Thanks a lot for this presentation and corresponding transcript. I am quite new to thinking about animal welfare at all, and even more about wildlife animal welfare, but I felt this presentation was easy to follow even from this point of view (my half decent knowledge of evolution might have helped).
I like the clarification of evolution, and more specifically, of the fact that natural selection selects away options with bad fitness or bad relative fitness, instead of optimizing fitness to the maximum. That’s a common issue when using theoretical computer science for modelingnatural systems: instead of looking for the best algorithms for our classical measures (like time or space), we need to take into account the specifics of evolution (some forms of simplicity in the algorithms for example) and not necessarily optimize completely.
On the level of details and nitpicks, I have a few comments:
I’m not sure I understand differential reproduction correctly. Is it the fact that (in your example) blue bears have more offsprings? Or that these offsprings use the advantage of being blue for having even more offsprings, which changes the proportion? Or both?
For the line representation, I think you wanted to define the line of all humans to be an inch long. Because without this, or a length for one individual, I cannot make sense of the comparison between the line of humans and the line of ants.
There is a red cross left in the background of the second “Assumptions of the Argument” slide, the one just after the example of rats and elephants.
I had never heard of exaptations! I am curious of some references to the literature in general, and maybe also to the specific example you gave about feathers.
The hypothesis in the last question that less cognitive power entails more pain, because the signal needs to be stronger in order to be treated and registered… that’s a fascinating idea. Horrible, of course, but I never thought about it that way. And that would be a counterweight to the “moral weight” argument about the relative value of different species.
Finally, on the specific topic of intervention for improving welfare, I have one worry: what of cases where two species have mutually exclusive needs? Something like a meat-eater species and the species it eats. In theses cases, I feel like evolution left us with some sort of zero-sum game, and there might be necessary welfare tradeoffs because of it.
Since this topic interests me and i’m killing time I decided to comment on a few things in your post.
1. wikipedia has a reasonable article on exaptations as an introduction. i also reccomend looking at the wikip article on sexual selection—in my view these topics overlap. (The wikip article on sexual selection looks less complete—i think ‘fisher’s runaway process’ described in that article is most relevant but some others prefer the ‘handicap principal’.
there are much more recent articles on these topics which tend to rely on physics formalism—though fisher used earlier forms of it as well. (fisher was a famous statistician).
2. regarding ‘differential reproduction’ (your 1st question) , i think the answer is ‘both’. (this overlaps with the fisher runaway process ).
being a blue bear might be like having a nice car or prestigious college degree. it may not mean much at all but once its around you better be a blue bear, have a nice car, or have a good college degree.
3. your last paragraph to me does support the idea that evolution is (almost ) a zero-sum game. Its not exactly zero sum, because then there would be no evolution. It might , for example, prove to be that the best way to improve animal welfare would be for those who care about it give them more room—this is the argument made by some well known philosophers—eg patricia macCormack—and writers who promote human extinction—i personally don’t believe this argument, and also don’t they believe they do either even if they don’t know it.
‘Maximizing fitness’ is an idea thatb only occurs in the most simplistic forms of evolutionary theory—and its also due to R Fisher—‘fisher’s fundamental theorem of natural selection’. Its well known it only applies to ideal systems. (analagous to Lucretius’ universe from 1000s of years ago—assuming the world is basically a set of billiard balls or atoms bouncing off of each other. its called ‘bean bag genetics’. it can explain why a cup of hot coffee cools off, but it cant explain why organisms evolve, much less why there are rocks, rivers, and computers rather than simply air. you need nonequilibrium statistical physics and quantum theory to explain those. )
Thanks a lot for this presentation and corresponding transcript. I am quite new to thinking about animal welfare at all, and even more about wildlife animal welfare, but I felt this presentation was easy to follow even from this point of view (my half decent knowledge of evolution might have helped).
I like the clarification of evolution, and more specifically, of the fact that natural selection selects away options with bad fitness or bad relative fitness, instead of optimizing fitness to the maximum. That’s a common issue when using theoretical computer science for modeling natural systems: instead of looking for the best algorithms for our classical measures (like time or space), we need to take into account the specifics of evolution (some forms of simplicity in the algorithms for example) and not necessarily optimize completely.
On the level of details and nitpicks, I have a few comments:
I’m not sure I understand differential reproduction correctly. Is it the fact that (in your example) blue bears have more offsprings? Or that these offsprings use the advantage of being blue for having even more offsprings, which changes the proportion? Or both?
For the line representation, I think you wanted to define the line of all humans to be an inch long. Because without this, or a length for one individual, I cannot make sense of the comparison between the line of humans and the line of ants.
There is a red cross left in the background of the second “Assumptions of the Argument” slide, the one just after the example of rats and elephants.
I had never heard of exaptations! I am curious of some references to the literature in general, and maybe also to the specific example you gave about feathers.
The hypothesis in the last question that less cognitive power entails more pain, because the signal needs to be stronger in order to be treated and registered… that’s a fascinating idea. Horrible, of course, but I never thought about it that way. And that would be a counterweight to the “moral weight” argument about the relative value of different species.
Finally, on the specific topic of intervention for improving welfare, I have one worry: what of cases where two species have mutually exclusive needs? Something like a meat-eater species and the species it eats. In theses cases, I feel like evolution left us with some sort of zero-sum game, and there might be necessary welfare tradeoffs because of it.
Since this topic interests me and i’m killing time I decided to comment on a few things in your post.
1. wikipedia has a reasonable article on exaptations as an introduction. i also reccomend looking at the wikip article on sexual selection—in my view these topics overlap. (The wikip article on sexual selection looks less complete—i think ‘fisher’s runaway process’ described in that article is most relevant but some others prefer the ‘handicap principal’.
there are much more recent articles on these topics which tend to rely on physics formalism—though fisher used earlier forms of it as well. (fisher was a famous statistician).
2. regarding ‘differential reproduction’ (your 1st question) , i think the answer is ‘both’. (this overlaps with the fisher runaway process ).
being a blue bear might be like having a nice car or prestigious college degree. it may not mean much at all but once its around you better be a blue bear, have a nice car, or have a good college degree.
3. your last paragraph to me does support the idea that evolution is (almost ) a zero-sum game. Its not exactly zero sum, because then there would be no evolution. It might , for example, prove to be that the best way to improve animal welfare would be for those who care about it give them more room—this is the argument made by some well known philosophers—eg patricia macCormack—and writers who promote human extinction—i personally don’t believe this argument, and also don’t they believe they do either even if they don’t know it.
‘Maximizing fitness’ is an idea thatb only occurs in the most simplistic forms of evolutionary theory—and its also due to R Fisher—‘fisher’s fundamental theorem of natural selection’. Its well known it only applies to ideal systems. (analagous to Lucretius’ universe from 1000s of years ago—assuming the world is basically a set of billiard balls or atoms bouncing off of each other. its called ‘bean bag genetics’. it can explain why a cup of hot coffee cools off, but it cant explain why organisms evolve, much less why there are rocks, rivers, and computers rather than simply air. you need nonequilibrium statistical physics and quantum theory to explain those. )