NancyLebovitz comments on Against the standard narrative of human sexual evolution - Less Wrong

7 Post author: WrongBot 23 July 2010 05:28AM

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Comment author: NancyLebovitz 28 July 2010 01:30:14AM 3 points [-]

The Lotka-Volterra equation may do a wonderful job of explaining simple predator-prey relationships, but it assumes exponential growth of the prey population, which is exactly what I'm disputing.

I've got a book somewhere (small trade paperback, dull silver cover[1], title might be Life) which claims that no one has ever gotten those pretty predator-prey equations to cycle nicely in the real world, not even with two species of micro-organisms in a test tube.

The Wiki page for the equation didn't seem to mention real-world examples.

I'll update with more detail if I find the book.

[1] It's a shame amazon doesn't have searches based on the way people really remember books.

Comment author: WrongBot 28 July 2010 02:29:27AM 2 points [-]

The Wikipedia page does mention the wolf and moose populations in Isle Royale National Park as its sole real-world example. The paper it cites, though, doesn't seem to find the LV equation to be among the most useful available models, which is a pretty bad sign for its actual descriptive power.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 28 July 2010 02:39:17AM 1 point [-]

I've got a book somewhere (small trade paperback, dull silver cover[1], title might be Life) which claims that no one has ever gotten those pretty predator-prey equations to cycle nicely in the real world, not even with two species of micro-organisms in a test tube.

With 3 species, the LK equation can become chaotic, so I wouldn't expect to be able to duplicate a real-world history even if the model were perfect.

Perhaps we could find a 2-species real-world LK case involving bacteria deep underground.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 28 July 2010 02:30:07AM 0 points [-]

This source claims that some real life examples have actually done this correctly including the archetypal rabbit/lynx example.

Comment author: Alicorn 28 July 2010 01:30:51AM 0 points [-]

Upvoted for your footnote :)