology. One is the example of the evolution of sex. They
claim the universal nature of 1:1 sex ratios as emobodies in the X-Y
chromosone process "beat out" competing processes. The problem is there is
NO evidence of ANY competing processes. It's a fate accompli. Every other
example of ESS application to real world biology makes the same error. It
usees the existance of a single process to argue that the rate of growth of
the 'survivor' was hyperbolic, when if fact not one case has any evidence of
there EVER being any competition to be had in the first place. Circular
reasoning.
To quote Margulis (pp. 266),
"A single example of the current dilmma suffices here: Since the retirement
of Professor R.E. Schultes at Harvard University (1986), professional
education in the production of food, drug, and fiber compounds by plants
from the New World tropical forests ("economic biology") is virtually
unobtainable in the United States, whereas lessons in neo-Darwinist
religious dogma are exceedingly easy to find. Computer jocks (former
physicists, mathematicians, electrical engineers, and so forth), with no
experience in field biology, have a large influence on the funds for
research and training in "evolutionary biology", so that fashionable
computable neo-Darwinist nonsense perpetuates itself."
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The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate
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