Survival of the Adequate

[Daemon Sophic]

Welcome...Always great to have another biologist around! :jiggy:

I do believe that Darwin did use "survival of the fittest" in the fifth edition of "Origin" but you are right.. it was Spencer who coined the term.

Anyway... I think the problem lies in what people think of as "fit". There is a misconception that "fitness" means being physically perfect for a given environment. While Darwin viewed fitness as simply the ability to produce offspring that would survive.

In the wild those that reproduce are by the vary nature of biological fitness... the fittest.
(thus my sister is biologically more 'fit' than I am... she has seven children, while I have just one)

wa:do

Hey Painted Wolf, long time no read.
I agree all around. However, I would throw out there that all of these suppositions about our world evolving toward a 'land of the bubbas' are limited, in that they consider evolution only from a single planetary biosphere point of view. Not from the point of view considering a species' continued existence.....from the interstellar point of view.
Please bear with me.
65 million years ago, the Earth was populated by innumerable species that were faster, stronger, fiercer, etc... than we are. But they were not very bright. 64,999,900 years ago....they're all dead.
A few hundred million years before that. Same story.
A few hundred million before THAT. Same story again.
As Steven Hawking has attested; it is imperative that we get sustainable colonies OUT of this solar system. Otherwise, our species (bubbas or brainiacs) is toast.

I agree that evolution does seem to be culling us all toward mediocracy. However, if we are to continue our existence (or if ANY future species hundreds of millions of years hence) is to continue surviving, then we MUST cultivate enough intelligence and unity of workforce to get offworld, and seed other star systems. Otherwise, our "bubba bones" will be examined by insectoid archeologists mixed in with the dust of the big meteorite that stomped us out of existence.

Looking at it from that point of view....."survival of the adequate" on an interstellar level, means survival of only those species having the wherewithal to get out of their home star system.

P.S. - We are, by all indications, the first and only species so far, to even conceive of such a feat.
Perhaps there is hope for your nieces and nephews (and your own child) yet.

[/ramble]

 

[painted wolf]

I don't agree with the "bubbas" idea at all... Intelligence is mostly a product of culture, education and nutrition. Genetics has a minor role to play.

I only dispute the common misconception of 'fitness'... in ecology/biology fitness is a measure of reproductive success.

wa:do

 

[Ozzie]

Hello all,

As a biologist by trade, I always find the topic of evolution to be quite interesting.
While this topic has clearly been addressed throughly on this site, I thought I would make point for discussion:

While "survival of the fittest" is a often seen as the central theme of evolution, it was never expressed in this manner by Darwin and can be expressed as a 'layman' term. Evolution is better described as 'survival of the adequate', meaning those adequate enough to survuve to reproducing age and reproduce will pass their genes on to the next generation. This partially explains why the process of evolution does not attain perfection and why species often carry fatal genetic predispositons.

Cheers

I like the "survival of the fittest" rather than "survival of the adequate" because the latter is so full of hindsight, while the former is so full of hope. Actually, only the adequate have the fitness to continue, although that is a fait accompli.

 

[George Campbell]

I think we could strip this down further to "survival of those who survived to reproduce." Considering the number of people who don't seem to understand even this fundamental concept, we should really break it down to the nuts and bolts for them.

It's very possibly a fruitless quest. Those who were thoroughly indoctrinated as infants and small children seem to be lacking in worldly logic. Am I wrong in my observations?

 

[sonofskeptish]

Hello all,

As a biologist by trade, I always find the topic of evolution to be quite interesting.
While this topic has clearly been addressed throughly on this site, I thought I would make point for discussion:

While "survival of the fittest" is a often seen as the central theme of evolution, it was never expressed in this manner by Darwin and can be expressed as a 'layman' term. Evolution is better described as 'survival of the adequate', meaning those adequate enough to survuve to reproducing age and reproduce will pass their genes on to the next generation. This partially explains why the process of evolution does not attain perfection and why species often carry fatal genetic predispositons.

Cheers

Good point. And in the case of humans, it's now "survival of the priviledged"... no longer do we survive by being the fittest, or the most adequate, but rather, the circumstances we are (priviledged to be) born into. The sick, weak child born in the 1st world survives, while the comparitively stronger, "fitter" child born in the 3rd world doesn't.

 

[Jose Fly]

I don't agree with the "bubbas" idea at all... Intelligence is mostly a product of culture, education and nutrition. Genetics has a minor role to play.

I'm not sure anyone can say that with that level of certainty. In a lot of ways, we have a tough time even saying what "intelligence" is, let alone quantifying it.

An example I have a tough time ignoring comes from my own family. An aunt on my mom's side had three kids. The oldest was fathered by a man who never married my aunt, never saw his kid, or had anything to do with her at all. The other two were fathered by the man my aunt married. But as far as they all knew, he was the father of all three. My aunt never once even hinted to any of them that he wasn't.

The man she married was, quite frankly, an idiot. Didn't have a lick of common sense or reasoning skills, and as a result the rest of the family was always bailing them out. He would do the most bizarre things and when they didn't work out (and they never did), my aunt would have to come to the rest of us and ask for help. Sometimes it was financial, sometimes it was other things, like "fix this giant gaping hole in the roof because my husband thought it would be neat to have a skylight, so he tore out the roofing (in the middle of winter), but then realized he had no idea how to install a skylight, nor did he have the money to buy one".

When he died, they found out he hadn't been paying the mortgage for a long time and was instead sending the money to a "friend" to pay back some other failed business venture, even though he was under no obligation to do so. IOW, he was risking his family's home. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Simply put, as I said the guy was a flat-out idiot.

Now, all three kids grew up in the same house, were raised the same way, and as far as they knew were all fathered by the idiot. And the two youngest were (and still are) just like their dad. Always struggling, always making the most bizarre, idiotic decisions you can imagine. I'm talking about the kind of things that make any average person stop and say "What the heck?".

But not the oldest. She has always been much more intelligent than her siblings. She always did very well in school and has always been very bright and articulate. Last I heard, she was working on her doctorate. Compare that with her siblings, only one of whom made it through high school (and just barely at that).

As an FYI, she did eventually find out that she had a different father. She told me "I always felt like I was different, now I know why".

Now I realize this is just one example and there may be other factors at play, but having watched this quite closely for a long time, I have a very hard time coming up with some other explanation for the extreme difference in "intelligence" levels between her and her siblings. Nutrition, culture, upbringing...all those things were essentially the same. The primary variable was genetics. So when someone says to me that genetics don't play much of a role in intelligence, I'm extremely reluctant to simply take their word for it. It's going to take a lot of hard data and solid analysis to convince me otherwise.

 

[Gabethewiking]

I'm not sure anyone can say that with that level of certainty. In a lot of ways, we have a tough time even saying what "intelligence" is, let alone quantifying it.

An example I have a tough time ignoring comes from my own family. An aunt on my mom's side had three kids. The oldest was fathered by a man who never married my aunt, never saw his kid, or had anything to do with her at all. The other two were fathered by the man my aunt married. But as far as they all knew, he was the father of all three. My aunt never once even hinted to any of them that he wasn't.

The man she married was, quite frankly, an idiot. Didn't have a lick of common sense or reasoning skills, and as a result the rest of the family was always bailing them out. He would do the most bizarre things and when they didn't work out (and they never did), my aunt would have to come to the rest of us and ask for help. Sometimes it was financial, sometimes it was other things, like "fix this giant gaping hole in the roof because my husband thought it would be neat to have a skylight, so he tore out the roofing (in the middle of winter), but then realized he had no idea how to install a skylight, nor did he have the money to buy one".

When he died, they found out he hadn't been paying the mortgage for a long time and was instead sending the money to a "friend" to pay back some other failed business venture, even though he was under no obligation to do so. IOW, he was risking his family's home. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Simply put, as I said the guy was a flat-out idiot.

Now, all three kids grew up in the same house, were raised the same way, and as far as they knew were all fathered by the idiot. And the two youngest were (and still are) just like their dad. Always struggling, always making the most bizarre, idiotic decisions you can imagine. I'm talking about the kind of things that make any average person stop and say "What the heck?".

But not the oldest. She has always been much more intelligent than her siblings. She always did very well in school and has always been very bright and articulate. Last I heard, she was working on her doctorate. Compare that with her siblings, only one of whom made it through high school (and just barely at that).

As an FYI, she did eventually find out that she had a different father. She told me "I always felt like I was different, now I know why".

Now I realize this is just one example and there may be other factors at play, but having watched this quite closely for a long time, I have a very hard time coming up with some other explanation for the extreme difference in "intelligence" levels between her and her siblings. Nutrition, culture, upbringing...all those things were essentially the same. The primary variable was genetics. So when someone says to me that genetics don't play much of a role in intelligence, I'm extremely reluctant to simply take their word for it. It's going to take a lot of hard data and solid analysis to convince me otherwise.

Your post point to that you consider intellect genetical, something that most would aggressively refuse to accept, as no doubt you know.

As for more subjective points, I can point to my own Father, having 5 children with 4 woman/Wifes. 4 of them (me included) are hardworking decent people, but the fifth, my "direct" brother (same mother) is a moron. No, wait, that is not fair to say. He shows the CAPACITY for intellect, he HAS what it takes, great intellect as well, but he made the CHOICE to be a nobody, a idiot living a no-life doing nothing. He will either end up in prison or die on the street, this is my calculated guess.

Now we where raised the same, and all other kids my father have went good, one did not. Culture is certainly part of it, no one would ever say anything different, but how much is genetic? Who knows, certainly a certain kind. look at Creationist, most of them are just like their parents, WE blame the poor education they get, but perhaps their genetic structure is also to blame.

I give no opinion about it at this point. I admit my ignorance.

 

[painted wolf]

Jose, have you read Gould's "mismeasure of man"? I highly recommend it, even if it is a little old.

You can not rule out eppigenetic factors and the environment in the womb. No pregnancy is the same... folate levels before conception, timing and amount of hormones and so on.

Twin studies have shown no reliable correlation between genetics and IQ. It's simply an all too easy bias to slip into.

wa:do

 

[Daemon Sophic]

I don't agree with the "bubbas" idea at all... Intelligence is mostly a product of culture, education and nutrition. Genetics has a minor role to play.

I only dispute the common misconception of 'fitness'... in ecology/biology fitness is a measure of reproductive success.

wa:do

I'm not sure I follow.

Culture, education, and nutrition are all part of fitness.
Seal cubs are taught to swim. Lion cubs are taught to hunt. Chicken chicks are taught to peck. These things are not genetic. If parents (or others) don't teach the young well, then the species dies out.

I believe that someone once stated that evolution/'fitness' in ecology/biology is the ability to have offspring, and assuring that those offspring will reproduce.
You might be the sexiest/healthiest/financially successful man or woman alive. You might mate with your female or male counterpart and bear 'perfect' children.
But if you don't feed them or shelter them, then your line will die out.
If you don't teach them to brush their teeth or take baths, then your line will likely come to an end.
If you don't educate them, then your genes might pass on for a while, but you (evolutionarily speaking) are much better off by seeing that your kids are as successful as you (or more so).

 

[painted wolf]

no... just intelligence. I was referring to the erroneous notion that IQ is something that can be selected for genetically.

In biology the only measure of fitness is reproductive output. This can also include "inclusive fitness" which measures communal infant care.

wa:do

 

[Jose Fly]

Jose, have you read Gould's "mismeasure of man"? I highly recommend it, even if it is a little old.

You can not rule out eppigenetic factors and the environment in the womb. No pregnancy is the same... folate levels before conception, timing and amount of hormones and so on.

Twin studies have shown no reliable correlation between genetics and IQ. It's simply an all too easy bias to slip into.

I haven't read that from Gould. I'll have to look into it. Thanks.

I'm not really ruling out anything, but given the circumstances I described, there's definitely something beyond mere culture, education, and nutrition going on. All of those variables were essentially the same.

 

[Jose Fly]

Painted Wolf,

Out of curiosity, I did a quick search on genetics and intelligence and came across this Wiki article that seems to provide a decent summary.

A few things caught my eye, especially the ones related to your comment about studies done with twins.

In the case of the inheritance of IQ or a certain degree of giftedness, the relatives of probands with a high IQ exhibit a comparably high IQ with a much higher probability than the general population. In 1982, Bouchard and McGue reviewed such correlations reported in 111 original studies in the United States.[13] The mean correlation of IQ scores between monozygotic twins was 0.86, between siblings, 0.47, between half-siblings, 0.31, and between cousins, 0.15. From such data the heritability of IQ was estimated at anywhere between 0.40 and 0.80 in the United States. The reason for this wide margin appeared to be that the heritability of IQ rises through childhood and adolescence, peaking at 0.68 and 0.78 in adults, leaving the overwhelming majority of IQ differences between individuals to be explained genetically.[14]
The finding of rising heritability with age is counter-intuitive; it is reasonable to expect that genetic influences on traits like IQ should become less important as one gains experiences with age. However, that the opposite occurs is well documented. According to work by Robert Plomin, heritability estimates calculated on infant samples are as low as 20%, rising to around 40% in middle childhood, and ultimately as high as 80% in adult samples in the United States.[15] This suggests that the underlying genes actually express themselves by affecting a person's predisposition to build, learn, and develop mental abilities throughout the lifespan.[citation needed]

In 2006, The New York Times Magazine listed about three quarters as a figure held by the majority of studies.[10] A 2004 meta-analysis of reports in Current Directions in Psychological Science gave an estimate of around three quarters as well.[9] As well, a 1996 statement by the American Psychological Association gave about .45 for children and about .75 during and after adolescence.[8] The 2005 edition of Assessing adolescent and adult intelligence by Alan S. Kaufman and Elizabeth O. Lichtenberger found correlations of 0.86 for identical twins raised together compared to 0.76 for those raised apart and 0.47 for siblings.[16] A 1994 review in Behavior Genetics based on identical/fraternal twin studies found that it is as high as 0.92 in general cognitive ability but it also varies based on the trait, with .60 for verbal tests, .50 for spatial and speed-of-processing tests, and only .40 for memory tests.[6]

So it would seem that even at the low end, and even if we fully adopt some of the other findings looking at other factors (especially the fetal environment studies described in the Wiki article), genetics may play at least a 25-40% role in intelligence. Moving to the middle or to the upper ends makes genetics the primary determinant of intelligence.

Thus, I would have to say that assertions that genetics are only a minor, or insignificant factor in intelligence are a bit misguided.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

I don't agree with the "bubbas" idea at all... Intelligence is mostly a product of culture, education and nutrition. Genetics has a minor role to play.

A wife when asked why her huband was such a jerk commented that it could be genetic or it could be environmental.

Genetically he came from a long line of jerks.

Environmentally, he came from a long line of jerks.

 

[painted wolf]

A wife when asked why her huband was such a jerk commented that it could be genetic or it could be environmental.

Genetically he came from a long line of jerks.

Environmentally, he came from a long line of jerks.

Nice... :biglaugh:

 

[painted wolf]

Thus, I would have to say that assertions that genetics are only a minor, or insignificant factor in intelligence are a bit misguided.

I think given the nature and history of Intelligence measurement that it's best to err on the side of caution.

wa:do

 

[painted wolf]

Culture, education, and nutrition are all part of fitness.
Seal cubs are taught to swim. Lion cubs are taught to hunt. Chicken chicks are taught to peck. These things are not genetic. If parents (or others) don't teach the young well, then the species dies out.

I believe that someone once stated that evolution/'fitness' in ecology/biology is the ability to have offspring, and assuring that those offspring will reproduce.
You might be the sexiest/healthiest/financially successful man or woman alive. You might mate with your female or male counterpart and bear 'perfect' children.
But if you don't feed them or shelter them, then your line will die out.
If you don't teach them to brush their teeth or take baths, then your line will likely come to an end.
If you don't educate them, then your genes might pass on for a while, but you (evolutionarily speaking) are much better off by seeing that your kids are as successful as you (or more so).

It may be important for humans and other mammals to invest so much in offspring. (this is called K selection)... but many species do just fine in producing thousands of young with no care what so ever. (r selection)
Having your own offspring reproduce is important... but that is their fitness not yours. If all your offspring from a particular year die and you live to reproduce again, then it's no big problem. Biologically a lot of effort goes into reducing parent/offspring competition, but it still happens... Ultimately parents look after their own fitness, though in highly social/inclusive species this varies.

wa:do

 

[Jose Fly]

I think given the nature and history of Intelligence measurement that it's best to err on the side of caution.

Perhaps, but at the very least one cannot go around making assertions that genetics doesn't play much of a role in intelligence, especially via appeals to studies done with twins. Because the best data we have indicates the exact opposite.

 

[painted wolf]

I'd have to read the studies and see how they measured Intelligence, how the twins were raised and so on... I'm not going to take Wiki's say so... I've seen reports on studies that say the opposite. So, I'm not going to accept on the face of it that that is the "best data".

Again, I'm going to err on the side of caution.

some other quotes from your wiki article.

Eric Turkheimer and colleagues (2003), not using an adoption study, included impoverished US families. Results demonstrated that the proportions of IQ variance attributable to genes and environment vary nonlinearly with SES. The models suggest that in impoverished families, 60% of the variance in IQ is accounted for by the shared family environment, and the contribution of genes is close to zero; in affluent families, the result is almost exactly the reverse.[55] They suggest that the role of shared environmental factors may have been underestimated in older studies which often only studied affluent middle class families.[56]

*emphasis mine

Dickens and Flynn (2001) argue that the arguments regarding the disappearance of the shared family environment should apply equally well to groups separated in time. This is contradicted by the Flynn effect. Changes here have happened too quickly to be explained by genetics. This paradox can be explained by observing that the measure "heritability" includes both a direct effect of the genotype on IQ and also indirect effects where the genotype changes the environment, in turn effecting IQ. That is, those with a higher IQ tend to seek out stimulating environments that further increase IQ. The direct effect can initially have been very small but feedback loops can create large differences in IQ.

*emphasis mine

IQ is a very complex factor... the genetics behind it are polygenic, that is it's several genes that have influence (and even compete) and thus it's difficult to pin down the entire genetic factor.
(the genetics behind IQ are actually similar to the genetics behind skin color... as both are polygenic traits... both are influenced by eppigenetic factors)

wa:do

 

[Jose Fly]

PW,

I agree that there's still much to be learned on the subject. I do find your change in tone to be rather interesting though. At first you spoke quite confidently about the issue, saying things like, "Intelligence is mostly a product of culture, education and nutrition. Genetics has a minor role to play", and "Twin studies have shown no reliable correlation between genetics and IQ", but upon being presented with references to data that indicate otherwise (especially the twin studies showing the opposite of what you claimed), suddenly you were all about "caution".

Is there something distasteful to you about intelligence being genetically determined? Is there some reason why when the data seems to point this way your reaction shifts rather dramatically?

EDIT: And I trust I won't see you link to any Wiki articles in the future?

 

[Jose Fly]

And BTW, the Wiki article was just a convenient link that covered most of the information I ran across. But if it's insufficient, you might find this interesting...

I.Q. - Genetics or Environment

While the effect of environment can not reasonably be dismissed as a factor on intelligence, a much more stringent argument has been and continues to be waged. This argument centers on the effect of genetics and heritability on the development of intelligence in humans. Genetic determination is the combination of genes that makes us what we are, or creates a characteristic. For example, our genes determine that we have five toes. Heritability, contrastingly, is what causes differences in those characteristics. For example, how genetic differences cause a variation in the number of toes: some people are born with six toes. An estimate of the heritability of a trait tries to indicate how much of the variance of that given trait is due to genetic differences. This number is characterized by a decimal, or .XX. Some have argued that this estimate is as high as .75, meaning that fully 75% of all IQ variances can be attributed to genetic differences. Studies have shown this to be high, except in monozygotic (MZ) twins raised together. These twins share the same exact genotype. In this case, the correlation was as high as .88. In the study of MZ twins raised apart, the correlation was as high as .75. In contrast, Dizygotic twins, who share 50% of their genes on average, had a correlation factor of .53 when growing up together and .46 when raised separately. This seems to indicate that similarity of a genetic component has a direct influence on IQ scores. At the very least, it indicates a much higher influence than that of non-related children having a correlation of just .17 (Loehlin, Lindzey, and Spuhler, 1975).

EDIT: Genetics and Intelligence, Robert Plomin, Ph.D. Yale

Genetic research has made important discoveries about intelligence during the past few decades. To outline some of these findings, I won’t spend space on the measurement of intelligence except to say that what I mean by intelligence is general cognitive ability defined as g. All reliable and valid tests of cognitive ability intercorrelate at a modest level—g is what they have in common. g is often assessed as a total score across diverse cognitive tests as in intelligence (IQ) tests, although it is more accurately indexed by an unrotated principal component that best reflects what is in common among the tests. Nearly all genetic data have been obtained using measures developed from this psychometric perspective, primarily IQ tests. One new direction for genetic research on intelligence is to investigate other measures such as information-processing and more direct measures of brain function such as evoked potentials, positron emission tomographic scans, and functional magnetic resonance imaging and to explain how these measures relate to g.
g clearly runs in families. The correlations for first-degree relatives living together average 0.43 for more than 8,000 parent–offspring pairs and 0.47 for more than 25,000 pairs of siblings. However, g might run in families for reasons of nurture or of nature. In studies involving more than 10,000 pairs of twins, the average g correlations are 0.85 for identical twins and 0.60 for same-sex fraternal twins. These twin data suggest a genetic effect size (heritability) that explains about half of the total variance in g scores.
Adoption studies also yield estimates of substantial heritability. For example, identical twins reared apart are almost as similar for g as identical twins reared together. Adoption studies of other first-degree relatives also indicate substantial heritability, as illustrated below by recent results from the Colorado Adoption Project (CAP). Model-fitting analyses based on dozens of adoption and twin studies estimate that about half of the total variance can be attributed to genetic factors. Genetic influence on g is not only statistically significant, it is also substantial, especially when compared to other research in the behavioral sciences that rarely explains 5% of the variance. Genetic research has moved beyond the question of heritability of intelligence to investigate developmental changes, multivariate relations among cognitive abilities, and specific genes responsible for the heritability of g.