Lets grant you have infinite knowledge of genes in all individuals in a population and all there relative and interdependent probability to contribute to the genepool. How would you reconstruct the fitness landscape, given that it is stable?
Or the other way around, what if you would know the landscape perfectly, given that it is stable, how would you evaluate the difference in survival rate of different individuals?
My question is: arn't the two actually the same? Hence, arn't they a tautology?
I don't quite get you here. Assuming a stable fitness landscape is sort of weird, but for the sake of argument, ok. Now, individual survival rates are impossible to assess, but the survival rates of traits should be possible in both cases. However, I am a bit confused here, you take one theory, and then (hypothetically) change what the unknown factor is and try to define that as a tautology? I don't see it. Explain it to me in maths, I know maths.
As for Popper, my problem is not that NS is too complicated to be tested or falsified, my problem is that, even with perfect knowledge it could not be falsified.
I don't quite get you here. If you have perfect knowledge of the fitness landscape and genomes, you'd have a statistical base for predicting an outcome of what will survive, and then you could check to see if your prediction is true on a statistical basis. However, on an individual level, it's still impossible to determine anything... But a statistical falsification would be enough to fit your criterion here, I believe? NS is a statistical model, after all.
If anything NS is too simple to be falsified: it is always true.
Huh. I don't buy it, honestly. Too simple? Nothing with that many factors involved is simple. There are plenty of things which are always true which has falsifiable properties. Go and fall into the sky to check if gravity works. The nature of this beast is that you cannot accurately describe all the factors involved in an ever-changing environment, and that biological systems tend to be complex even in cases of extreme control.
"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world" - Calvin.
Natural selection
- 06/08/2011 03:51:26 PM
1266 Views
selection for suitability
- 06/08/2011 04:18:51 PM
913 Views
Thanks for your responce
- 06/08/2011 04:41:20 PM
1037 Views
- 06/08/2011 04:41:20 PM
1037 Views
I can't speak for LadyLorraine and won't try, but here's how I see it:
- 06/08/2011 06:49:49 PM
983 Views
Just a question
- 06/08/2011 07:18:09 PM
996 Views
Yes it can
- 06/08/2011 07:41:59 PM
834 Views
But how?
- 06/08/2011 07:52:10 PM
1059 Views
Re: Just a question
- 06/08/2011 07:49:21 PM
1077 Views
I'm not sure I understand you
- 06/08/2011 08:20:44 PM
982 Views
All tautologies are truisms, but not all truisms are tautologies.
- 06/08/2011 09:38:12 PM
1011 Views
Then it is still a tautology
- 06/08/2011 09:45:33 PM
1045 Views
You can know it's beneifical to a particular individual, but it's harder to say for populations.
- 06/08/2011 10:18:16 PM
1087 Views
Maybe...
- 07/08/2011 01:55:54 PM
964 Views
I'm more inclined toward his logic, but possibly toward your conclusions.
- 09/08/2011 12:45:46 AM
1020 Views
we can't really know ahead of time what makes a specific trait benefical in that environment
- 09/08/2011 06:16:02 PM
1076 Views
As I understand it
- 06/08/2011 06:04:44 PM
915 Views
Better...
- 06/08/2011 06:36:38 PM
904 Views
Did you perhaps mean "beneficial in the environment" rather than "beneficial to the environment"?
- 06/08/2011 06:34:44 PM
1021 Views
yes. I did not really phrase that very clearly. *NM*
- 09/08/2011 06:14:11 PM
410 Views
No biggy; from what Bram said, I underestimated how well you were understood anyway.
- 09/08/2011 06:45:16 PM
950 Views
Hmmm... there's some truth to that
- 06/08/2011 06:36:35 PM
1009 Views
The complexity of the problem makes it all but impossible to falsify...
- 06/08/2011 08:26:06 PM
1004 Views
The questions go deeper
- 06/08/2011 08:38:31 PM
1038 Views
Re: The questions go deeper
- 06/08/2011 09:10:32 PM
1008 Views
I think I know why you don't understand my question.
- 06/08/2011 09:38:41 PM
1046 Views
How many equation's has Moraine screwed up?
*NM*
- 06/08/2011 09:45:36 PM
426 Views
*NM*
- 06/08/2011 09:45:36 PM
426 Views
100% I think Moriaine is a very beneficial trait that contributes a lot to the RAFO pool
*NM*
- 06/08/2011 09:46:54 PM
456 Views
*NM*
- 06/08/2011 09:46:54 PM
456 Views
Re: Natural selection
- 07/08/2011 03:00:30 AM
1010 Views
Thanks a lot
- 07/08/2011 01:38:39 PM
1139 Views
2 things
- 07/08/2011 04:00:35 PM
888 Views
Re: 2 things
- 07/08/2011 04:33:00 PM
1112 Views
Re: 2 things
- 07/08/2011 05:48:26 PM
942 Views
My best guess
- 07/08/2011 06:00:28 PM
1004 Views
Re: My best guess
- 07/08/2011 06:37:58 PM
910 Views
Re: My best guess
- 07/08/2011 06:47:26 PM
1064 Views
