From: Oliver Sparrow 
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 08:39:06 +0100
Organization: Royal Institute of International Affairs

  jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter) writes:

> Given a large number of alleles, there is a wide distribution of phenotypes.
> As a result, we get Evel Kneivel, agorophobes, and all sorts in between.  The
> circumstances of the species, including social circumstances, shapes the
> allele set.  Certain values of the resulting real variable seem inexplicable
> in Darwinian terms when viewed through a narrow panadaptationist straw.

Is that not what I said? If "panadaptionist" means "universal optimisation", then
no practicial biologist would even have advocated it as a representation of the 
evidence. But why are we discussing this, when the issue was whether evolving
mind states could effect the genetic base; and as a subset of this, whther the
social function of individuals within the group was chiefly to advances their 
particular unique cluster of genes or the generality of the genes shared amongst the
group. If the former, then mental dysfucntion, dominance etc is hard to explain. If the
latter, such outcomes follow naturally, perhaps with some linkage to the model that
I advanced.

_________________________________________________

  Oliver Sparrow
  ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk