[Avery,Andrews 931002.0930]
(Rick Marken 931001)
The message from Gavan that you responded to bits of on csg-l wasn't
posted to it - could you post his whole response?
As for termite nests vs. crowd-rings, I think there is a significant
difference between the two cases, which is that there is probably
no selective pressure on people to produce crowd-rings, but there
is a lot of selective pressure on termites to produce nests, even
tho they don't know that they're doing this.
I think the real basis for the critique of this example is that it is
not at all clear that it is representative, especially for higher
animals - mostly, it seems to me, selectively significant effects have
to be actively perceived and controlled for, otherwise they do not
actually happen, for the usual reasons.
Avery.Andrews@anu.edu.au