tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1051713021757781960.post2843863046638756556..comments2023-10-31T10:57:37.652+00:00Comments on Epiphenom: Why we are all different (and not all religious)Epiphenomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05420404206189437710noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1051713021757781960.post-68075360298627222012011-02-09T04:54:58.324+00:002011-02-09T04:54:58.324+00:00Knowledge of advanced statistics is lacking with R...Knowledge of advanced statistics is lacking with Rowthorn's work. He is applying a model which does not work with human evolution, simply because of the assumptions it makes.<br /><br />He takes the average offspring number of the made up religiosity gene, and then applies that to typical evolutionary models to "demonstrate" that the gene will fix in the population. His model suggests that it will fix in less than a dozen generations! So, either the gene is new (a few hundred years old), or is has already fixed in the population. Maybe you can already see this model is not accurate.<br /><br />The inaccuracy arises when using the average offspring number as a meaningful measure. I will point you toward NN Taleb's work to find out why this does not work. As an economist, he falls into a common trap, for them and biologists, that averages matter. <br /><br />If some gene has a high average number of offspring, but also a high variance in offspring number, then this gene may actually grow slowly in the population, or not at all. An economist should know that averages do not describe geometric growth (g). A simple (economic) estimate of "g" is g=sqrt[(mean)^2-(variance)^2]<br /><br />This is a HUGE hole in his model. Another hole is that environments change, and this "gene" may not always and forever have a reproductive advantage (if it does have one). He also ignores the fact that humans have class structured populations. For these reasons, and more, this work should be disregarded as it is very inaccurate.<br /><br />Forgive me for remaining anon here, but as a scientist it allows me to openly discuss my opinions. Thank you for your post.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1051713021757781960.post-18126313927540718862011-01-23T22:36:03.089+00:002011-01-23T22:36:03.089+00:00Tim, in case you are interested there was a supple...Tim, in case you are interested there was a supplement in Royal Soc B in December last year on the <a href="http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/365/1560.toc" rel="nofollow">"Evolutionary Genomics of Animal Personality"</a>. Couple of papers there look very relevant - and a bit more up to date than the 2007 one I cited!Epiphenomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05420404206189437710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1051713021757781960.post-85103957345179856142011-01-21T05:58:45.592+00:002011-01-21T05:58:45.592+00:00Interesting stuff. I'll have to give the full ...Interesting stuff. I'll have to give the full paper a read.<br /><br />Incidentally, the ideas you mention towards the end - about personality and evolutionarily stable strategies and frequency-dependent selection etc - are very close to my own research on the evolution of morality.<br /><br />Because there's no one 'perfect' strategy for managing social interaction and keeping groups strongly bound together yet flexible enough to deal with a changing environment, we've evolved a bunch of mechanisms that predispose us towards a range of 'strategies' - some 'liberal' and some 'conservative'. <br /><br />And frequency-dependent selection (among other things) works to maintain a pluralism of strategies within a group.<br /><br />The end result: different people are born predisposed to different moral (and political) attitudes. Some are nice, some are suspicious, some are nasty. And often they'll just end up talking past each other.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1051713021757781960.post-17757414903677025732011-01-21T00:10:42.812+00:002011-01-21T00:10:42.812+00:00Wow, Tom, that post had all kinds of interesting i...Wow, Tom, that post had all kinds of interesting ideas in it. Thank you.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com