Ford comments on Fake Optimization Criteria - Less Wrong

30 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 November 2007 12:10AM

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Comment author: Ford 22 February 2013 07:59:14PM 1 point [-]

You might like the "simple practice cases" in my recently published book, Darwinian Agriculture. Has natural selection favored solar tracking by leaves because it increases photosynthesis, or because it decreases the photosynthesis of competitors? What sex ratio (in reindeer, say) is favored by natural selection, and what sex ratio maximizes meat production from a given amount of lichen? Why do rhizobial bacteria provide their legume hosts with nitrogen, if healthier plants will indirectly help other rhizobia infecting the same plant -- their most-likely competitors for the next host?