On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 01:51:22PM +0200, Telmo Menezes wrote: > Hi Alberto, >
> So who knows what our biological program looks like or how complex it is? > There are compelling reasons to think that it is very complex indeed. For > example: a counter-intuitive empirical observation is that the propensity > to procreate diminishes with prosperity. This simple observation already > falsifies the algorithm you propose. It could be that we have several modes > of operation: under scarcity try to have as much offspring as possible, > betting that some will make it -- this would be survival mode. Under > prosperity, bet on a high likelihood of survival of any offspring, and > instead avoid diluting the resources, in an attempt of maximising the > quality of the partners that your offspring can find. All of these is pure > speculation of course -- just like yours. > Biologists call your "survival mode" r-strategists (for r-selection). The other mode, involving extensive investment in offspring are known as K-strategists. Humans are inveterate K-strategists. Rabbits (or cockroaches) are r-strategists. The r and the K come from the logistic equation dx/dt = rx(1-x/K) where r is the reproductive rate (net of births & deaths) and K is the environmental carrying capacity. Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
