Natural Science Forum / Biology / Evolution / June 2008

Darwinism has always remained falsifiable. Popper confused Herbert
Spencer's infamous "survival of the fittest" tautology with Darwin and
Wallace's non tautologous "natural selection". Popper can hardly be
blamed because even a Neo Darwinist of the stature of W.D. Hamilton who
was contemporary with Popper (it was Hamilton who extended Haldane's
inclusive fitness concept which became popularized as Dawkins' selfish
genes) also confused the two. I cannot think of anybody who did more
damage to Darwinism than the philosopher Herbert Spencer.

It is Neo Darwinism which cannot be falsified. Darwinism represents the
only bona fide theory of evolution that we have. OTOH, Neo Darwinism
substitutes Darwinism with just an uncorrected, mathematically based
modeling oversimplification of that theory within which Total Darwinian
Fitness remains deleted. Total Darwinian Fitness (TDF), which represents
_THE critical fitness maximand_ of evolutionary theory, only allows a
single fitness constant per selectee per population providing just a
monocentric falsifiable frame of reference for fitness within
evolutionary theory. TDF: the total number of fertile forms reproduced
per parent per population. OTOH, Neo Darwinism allows a contradictory
polycentric concept of fitness via Hamilton's inclusive fitness because
only the one fitness maximand per selectee per population can be
rationally maintained.

A test to refutation of monocentric Darwinism is the following simple
deduction from that theory: if every TDF is held equal within one
population then no evolution within that population can occur as long as
this is situation is maintained. This is because natural selection is
the default comparison of every TDF per population such that only the
parent/s with the largest TDF can be selected for.

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

edser@ozemail.com.au