Define Biological Energy as the ability to do work, the ability to change the environment.  Then Fitness can be related to Energy because the higher the fitness the greater the ability to change the environment.

E ∝ f

If we consider an organism that lives in a place with infinite resources – a Garden of Eden – and also replicates at the speed of the chemical reaction of replication – there is no maturation process, it immediately starts to replicated as soon as it is created – then it’s life is identical to it’s replication process.  Define d to be the speed of the chemical process of replication.  Then the ability of this organism to change the environment is given by it’s fitness, the rate it replicates at and it’s life:

E = fd²

Or something.

Now imagine that two biologists, one from each tribe, are evaluating the fitness of two organisms.  One of the organisms is fast, the other is of average speed.  Other than the difference in speed, they are identical.  The strong biologist recognizes that one is faster than the other, but does not find this to be significant and assigns the two organisms equal fitness.  The fast biologist recognizes that one is faster and assigns it a slightly higher fitness because of its speed advantage.

Is the difference in fitness evaluations a matter of scientific opinion?  If it were an opinion that the fast organism was fitter, this would be a scientific opinion based upon environmental and competitive factors.  Given different competition and environment, the evaluation would have come out differently.  However, the fast biologist and her entire tribe have survived by being faster than their competition.  Her evaluation is not only scientifically based but also partly based upon her evolutionary heritage and Weltanschung that is finely attuned to how speed is beneficial.  It is these factors, unique to people of this tribe, that give more weight to speed as evolutionarily significant and makes it more than just a case of scientific disagreement.

Is the fast biologist unfairly biased? If we consider the perspective of the strong biologist, we can see that the strong biologist has no greater claim to her appraisal of an organism’s fitness: strength is just as arbitrary a trait as speed and this thought experiment could have equally been set up with two organisms that only differed in strength.  Hence the fast biologist could equally claim the strong biologist is unfairly biased toward strength and away from speed.  Generalizing, we can say that no one perspective, be it speed, strength, sight, etc., or any combination of traits, is privileged.  Hence their is no unfair bias because every scientific perspective based upon evolutionary heritage and an associated Weltanschung is as legitimate as any other.

Lastly, consider that every biologist will recognize the same amount of phenotypic difference between two organisms;  difference in phenotype does not permit variation in interpretation.  Therefore any difference in fitness evaluation is not due to a perceived physical difference by the biologists in the organisms studied.

Therefore this thought experiment implies that our determinations of fitness are not independent of the evolutionary history of the biologist(s) making those determinations.   Insofar as we cannot escape our own biology and how it shapes our views, it will determine the fitness value we assign to organisms, if only to a small extent.

Consequences:

In one sense everything on Earth has been evolving for the exact same amount of time, since the dawn of life, and hence no organism alive is any more evolved than any other.

However, from the perspective of the fast biologists, the fast organism is more evolved.  Insofar as the fast biologists believe that life is evolving towards moving faster, the organism that moves faster has adapted before the other organisms.  So, in the special circumstance of a population perceiving evolution to move regularly towards a trait, an organism with that trait can be considered more evolved.

—– the analogs —–
evolutionary significant events are specific adaptations :: physically significant events are light flashes
regular evolutionary change is a population with trait selection :: regular motion is a non-accelerating inertial frame
difference in phenotype does not permit variation in interpretation, regardless of observer :: failure of addition of velocities of light, regardless of observer.
upper limit to adaptation- by definition, no jumps :: speed of light in vacuum defined as c

The short short short version of the theory is this general postulate: one organism’s traits are another’s environment and vice versa.  Hence all competition can be viewed as environmental phenomena.  This gives Natural Selection as a result of Fitness and an environmental factor, which I refer to as Acceleration.

If you want to see the paper as it stands now, you can access it here or below.[6in/120mm ebook formatted]

Fitness is the resistance to change in the rate of change of the species.

Acceleration is change in the rate of change of the species.

Natural Selection = Fitness × Acceleration

4.2.1 Two Kinds of Fitness

To understand Natural Selection we need to understand fitness and how to calculate its value. One way the fitness of an organism can be understood is in terms of how well it will be able to interact with its ecology to acquire what it needs to live and reproduce. The traits of the organism will be crucial as it struggles to survive: every little adaptation or edge that the organism has can be the difference between survival and death. Therefore the traits of the organism determine its fitness.

However, the fitness of an organism is dependent upon its environment. The different situations an organism finds itself in, which are determined by the ecology and chance, will determine its ability to reproduce. For example being fast is meaningless if there is no secure footing to run on. Therefore it is the situation that determines the traits that matter and hence fitness is a function of environmental selection.

At this point it can look as if there are two distinct and incompatible methods for calculating the fitness of an organism: trait based selection and environmental selection.

4.2.2 The Equality of Trait Selection and Environmental Selection

Imagine a jaguar out in the jungle. Unbeknownst to anyone, however, his welfare is being carefully monitored by stealthy scientists. Any time the jaguar might be in trouble, be it a lack of food or an unfriendly competitor, the scientists step in and protect the jaguar from harm and do it without being seen.

An independent observer, someone who doesn’t know about the scientists watching over the jaguar, might think that the jaguar has an uncanny ability to find food and avoid dangerous situations. He might suspect that the jaguar has excellent ears that can hear danger from very far away and a nose that can smell even the faintest waft of food. He would believe that in the struggle for survival the jaguar was incredibly well adapted.

Ought we to smile at the man and say that he errs in his conclusion? I do not believe we should. We could be in the very same position as the jaguar. We like to think that we have evolved the way we have by struggling and adapting. However, we may have just as easily been assisted by some benevolent but reclusive extraterrestrials. They could be the reason our species has been able to accomplish all that we have, and we would not know.

Regardless of the existence of any such extraterrestrials, the example shows that we cannot tell the difference between struggling and surviving based upon traits, and nature conforming (or disconforming) to our adaptations. It is a matter of perspective to believe either that our adaptations were the cause of our success or if it was the environment that happened to favor us.

4.2.3 The Natural Selection Field

Instead of switching back and forth between environmental and trait selection, we can say that both kinds of selection create a field. This field is ontologically as basic as the two kinds of selection and it is what interacts with the individual organisms and environment. The interactions of an organism and the field determines the course of the organism’s life, and an ecology’s total field is determined by everything in it.

Although every organism and each ecology is unique, none are alien. By looking at similar organisms and similar ecologies, we can use natural history to determine important adaptations and key environmental features. Taken together these features specify the shape of the Natural Selection field of that ecology, which informs us on how an organism or species will interact with their environment.

An organism’s overall fitness will determine how great its effect will be in the Natural Selection field. Introducing a species with high fitness into a new ecosystem can cause great changes, whereas introducing a species into an environment that it cannot survive in will barely create a change at all. For example, when humans, with our high fitness, move into a new area, we will profoundly alter that ecology. However, if we bring a flower with us that can’t survive the cold nights in our new home, then the flower will die, barely registering any change in the Natural Selection field.

4.2.4 General Relativistic Natural Selection

With the existence of the field we can say how evolution acts upon a species. At every moment an organism interacts with a natural selection field created by its surrounding ecology. The constant interaction with the field will gradually modify the species by benefiting certain individuals and by putting others at a disadvantage.

Insofar as the natural selection field is indistinguishable from the struggle for survival, we will not be able to further analyze why species change: this theory is terminal in the same way as General Relativity. If we could show that the way organisms and species benefitted or were put at a disadvantaged by the environment, without regard to the individual adaptations of the organisms, or conversely show how an adaptation increased an organism’s fitness without regard to the environment, then an investigation into these specific phenomena could yield insight into why a species changes. However, since we cannot make this distinction, the natural selection field is the final answer as to why a species changes.

Unlike the previous theory, general relativistic natural selection is wider because it is applicable during rapid ecological changes. The prior theory of natural selection relied upon trait based analysis to determine future reproductive success and hence was unable to accurately predict success during rapid change. Relativized natural selection can say that the organisms and species experiencing a disaster (or utopia) are experiencing a change in the natural selection field. This change in the natural selection field manifests as a rapid change in the lives of the organisms. Once the ecological change is finished, then we can revert back to the old notion of natural selection.

[this is an excerpt from a longer paper, which can be found here]

Patched a bunch of things together to make a nice story.  Fixed the little issue about fitness being circular.  Expanded natural selection to apply more generally.  Causal structure.  Epistemological foundations.  ooOoOO0Ooooooo.

And it’s good fun.  I swear.  Epistemology, history of physics, evolution… makes me happy.  You should really read it.

Download here. [pdf, 304kb]

It is a well executed, though flawed, counter to Fodor’s arguments.  First they give a nice rundown of the underdetermination issue I posted about here.

Then they discuss the “intensional fallacy”.  They argue that the crux of F & P’s argument can be seen as trying to split up the causal efficacious trait and the selected-for trait.  This means that F & P believe that there is no way to connect the evolutionary reason – the trait that increased an organism’s fitness – with our explanation of the trait that was selected-for.  Block & Kitcher argue that it is trivial to match the two up because

selection-for is a causal notion, and, since causation is extensional, so is selection-for.

Insofar as we believe that our explanation of the selected-for trait is extensional, i.e. truth-preserving when switching between different names of the same thing, we can say that we do pick out the causally efficacious trait.

Unfortunately Block and Kitcher sacrificed our normal concept of explanation to make this counter-argument.  They note that explanations are never normally extensional, but that we are making an exception in this case.  This is ok to do because

we thinking beings can give (intensional) explanations in terms of [one trait] rather than the other properties. In giving the explanation, we (thinking beings) describe the property in our preferred way.

I do not understand what is going on here.  Basically it looks as if “preferred way” is just a fancy way to say “own words”, but describing something in our own words doesn’t make it right.  Nor is it a reason to change what should count as an explanation.

Unless Block and Kitcher are prepared to give further justification as to why we should disregard our normal understanding of explanation, it looks as if their solution to Fodor’s argument is ad hoc.  They are using explanation* — which is a special kind of explanation that can be extensional — but they have not given a reason why explanation* should be preferred over of regular explanation (outside of causing Fodor trouble).  Without this reason, the use of explanation* is ad hoc, and hence the argument fails because it turns on an ad hoc premise: the assumption that explanation* can be substituted for explanation.

However, I did say above that Block and Kitcher’s argument is well executed:  My argument against using an ad hoc term-term* distinction is obscure compared to their argument and so, for the vast majority of people, it will appear that their argument is effective.  Overall this is a good thing: less nonsense needs to surround evolution (though I’ll be a little sad to see it go: I’m #1 in a Google search for “fodor what darwin got wrong“).

[EDIT:  I've put up a new analysis (24 March 2010) of Fodor's argument here: Hypotheses Natura Non Fingo.  It also includes a review of the responses of Block, Kitcher and Sober ]

For my take on what Fodor got wrong, see my post What Fodor Got Wrong, and the follow up Dismantling Fodor’s Argument (also linked above in reference to underdetermination).  I’ll post something soon specifically addressing the intensionality issue:  Fodor’s Intensional Criticism of Evolution.

In asexual reproduction there is no mechanism for distinguishing between a short term beneficial adaptation and a long term beneficial adaptation.  This subjects long term beneficial adaptations to being potentially overshadowed by short term beneficial adaptations and genetic drift:  if a short-term genetic change  sweeps through a population, some adaptations can be wiped out.  This sort of (selected for or not selected for) genetic drift would be tempered if it were forced to go across the different biologies of the two sexes.

With sexual selection there is a mechanism for selecting long term beneficial adaptations over short term ones.  Long term beneficial adaptations will have to be good for both sexes:  if an adaptation is beneficial to both the male and female – individuals with significantly different biologies – then it is more likely to be  good for the entire species.  Short term beneficial adaptations may only be good for particular individuals or one sex, depending on the mutation.  This makes it less likely for short term, provincial adaptations (or drift) to last because they won’t be as effective across different the different biological make-up of the two sexes.

Therefore by distributing mutations across two different sexes – two similar but different biologies – long term beneficial adaptations can be selected for.

Now say you are a single celled organism that has the option to reproduce sexually.  To reproduce you need to increase yourself to 3/2 your original size and find a similar mate.  Then you both contribute 1/2 to the new organism and repeat indefinitely.

Asexual reproduction requires you to double in size; sexual reproduction requires only a 3/2 increase.  Therefore the turn-around time for sexual reproduction is inherently shorter than for asexual reproduction (assuming there are viable mates readily available).

Is there a selective benefit to a shorter turn around time for reproduction?  If the species must constantly be adapting to a changing environment (that would be everyone), then having a higher rate at which new mutations (and thence adaptations) are introduced into the population is critical.

Secondly, given that there is enough food but it takes time to collect, I count more offspring for sexual reproduction:

In sexual reproduction, there is an additional child from the first generation of children (as compared to asexual splitting) created in the same amount of time: At the +50% mark #1 & #2 mate to create #5, and #3 & #4 mate to create #6.  Then, at the 100% mark (or plus an additional 50%) #1 & #2 mate to create #7, #3 & #4 mate to create #8, and, at the same time, the initial children #5 & #6 mate to create #9.  #9 is also one generation ahead of the offspring of asexual replication.

Now, to be honest, I’m confused.  I don’t think that anything above is particularly complicated.  However, Wikipedia does not note this as a benefit of sexual reproduction.  It actually says that asexual reproduction is much faster.  This makes me think that I must have made a mistake or else someone would have added it.

The going theory appears to be that since every organism in an asexually reproducing species can give off children, then there is twice the potential for offspring.  This completely ignores any struggle that an organism might have that would prevent it from reproducing, or that work can be split with a mate making it easier to reproduce.

My main assumptions are, among others, that there already is a significant population of organisms, the organisms are not too fussy about their mates (no significant waste of energy searching for a mate),  energy / work is being split with the mate, and that the limiting factor has to do with gathering food.  I can’t see how, if these (reasonable?) assumptions hold, sexual reproduction isn’t the dominant, winning strategy.

I do not know if any of my readers have been around since the beginning, but this blog started out with a good deal of my philosophy of biology.  The one-sentence description of my philosophy of biology is: I have relativized the theory of fitness within evolution and comported the rest of evolutionary theory to make it work.

In the last few months I’ve been teaching myself to program and, as of today, I have incorporated as much of my theory of evolution into a simulation as I can possibly hope to accomplish (at the moment).  All that is left is to get all the bugs out.

It is not every day that I can say that I have created something that is a direct result of a theory of philosophy, moreover a theory that I have personally developed.  I’m pretty stoked.  There is still a good amount of work getting the thing to actually run from this point forward, but at least none of the issues will be theoretical, just technical.

And of course there is no guarantee that things will go the way I want them to, but at least I gave it a shot.