OT: Oh, My!

Speaking of twaddle... We *don't* observe male babies being preferred over females in *most* cultures. BTW, males can't have *any* offspring unless they can find females.

Bottom line is that there are *many* reproductive strategies, all competing. When one is selected as a topic of discussion and stated to be the one preferred by evolutionary biology, the speaker is usually talking way outside their depth. Evolution may provide *some* pressure for any given strategy, but that does not preclude the others. In fact, evolution *requires* many strategies as the one preferred will change as the evolutionary pressures change. Without the diversity the species can die off with enough pressure.

Bottom line is that declaring the act of staying with an abusive partner to be a fact of evolutionary biology without any supporting evidence is a load of applesauce.

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Rick C

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Obviously. Shinning armour would be an extension of the shin-guards I wear at hockey. Knights in shining armour aren't actually violent people - the g reat virtue of armour is that it lets you disable violent people without ge tting exposed to their violence. Armour is expensive, so most of the appeal of the guys who wear it is that they are rich and well-connected.

Not that I've noticed. The women I've mated with have been a lot more inter ested in finding people they could have interesting conversations with. The y do have a nasty habit of getting together at academic conferences and hav ing interesting conversations about me - or so my wife tells me.

Perhaps we are talking about different kinds of women. I always liked intel ligent women, and you may not have had that option.

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Obviously. But violence is always just one option in any social encounter. Intelligent people do know that it is almost always cheaper to talk your wa y out of trouble.

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I like intelligent women. They prefer to be picked up in other kinds of env ironments.

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Assuming that the human species is homogeneous is an intellectual error.

There is a lot of assortive mating going on, and while some members of the species seem to be hell-bent on devolving back into grunting apes, others a re more interested finding people they can communicate with, and raising ki ds who can communicate even better.

I know Bob Ladd, and he's really very proud of that work, as he should be.

If you think about the mechanism responsible for the different gene frequen cies in the different populations, you may get to wonder about the reason f or the genetic success of the knight in shining armour - it might have more to do with being able to talk well enough to coordinate a society that cou ld build his armour for him.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

Oh...?

Do you have any similar references on male infanticide?

What's your point?

How often is there are sceneries where a female has many male mates, verses where a male having many female mates?

The female requires the best gene stock. It matters little to the female that the male of that gene stock is fathering others where as a female, once pregnant, is useless evolutionary wise to other males.

Hence, if you want to pick up a women at a pub, take other women with you. A man popular with woman, arguably has a better chance of his children also being popular with women, hence, more attractive to women to carry their own genes by. Now analyse the reverse situation...

What's your point?

Sure, and people don't usually "declare" such a thing. They point out that one would argue that the simplest explanation might be a particular one. I would hope that people note what I write, rather than what might be erroneously inferred.

The bottom line is that, everything we are, is a biological machine evolutionary designed to replicate its genes, is a fact. Like, life is pointless and all that shit. Its just the way it is, as dismal as it may seem.

-- Kevin Aylward

- SuperSpice

The white coats begs the question, who created the white coats, so is no solution. However, I agree, without more information, the 'monkeys and typewriters' theory is also lacking. DNA did arise as a result of monkeys and typewriters, imo, but this single universe is trivially not enough to account for it. It needs more of them.

So, I have an explanation for it all though :-)

supported by:

You may need to read the other papers for it all to sink in.

We exist. Either there is a reason, or its random. If there is a reason, what is the reason for that reason? This is an infinite regress. Hence, the only rational reason that does not require a further reason, is that there is no reason. i.e. its all random. This requires multiple ways of generating the laws of physics. There are powerful physics arguments that such a situation can occur. e.g. inflationary theory.

-- Kevin Aylward

- SuperSpice

Sure, evolution don't require rational behaviour. The "random variation" bit of the trio of axioms tells us that.

However, there is no other rational explanation, than that we are a biological machine, living a truly pointless life, in the big scheme of things.

-- Kevin Aylward

- SuperSpice

It seems obvious that you cannot apply statistics to individual behaviour and outcomes.

Your contention "Everything we think do and say has its roots in the evolutionary requirement to maximise numbers. If behaviour don't have an evolutionary based explanation at its core, its usually wrong. If it contradicts evolution, its definitely wrong." is simply wrong; outcomes can be strongly influenced by irrational behaviour.

I don't disagree with that, but your contention doesn't follow from it.

Precisely.

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There's not a lot of argument in Cursitor Doom. He agrees with the most fla grant nonsense. Human are unlike other animals in one crucial particular - they can negotiate in much more detail, and with a great deal more subtlety - not that you'd know it from Kevin's output.

Cursitor Doom has his own techniques that don't work too well either. Short term thinking rarely does.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

How about the killing of the male offspring of competing males? Or, maybe, "rape and pillage"?

Sure, for examples other than the specific scenery I was addressing, there is a different evolutional optimum.

In fact, you have identified a case where an evolutionary explanation may well play a hand in cases in modern times where a male kills his step children.

Pretty much everything we do is on auto pilot. Even when conscious, there isn't an "I" that has any control anyway. To wit, the "free will don't exist" bit.

Hint: if I had not wrote the first post, you wouldn't have replied. Its all classical mechanics or quantum mechanics, either way this non conscious machine is instructing Kevin to type, and yours is doing likewise to you :-)

-- Kevin Aylward

- SuperSpice

That statement makes no sense to me.

Evolution is a statistical theory. It can, of course, be used to calculate the probability that a particular single event will occur, just as calculating the probability of getting a double six in throwing a dice. Statistics when applied to single events, of course, does not tell you what the event outcome will actually be.

For example, a male having sex at every opportunity might raise his chances of having more offspring, but this has to be counted with the probability that the existing mate of the female might well take action detrimental to you ability to continue such action.

So, despite, the fact that some might get a good kicking, or worse, evolution theory would indicate, on average, its advantages for males to chance their luck when they deliver milk to the housewife whilst her hubby is at work, despite the risk of hubby coming home early.

Sure, outcomes can be strongly influenced by irrational behaviour, and that is all included in the wash of the axioms. Have you really read exactly what I said ?

Since the core reason we exist is because of evolution, and evolution is inbuilt into us to a staggering extent, and that "random variation" allows for pretty much anything, then evolution automatically includes irrational behaviour. If its not rational, i.e. derivable, then "irrational" must be "random". The algorithm of random variation, selection and replication allows for pretty much anything, rational or otherwise.

Evolution doesn't care about rationality or irrationality, as in consciousness. All the evidence is that consciousness as in "I did that, for that reason" is totally illusionary

Additionally, because of the random variation, it is stunningly hard to come up with anything that contradicts evolution. Some often argue that makes evolution a tad ineffective in explanatory power.

Of course it does. One can use genetic algorithms do solve pretty much any problem, in principle. Its a very general procedure. They can be used to design quite novel filters in fact.

-- Kevin Aylward

- SuperSpice

I am not surprised; that lack of understanding is consistent with everything else you write below.

I kind of suspected you would.

Sigh. Kev, you can't keep citing your own website as supporting authority for all your various theories. You might be brilliant electronics designer for all I know, but you're no Steven Hawking. Quoting your own essays as proof for this, that and the other has to be the most conceited behaviour you've thus far demonstrated - and that's saying something. :)

If I had not read the post, I would not have responded.

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A more cogent objection is that the females he is trying to impregnate have an implicit contractual obligation to their existing mate to bear only his offspring, in return for his assistance in raising those off-spring.

If she is too enthusiastic about short-changing her existing mate, she impe rils all her other kids.

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This assumes that the survival chances of cuckoos in the nest are as good a s those of the off-spring of the woman and her existing mate.

They aren't. If a woman plays the field too frequently, the existing mate i s likely to decamp, possibly carrying off the off-spring that he is confide nt are his own, and set up with some other mate. This isn't good for the su rvival chances of the by-blows.

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Sadly, your "axioms" are incomplete - as happens in most oversimplified arg uments.

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Sure but you do have to take into account the gap between getting born, and surviving long enough - and healthily enough - to have offspring of you ow n.

Until recently, about half the population died before they were old enough to even think about reproducing.

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Not exactly. The biological imperative is to propagate your DNA into the ne xt generation. That is the reason for existence in any world driven by evol ution.

The cultural equivalent of this is to propagate your point of view, which i s what you are trying to do here, but since your point of view is simplifie d past the point where it is actually viable, it represents an evolutionary dead end.

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Evolutionary algorithms tend to get trapped in local minima. The process th at gave us wheeled vehicles would be hard to duplicate by a process of mino r variation and selection.

Saltation does happen - a single genetic change can produce a large differe nce between generations - but most such changes are lethal. You need a lot of monkeys and a lot of typewriters to write one Shakespearean play, and ev olving Shakespeare is a whole lot quicker.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

Krw reading a post, and producing a response of some sort, doesn't imply that he comprehended the post he responded to. The proposition that krw comprehends anything other than his own preconceptions is difficult to defend.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

Why do you bother Bill? If the people you reply to are all incompetent, what do you achieve by posting to them?

Its pretty much all Ad-hominem with you, with just a vague smattering of technical debate.

To me, you come across as a sad old man, always complaining about everything and everybody, just for the sake of complaining. Albert Steptoe of Steptoe and Son comes to mind.

Why anyone might want to appear in that way to anyone, is indeed a mystery.

-- Kevin Aylward

- SuperSpice

The papers stand on their own. Its not a statement of authority. What they say, is either true or false. Its irrelevant whether my name is Hawking. Truth is not based on an authority.

What's more, I am very, very clear on what I propose, that is not conceit. Everyone has the right to propose anything they like.

I state clear axioms, in bold, as to the basis of the arguments, so that objections can be easily made to them. If someone propose an argument that refutes the axioms, the conclusions fail.

I don't consider any of those papers, "theories". In one sense, they don't add anything intrinsically new at all. They just make statements that I consider are pretty trivial and obvious, its just that many don't seem to have thought about the issue much.

The multiple universe idea, is not mine. Guth introduced the idea to solve some problems in General Relativity. String Theory spits out 10^500 universes.

I am very carful in what I state. I would be stunned if anyone could refute my axioms. Not because I am clever, but because its trivially obvious, one could not setup any experiment to prove otherwise. Of course, that does not mean that they are true, only that hey cant be disproved.

For example, I declare:

A.2 The laws of physics are caused by the existence of physical objects.

It is an important axiom, because there are many professionals that believe that, for example, time exists on its own. I say such a view is unverifiable twaddle.

I say verily unto them, thus, physically prove that in an empty universe E=MC^2

There has been huge elephants in the room, ignored. Either god exists, everything has always existed, or

A.1 Empty space can and does randomly generate physical objects.

Most don't seem to have cottoned on to this.

-- Kevin Aylward

- SuperSpice

However, I have read on research that has indicated that of the order of 10% or more males are not the fathers of their wife's kids. DNA has opened up some interesting results.

The best strategy for a female, assuming she was not found out, would be to chose the best male for gene stock and the best male for caring for her children. Its a fact that the characteristics of these two types of males, are not, usually, contained in the same male.

Indeed, there was a tv program a few years ago that showed how females prefer different faces at different points of their ovulation cycle. The faces associated with best gene stock being preferred at ovulation time, of course.

What's your point? Sure there are pros and cons to cheating. The pros and cons are of such a nature that cheating is widespread for both males and females.

Just a one off Google popped up

So, around 20% of both men and women cheat today. That is widespread.

The Darwinian axioms of replication, selection and random replication form the core, and are accepted by all in the field. Of course, just as conservation of momentum and energy are not sufficient to solve all mechanics problems, neither are the Darwinian axioms sufficient information to solve all evolution problems. So, what's you point?

By deliberate construction, one only presents simplified argument, to illustrate the overall points, because, now get this Bill, this is a News Group posting, not a submission to a peer refereed journal.

The genetic characteristics inbuilt into us to reproduce is derived from

100s millions of years ago, from reproducing alga for example, before we even remotely looked human. People don't know that they are going to die, and usually, in a practical sense, live their lives as if they will live for ever.

I would also hope that your use of the word "think" is metaphorical,

Yes, exactly. There is no point in this universe, or us, at all. Nor in any of the others. The root of it all is pure randomness. The selection and replication bits of the algorithm came about as specialised solutions to the monkeys at typewriters problem. We just happen to live in a universe where what appears to be non random, i.e. the selection and replication processes, were generated just as a 123456 sequence can be generated in a lottery.

Summary:

Either the explanation for it all is random, or there is a reason, i.e non-random. If there is a reason, then what is the reason for that reason? This generates an infinite regression. Thus, the only rational reason for existence, is random, as random, is the only reason that needs no explanation. Random is no reason. We just need a very large number of universes with different laws of physics, and fortunately, Guths inflationary theory and String theory, do just that.

I was always struck by Richard Dawkins insistence on "Selection is not random" in retaliation to the comic book understanding of evolution being "all random" held by many xtians. Its true in this universe, but why is it true was always a sticking point for me.

You do have his habit/style, throughout all your posts to everyone, of unilateral making blanket statements, that have, zero support. It is getting rather tiresome.

Your attempt to imply that you have this superior knowledge of this subject matter is most disingenuous. My point of view is not simplified, but I am of course, presenting a simplified view of my views, for brevity. Again, this is a NG posting.

For example, you made it quite clear that you, only have a cursory grasp of evolution theory, for example, by once claiming "quality always wins over quantity". This appears to have been just picked out of your arse. I had actually looked at this problem in mathematically detail maybe 15 years ago, and proven that "quantity always wins over quality" when subject to Gaussian distribution of traits.

Hint:

"The key issue is, how does any increase in replication rate described by higher quality be offset by the lower numbers of such available higher quality"

Well... the reality is, is that the brain itself, fundamentally operates on a process of the same Darwinian Algorithm. Its, essentially, the only method nature has of solving any problem. We are just another cog in nature. So wrong again Bill regarding the design of wheeled vehicles. That's just what the brain does, and how it works.

However Bill, I do agree that some brains operating under the Darwinian Algorithm do indeed get trapped in a local minimum...

-- Kevin Aylward

- SuperSpice