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From: aalto@cc.helsinki.fi
Newsgroups: bionet.population-bio
Subject: Re: Average Fitness, Evolution of Sex and Others
Message-ID: <3377.271d7139@cc.helsinki.fi>
Date: 18 Oct 90 09:09:13 GMT
References: <3347.2719f222@cc.helsinki.fi> <1910@fcs280s.ncifcrf.gov>
Organization: University of Helsinki
Lines: 15

In article <1910@fcs280s.ncifcrf.gov>, toms@fcs260c2.ncifcrf.gov (Tom Schneider) writes:
> My second objection is that if fitness is the time geometric mean, then
> highly successful animals like the dinosaur and (yes) humans AND ALMOST
> ALL SPECIES have zero fitness, since most species die off eventually!
> 

It is not meaningful to speak about the fitness of a species. Only about
the fitness of an individual, genotype or a gene and only within a population.
A brilliant analysis of the problems of the concept of fitness is given by
Richard Dawkins in the chapter 'An Agony in Five Fits' in the book 'The
Extended Phenotype'.

Erkki Aalto
University of Helsinki
Finland