Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman)
Subject: Re: Restricted breeding (was Re: The Moat around God's Eye)
Organization: Oracle Corporation
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 14:09:06 GMT
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In article <762@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>In article <1992Jul24.070151.11069@oracle.us.oracle.com> mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:
>|In article <726@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:
>|>|1.  Don't have kids when we're crowded so that my species doesn't have
>|>|a boom and bust. 

>|>|2.  Don't have kids when we're crowded because I can more relibably
>|>|propagate my genes if I wait until we have more room.

>|>|Do you understnad the difference between these goals?

>|>Yes, but I maintain that in the long run they amount to the same thing.
>|>To achieve 2 effectively requires or entails achieving 1.

>|Not at all.  The degree of crowding necessary to make having children
>|a bad idea may be greater than the degree of crowding necessary to
>|have a bust.  The smaller the investment per child the more likely
>|this is to be true.

>Yep, and if this is so then the genes for smaller clutch size will spread,
>the population will stabilize as fecundity drops, and the bust will
>have been avoided.   Achieving 2 entails(implies) achieving 1.

Why should the genes for small clutch size spread given the premise -
that even in pre-bust situations having more kids is a more effective
strategy for the individual than restraint?

>|>If there is a crash, then *everyones* offspring are at risk, and no
>|>lineage is exempt for elimination, so a population that is prone to
>|>periodic major crashes is bad for *each* *individual*.

>|You miss two major points.  Your mechanism - reason 1 - has not
>|sanction for cheaters.  Mine, reason 2, does.

>I think the main issue is really that you are using a much more restrictive
>definition of 'purpose' than I am.  I do not require that 1) be the
>*direct* cause of the result, only that it be a related factor.
>(In a technical paper I would probably tend to be more precise, but that
>seems to be unnecessary in this sort of forum).

>My main point is not precisely about *causation* as about results.
>The two *effects* are tied together, and when one occurs so does the
>other.

>|Your mechanism can't work because once reason 2 comes into play busts
>|can't happen any more.  If an event never happens how can it put
>|evolutionary pressure on a species?

>That was part of my point.  You can't have one without the other.

Why can't we have number 2 without number 1?  As before, if number 1
never happens then it can't have any evolutionary sisgnificance.

>|>[r-strategists get around this by dispursing a significant portion of thier
>|>offspring out of the immediate area, and hopefully out of the range of
>|>the inevitable population crash, that is what makes them "weeds"].

>|True for some, but not others.  Look, for example, at a predator-prey
>|system.  Because it is so tough to predict future populations
>|predators oftne can't tell when breeding is a bad idea and starvation
>|and population busts are common.

>Most preadators I know of in detail tend to use the 'keep a spare' approach
>to children, they start by producing more than they expect to be able
>to support, and then lavish more attention on the few that they can actually
>support.  If they have a boom year, well then they manage to feed all of
>them, but in most years the smaller, less favored ones die (unless an accident
>or predation kills one of the favored, in which case there is a "spare"
>to take its place).

>This is called a compromise strategy, and is quite common.

Are you denying that predators often have booms and busts?
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Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written