Natural Science Forum / Biology / Evolution / February 2005

Labels can be wonderful tools for
compressing voluminous, complex
parameters into a single whole --
even a whole that may be greater

I forgot to add that later on I tried to ask a supplementary question but
time had run out. It would have been: 'Do you think that our DNA is
programmed for religion'.

... he might have hypothesized that genes are small whole numbers.
For the context on this, I note the following in a post by A.C.H
on the thread entitled "50% Mutation".

Inspired by the BBC article sent to the group by Robert, let me
inquire if Robert, or any other member of the NG, might be able to
guide me to publications focusing -- rather than on the flora and
fauna living in low-oxygen environments (e.g., deep sea sediments, in

Age of ancient humans reassessed
Two skulls originally found in 1967 have been shown to be about 195,000
years old, making them the oldest modern human remains known to science.
The age estimate comes from a re-dating of Ethiopian rock layers close to

Hi. I was chatting to an acquaintance who claimed that the genetic
diversity of black Africans was greater than the genetic diversity of
all other human races. I found this puzzling, and asked why this was
true. He was not able to supply me with an answer, saying he could not

This posting is partly inspired by a recent exchange between Tim
Tyler and myself regarding NS simulation models and the notion
of "escalating damage".  It is also partly inspired by Walter
Remine's talk about the proper way to model Haldane's Dilemma.

It occurs to me that some of the confusion regarding kin selection and
group selection occurs because of a failure to distinguish the three
different roles that "the population" plays in our models.  There
are really three different "kinds" of populations.

The rates of biological processes increase between
2 and 4 times for each 10C rise in temperature throughout the
physiological range. Thus if the origin of life is dependent on
the rate of biological processes, and a temperature near

Are winning lottery tickets different from lottery
tickets that don't win in terms of their causative
properties?  Yes, No.
If they are different in terms of their causative

Microbes survive deep permafrost
By Becky McCall
Microbes in the Alaskan permafrost have been found living in temperatures as
low as minus 40 degrees Celsius.

Jason's question to the NG on this subject is grounds for
brainstorming we all might expand our thoughts (and
wish lists) from.
What if, between tree A and tree B (being of different

This new thread is intended to explore a simple situation where kin
selection is occurring. We can check whether Hamilton's conditions for
selection for an altruistic allele are correct in that case, or whether
there is an problem with Hamilton's argument, as Jim McGinn argues.