Vladimir_Nesov comments on "Sex Is Always Well Worth Its Two-Fold Cost" - Less Wrong

4 Post author: cousin_it 15 July 2009 09:52AM

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 15 July 2009 11:21:46AM 1 point [-]

There is a stricter sense in which evolution doesn't extend on culture.

Comment author: timtyler comment score below threshold [+] (13 children)

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 15 July 2009 12:04:47PM * 3 points [-]

And again you are disputing definitions. It doesn't serve the purpose of communication and doesn't relate to my comment above.

Comment author: timtyler comment score below threshold [+] (6 children)

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 15 July 2009 12:15:29PM * 1 point [-]

The actual question is not "what does the word "evolution" really mean?", but "is the paper wrong on that particular point?". Wrong about reality, not about the usage of words. Disputing definitions is utterly useless for resolving the latter question. My comment was trying to resolve the message about reality behind the ambiguous words, by pointing out that the stricter sense of "evolution" was probably used.

Comment author: timtyler 15 July 2009 01:08:00PM -1 points [-]

"Stricter"? You mean the definition that disagrees with the textbooks?

The paper does not concern itself with the definition of evolution. It's a computer modelling paper. The observation of multiparental inheritance in cultural evolution doesn't seem to me to directly contradict the paper - since the modern world doesn't satisfy the authors' supplied definition of stability.

Comment author: Psychohistorian 15 July 2009 06:00:18PM * 3 points [-]

Your proposition appears to be, "evolution::culture can stably involve more than two parents, therefore evolution::genetic can stably involve more than two parents."

To put it mildly, this conclusion does not follow. "Parent" and "offspring" mean completely different things (if they are even cogent concepts) in evolution::culture than they do in evolution::genetic. The article is quite clearly refering to evolution::genetic, so the fact that evolution has multiple definitions is not relevant.

Comment author: timtyler 15 July 2009 10:26:15PM -1 points [-]

I may have cited multiple definitions of evolution - but it was not to point out the differences between them. It was to pile on evidence from a range of sources.

I don't agree with your statements about the role of parent and offspring in cultural evolution. Nor - as far as I am aware - does anyone else in the field. Parent and offspring share heritable Shannon mutual information. The parent is the source of the information, and the offspring copies from it.

Comment deleted 15 July 2009 05:59:58PM [-]

Comment author: eirenicon 15 July 2009 06:18:07PM 0 points [-]

Note that not one of them specifies that the medium of inheritance be DNA. Any type of inhertance qualifies. This is right and proper - any specification of how inheritance takes place in the definition of evolution would be grossly inappropriate.

FTA:

We also show that more than two sexes (inheritance of genetic material from three or even more parents) are always evolutionary unstable.

If the article internally defines evolution as genetic inheritance, why are you arguing the external definition? The authors have a right to establish the explicit meaning of the language they use in their own work, just as I have the right to say "banana" means "car" and be perfectly understood when I write "I drive a banana".

Comment author: timtyler 15 July 2009 10:12:17PM * -1 points [-]

In evolution, there's just inheritance - and its transmission, variation, and selection. "Inside" and "outside" are not concepts that play a significant role. What can be inherited internally" could equally well be inherited "externally" - without affecting the dynamics of the information flows involved. "Inside" and "outside" are mere geography.

Comment author: thomblake 16 July 2009 02:35:21PM 0 points [-]

Tim, you're misreading the way 'external' was used in the parent comment. The 'internal definition' eirenicon referred to was the one specified in the article, and 'external definitions' are those used elsewhere.

Comment author: eirenicon 16 July 2009 02:14:54PM 0 points [-]

I'm not talking about internal inheritance. I'm talking about semantics. I'm saying that the article itself offers a definition so that such a misunderstanding as this does not happen. It is proper to define your terms before setting out an argument, don't you agree? The authors, wanting to avoid confusion, decided to use the word "evolutionary" in strict reference to genetic inheritance. This cannot be argued. They have given variable x a fixed value, y, so that x = y. Other instances in which x = z have no bearing on the value of x as it has been strictly defined in this context.

Comment author: timtyler 16 July 2009 05:32:53PM -1 points [-]

The paper doesn't define evolution.

Both the authors and I are discussing evolution. You seem to think there is some significant difference between cultural evolution and DNA evolution in this context - but I don't agree that that is correct. If you can have multiple parents in DNA evolution, you can have multiple parents in cultural evolution - and visa versa. IOW, there's nothing special or magical about DNA as a medium of inheritance. It's a storage medium, like any other.

Anyway, despite their section titles, the authors don't claim that you can't have multiple parents in real evolution. They are only talking about their toy model - which, incidentally has practically nothing to do with how or why sex evolved, AFAICS.

Vladimir_Nesov comments on "Sex Is Always Well Worth Its Two-Fold Cost" - Less Wrong

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