Haldane's dilemma

Wesley R. Elsberry (welsberr@orca.tamu.edu)
Sat, 12 Apr 97 23:55:33 CDT

The topic was discussed on talk.origins back in 1995, with Walter
ReMine himself pressing the difficulties of Haldane's dilemma.
Andy Peters and Chris Colby asserted that Haldane's dilemma only
arose with a "hard selection" scenario; under "soft selection"
it just wasn't the problem that ReMine claimed. ReMine, of course,
remained unconvinced.

ReMine had also asserted that Haldane's dilemma could be seen in
the operation of evolution simulations. Upon this point, I
challenged ReMine to name the simulation which showed the difficulties
of HD, to specify how such difficulties were recognized or quantified,
and basically to have the whole issue put to empirical test. I offered
to modify an existing program to use the "soft selection" described
by Peters and Colby, and then we would see if the problems went
away as Peters and Colby asserted, or remained as ReMine asserted.

ReMine did not produce the name of the simulation that he had claimed
showed the problem, nor any indication of how one recognized the
problem in a simulation. It seems to me that he missed a great
opportunity to try out his idea.

Wesley