Talk:Inclusive fitness

Need references for the last section

It seems decently informative and it's arguably appropriate to the article, but if no one finds any sources, a lot of the claims will have to be trimmed down soon. --DoItAgain (talk) 13:21, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

A considerable portion of the text appears to constitute original research

To 128.253.187.23; on behalf of other editors here, I would ask that you familiarize yourself with the policies of Wikipedia dealing with the inclusion of original research in WP articles (it is against WP policy; see WP:NOR). While your opinions and thoughts on this topic are significant, this is unfortunately not the forum in which to express such opinions. This article should be reduced to an explanation of what the scientific community has stated regarding inclusive fitness, and all statements herein need to be backed up by citations. Specifically, ALL significant published opinions on what inclusive fitness is, how it is defined, and examples, should be presented in the article, and presented without judgment or bias (see WP:NPOV) regardless of your personal opinions. It is fine to state that a given author believes something, suggests something, concludes something, or contends something, as long as all authors' opinions are treated as equivalent, and assuming the citations are all from reliable sources (see WP:RS) - otherwise, the article turns into a work of advocacy, favoring your personal preferred theories or interpretations over others, and that is specifically counter to the goals and aims of Wikipedia, much as you or I might wish otherwise. If you wish to pursue a synthesis and summary of inclusive fitness theory, and criticize the work of others, then I encourage you to publish it (as you have done in the past - and yes, you and I have met personally, and I am familiar with your publications) and then cite the published synthesis. Until that point, much of what is written here at present needs to be either removed, or rewritten so there are proper attributions for the various statements made. Again, your contribution here is welcome, but you must limit it to verifiable, attributable statements, even ones that you may believe to be false or erroneous - it is not about what is true, it's about what people have said, and which people said it. That removes any element of your personal opinion from the equation, and that is how WP is designed to work. Dyanega 23:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

As a professional science writer I heartily agree that statements of opinion should be properly attributed, and as an intermediate messenger for some of this stuff I'm trying to get that done. It may take a while because some of the references seem to be buried in the basements of academic buildings. If carried to far, however, the proscription of "original research" could preclude many experts from contributing to articles in their own field, since they would have no choice but to cite their own work.

And with tongue inserted partly into cheek, I can't resist asking: Do you think an article on evolution should also present intelligent design theory "without judgment or bias?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.253.187.23 (talk) 18:22, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Parental care is not altruistic

I've cleaned up some of the text, and cut the section on parental care as altruism. Altruistic behaviours are those that have a negative impact on the personal fitness of the actor, i.e. reduce the number of direct descendants, whilst improving the reproductive success of non-descendant relatives. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.79.29.250 (talk) 10:04, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree its not altruistic - however I do agree that it does not demonstrate inclusive fitness (at all or well). So i've removed the lapwing example as well. The squirrel example is good though. Fresheneesz (talk) 02:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Parental care is more altruistic than cloning and less altruistic than grandparental care. Irrespective of any of this, it is part of inclusive fitness. Using examples involving parental care can at times (especially the present) avoid confusion. Mhuben (talk) 01:27, 5 December 2010 (UTC) (Transcribing for Mike Orlove.)

Personal fitness and reproductive success are synonyms. Hamilton's (1964) definition of altruism was in gains and losses of Classical Fitness. If people hadn't repeatedly deleted the definition of classical fitness from the article, this confusion might not have arisen. I have been reminded that one should put various points of view in the article, but this should be done in a way that doesn't compromise the integrity of any of them. Such compromise has been characterized as vandalism according to wikipedia policy. For example, if I say Author1 says "the note in the drawer says the man has a braid" and Author2 disagrees, saying "the note says the can has a brain", that is not vandalism. But if I put it in the form "M(C?)an has a braid(n?)" then that is vandalism. The reason is that it implies that all the permutations exist, when really only two of them have historically existed. It's like saying that the first letter of this document is a or b or c ... or x or y or z, and the second letter is a or b or c ... or x or y or z, and so on. Failure to heed this suggestion can easily give the impression that all the permutions exist as opinions out there when in fact only a few of them actually exist. Mhuben (talk) 21:45, 12 December 2010 (UTC) (Transcribing for Mike Orlove.)

On reflection, those gains and losses should be Personal, not Classical fitness. Mhuben (talk) 21:05, 14 December 2010 (UTC) (Transcribing for Mike Orlove.)

Ricklefs and Miller, 2001?

There is no result for Ricklefs & Miller 2001 on Google Scholar. 216.73.248.51 (talk) 20:13, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Plus their definition is godawful. 98.234.216.78 (talk) 01:38, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Hamilton's Equation or Hamilton's Inequality?

Strictly speaking, Hamilton's Equation is an inequality, not an equation. It is usually referred to as Hamilton's Rule, or as the Hamilton Inequality. It might be advisable to rename that section appropriately, not least to avoid confusion with Hamilton's Equations, which actually are equations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.132.94.13 (talk) 15:58, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Nowak & al

I've tried to clarify these points, quoting from the NTW (Nowak Tarnita & Wilson) paper. I should disclose that I am a friend and collaborator of Martin's, but I believe the edit is NPOV. On the NY Times Article, there are both critics and opponents of the NTW paper, and Gardner is by no means the most prominent critic. It is fair to point out that AFAIK none of Nowak and Wilson's critics have remotely the stature and track record of Nowak and Wilson, nor do they have much of a mathematical background. If a mathematical paper survives a peer-review in Nature is it very unlikely to contain mathematical errors, and however much experimental biologists might not like the maths, shouting will not change the mathematical results. NBeale (talk) 09:28, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

You used one of Gardner's (et al) papers in your previous edits to suggest that Hamilton's rule was flawed in its application. Now are you suggesting that they are not qualified to have an opinion on the application of the rule? Ninahexan (talk) 05:20, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

One glaring error in Nowak et al. is the unnumbered equation right after inequality (1) on page 1059. There are two mistakes in that he wants to have 'something' = instead of $R=$ lest he get caught in circular reasoning because he defines Q as the relatedness between the potential altruist and the potential beneficiary and Q bar between one them and an average member of the population and since R and relatedness are the same thing according to him, that is a circular definition. However, what he was trying to say is that 'something' equals the right hand side of the equation and then he was challenging that 'something' would always equal R. If he had used in his definition of Q and Q bar the term "genes alike in state" instead of relatedness, then the equation would have been accurate but once relatedness is defined that way and he runs it through the formula again but using it with relatedness instead of "genes alike in state" the circularity is eliminated thus proving 'something' always equals R. This equation (perhaps independently derived) was in an unpublished paper given at a seminar in November of 1970 which evolved into Orlove 1975. (BU344M, Cornell Biometry department.) Mhuben (talk) 22:37, 4 December 2010 (UTC) (Transcribed over the phone for Mike Orlove.)

File:Orlove paper BU-344-M pg.4.tiff

Page 4 from BU-344-M showing how the unnumbered equation that follows Hamilton's inequality in Novak et al is derived. This is for clarification of the argument.

Orlove comments

In a phone conversation with Mike Orlove, he identifies problems following reference links using NetEcho and NetByPhone, which provide web browsing for the visually disabled over the phone. There are two styles of references that are used in this article: the standard wiki <ref></ref> doesn't correctly bring you to the reference, but instead takes you to the beginning of the current article. Mike proposes using the older system of simple text to make this accessible to disabled people. It would be a good thing in any event to be consistent in the reference styles. Does anybody else have problems following references with a different browser? Safari seems to work properly.

Mhuben (talk) 13:40, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

An issue like this should be raised at WP:VPT where a bunch of highly experienced techos are likely to provide useful feedback. Please make your report precise with an example: At this section, clicking the ^[10] in the last paragraph should jump to "Maynard Smith, 1995". However, using ...[what exactly?]... it jumps to the top of the article. Specify whether this happens for all references in all articles (i.e. click a few refs in a few articles: does it ever work?). If WP:VPT does not help, ask User:Graham87. Johnuniq (talk) 02:21, 28 November 2010 (UTC)