From: jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter)
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 20:35:27 GMT

In article <707869398wnr@chatham.demon.co.uk>,
Oliver Sparrow   wrote:
>  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?

It was commentary, not disagreement.

>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

Because Phil Roberts takes Evel Kneivel's daredeviltry as nonadaptive and
inconsistent with Darwin.

>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.

Generality as such cannot be advanced within a non-teleological framework
("generality arises because it's good for the group"); mutually beneficial
phenotypes, distribution curves, robustness, and suchlike can be employed as
explanations for observed generality.
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