Re: Modeling the origins of life: New evidence for an 'RNA World'

On 16/03/2024 18:39, erik simpson wrote:

On 3/16/24 7:59 AM, Richmond wrote:

Ernest Major <{$to$}@meden.demon.co.uk> writes:
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On 16/03/2024 11:17, Richmond wrote:

j.nobel.daggett@gmail.com (LDagget) writes:
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Richmond wrote:
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John Harshman <john.harshman@gmail.com> writes:

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JTEM has his own vocabulary. By "evolution" he means the modern
synthesis, also called (which JTEM would detest)
neoDarwinism. What he seeks to attach Darwin's name to is
Lysenkoism or neoLamarckism. If you make all those switches what
he says is more or less correct.
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Not sure whether Mao or the CCP adopted Lysenkoism, but it doesn't
seem out of the question.
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The phrase "survival of the fittest" has always seemed suspect to
me. We hear it repeated to justify capitalism. But there isn't any
requirement to be 'fit' as far as I can see. There is only a
requirement (for genes) to survive. For example the camel which
sits on the calf of its rival and crushes it to death, or the
chimpanzee which kills and eats the infant offspring of its
rivals. In what way is it 'fit'? A biologist would define it as
merely fit to survive, but then the phrase becomes redundant as
survival of the survivor. And we see the same results in captialism
with corporations swallowing up rivals rather than competing with
them.

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You want to argue against a metaphor by considering it literally.

It's not a metaphor.

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Darwin's original phrase was Natural Selection - an analogy with
Artificial Selection. The phenomenon is differential reproductive
success causally correlated with hereditary traits. (As opposite to
differential reproductive success not correlated with hereditary
traits, which is genetic drift.)
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As I understand, Darwin was frustrated that people failed to
understand the concept of Natural Selection, and hoped that perhaps
people would find Spencer's Survival of the Fittest more
comprehensible. The issue perhaps is that fittest has shades of
meaning - Survival of the Best Adapted would seem to closer to how
Darwin understood it. See Selection in Relation to Sex.
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I'm not sure what literary classification to place Survival of the
Fittest in. It's not obviously an analogy like Natural Selection. It's
not a definition. (Lawyer Daggett's complaint may be that you were
treating it as a definition.) Perhaps it's a catchphrase or a sound
bite. One could certainly make a case for it being a metaphor -
survival of the fittest for persistence of adaptive traits. (Now I
wonder how contemporaries interpreted the trait - modern understanding
has been modified by the rhetoric of Creationists and Social
Tennysonists (often the same people).

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I think it is only an analogy if you take it in the general meaning of
the word fit, as in fit as a fiddle or fit and healthy, but in the
biological sense it merely means able to survive, and that is quite
precise. But when it is used to justify economic policy it is used in
the more general sense in an attempt to link the two idea of natural
selection and free market competition. So we are led to believe it will
lead to lean and efficient, like a cheetah, but it doesn't necessarily.
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The subject of "biological fitness" has a distinguished(?) history, and misconceptions abound.  Here's a reference (with many included references) to the subject.  Not an easy read:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2753274/
 

Chapter 10 of Dawkin's The Extended Phenotype is entitled "An Agony in Five Fits" and discusses the lack of uniformity in concepts of fitness.
Perhaps it might be more accessible*. (Though, if memory serves me, I thought it was the weakest chapter in the book.)
A review
http://bactra.org/reviews/extended-phenotype/
(Apparently Dawkins was not a great fan of the term.)
* The Extended Phenotype was written for biologists rather than laypeople, but I found it quite readable.
--
alias Ernest Major