[FRIAM] Somethint to talk about tomorrow

[Nicholas Thompson]

All, 

Every once in a while, I run into a passage so sharp and well written that it rattles my whole world. The passage is from 

Bendor and Swistak (1998) 'Evolutionary Equilibria: CharacterizationTheorems and their Implications', Theory and Decision, 45, 99-159.  ( from pages 113-116]



For anybody doing game theory modelling it's a must read.  It also demonstrates (once again) the dangers of intentional-mentalistic  theoretical terms (in this case, "strategy") in modelling exercises.  The profound point for me is that selection for a behavior performed under a particular set of circumstances is NOT selection for a strategy, unless another strategy exists in the population that does not perform that behavior under those circumstances.  (Following the model of words like "isozyme", let us say that two strategies that produce the same behaviors under a given set of circumstances as "isoethic" (from ethology).  and say that the same two strategies may be "alloethic" under a different set of circumstances. )  Selection cannot occur between two strategies UNLESS they are alloethic.   Whether two strategies are allo- or iso-ethic is not solely a propery of them or even  of the relation between them but a property of the relation between them in relation to what other strategies are within the population!  The thing about this way of thinking that makes my palms sweat is suddently makes Waddington's concept of Genetic Assimilation totally transparent.  Before the heat shock procedure, there was isoethic variation in wing-formation genes; in the context of heat shock, this variation became alloethic, and could be selected.  

ANYWAY.  Dont read thompson, read the damn passage. 

NIck 
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