[extropy-chat] Seven cents an hour? (was: Riots in France)

[Eliezer S. Yudkowsky]

John K Clark wrote:
> "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience at pobox.com>
> 
>> Jef Allbright wrote:
>>
>>> Evolution does not say that today's organisms are necessarily more
>>> efficient than those that went extinct.
>>> I won't launch an (attempted) explanation at this time, since there's
>>> already enough going on.
> 
>> I don't have enough time either, but "me too" to this point of
>> evolutionary biology.
> 
> Gee Eliezer it's a real pity you don't have time to elaborate further
> because you ideas would revolutionize biology.

Already been done, by George C. Williams in "Adaptation and Natural 
Selection", 1966.  This book is now regarded as a classic, and the 60s 
revolution in evolutionary biology is sometimes called the "Williams 
Revolution" for the role the book played in starting it.

If allele A has an advantage over allele B in one environment, it does 
not follow that B cannot have an advantage over A given a different 
environment, a different ecology, or just a different species gene pool 
- other genes are also part of the selective environment.

Your remark about elephants and mastodons did not even refer to alleles, 
but to species; and species selection is a discredited concept.  Natural 
selection is about gene frequencies.  Not individuals, not groups, and 
not species.  For more I refer you to Williams's book, and no, I am not 
sending you to a fringe theorist; this is mainstream.

The problem with evolution is that anyone who knows even a little about 
evolution tends to regard themselves as an expert, just because they're 
comparing themselves to the creationists.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence