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
- 981 Views
selection for suitability
06/08/2011 04:18:51 PM
- 633 Views
Thanks for your responce
06/08/2011 04:41:20 PM
- 747 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
- 679 Views
Just a question
06/08/2011 07:18:09 PM
- 680 Views
Yes it can
06/08/2011 07:41:59 PM
- 556 Views
But how?
06/08/2011 07:52:10 PM
- 750 Views
Re: Just a question
06/08/2011 07:49:21 PM
- 770 Views
I'm not sure I understand you
06/08/2011 08:20:44 PM
- 657 Views
All tautologies are truisms, but not all truisms are tautologies.
06/08/2011 09:38:12 PM
- 682 Views
Then it is still a tautology
06/08/2011 09:45:33 PM
- 695 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
- 790 Views
Maybe...
07/08/2011 01:55:54 PM
- 641 Views
I'm more inclined toward his logic, but possibly toward your conclusions.
09/08/2011 12:45:46 AM
- 730 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
- 793 Views
As I understand it
06/08/2011 06:04:44 PM
- 623 Views
Better...
06/08/2011 06:36:38 PM
- 608 Views
Did you perhaps mean "beneficial in the environment" rather than "beneficial to the environment"?
06/08/2011 06:34:44 PM
- 743 Views
yes. I did not really phrase that very clearly. *NM*
09/08/2011 06:14:11 PM
- 293 Views
No biggy; from what Bram said, I underestimated how well you were understood anyway.
09/08/2011 06:45:16 PM
- 672 Views
Hmmm... there's some truth to that
06/08/2011 06:36:35 PM
- 691 Views
The complexity of the problem makes it all but impossible to falsify...
06/08/2011 08:26:06 PM
- 730 Views
The questions go deeper
06/08/2011 08:38:31 PM
- 727 Views
Re: The questions go deeper
06/08/2011 09:10:32 PM
- 702 Views
I think I know why you don't understand my question.
06/08/2011 09:38:41 PM
- 733 Views
How many equation's has Moraine screwed up? *NM*
06/08/2011 09:45:36 PM
- 303 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
- 323 Views
Re: Natural selection
07/08/2011 03:00:30 AM
- 699 Views
Thanks a lot
07/08/2011 01:38:39 PM
- 840 Views
2 things
07/08/2011 04:00:35 PM
- 619 Views
Re: 2 things
07/08/2011 04:33:00 PM
- 828 Views
Re: 2 things
07/08/2011 05:48:26 PM
- 644 Views
My best guess
07/08/2011 06:00:28 PM
- 678 Views
Re: My best guess
07/08/2011 06:37:58 PM
- 616 Views
Re: My best guess
07/08/2011 06:47:26 PM
- 765 Views