The central, unresolved, problem with Fisher's Fundamental Theorem is parsing the heritable (Mendelian) factors from the uninheritable "environmental" factors. Hamilton, by transposing genes to the environment wrecks this categorical quotient: Heredity/Environment.

Both Fisher's Fundamental Theorem (FFT) and Hamilton's Rule can be derived from the Price Equation. The latter is in that sense more "fundamental", and it allows for non-Mendelian inheritance and non-genetic heritable factors as well.

FFT is not considered very fundamental at all by most evolutionary biologists (if they are even familiar with it).

Neo-Darwinism is bunk.

If you equate Neo-Darwinism with FFT, then your view is rather limited.

it is utterly irrelevant if Price made his contribution to theory as an evolutionist, creationist, or suicidal madman.

Yes indeed.

But in theory only Mendelian factors count as heritable. Even though Fisher's Theorem requires environments to be heritable too! In theory there is no such thing, defintively, as a heritable non-genetic factor. Existing multiple, parallel, and sequential systems of non-Mendelian inheritance are "theroetically" excluded.

Neo-Darwinism is bunk.

Regardless of whether Price (or Fisher!) was a lapsed evolutionary theorist or Born Again Creationist, or a lapsed Creationist converted to evolution. You are correct, Ravemo; it is utterly irrelevant if Price made his contribution to theory as an evolutionist, creationist, or suicidal madman.

JAllen: Besides I am sure you are working too hard on the OOL to bother with silly little details like proper quote attribuition.

I did mention that it was Thomas Edison who attributed his inventions to inspiration and perspiration. While it was actually genius he was explaining his inventions were the evidence of his genius.

You've made your point that MG's FLE is one of the great conceptual innovations in history, just leave it at that.

Why would I just leave it at that when it is inaccurate? I did not write that FLE was "one of the great conceptual innovations in history." What I actually wrote was "Mike's FLE concept is one of a long line of conceptual innovations that have occurred throughout history."

This thread is another case of comedy that writes itself - IDists complaining about "flippant" dismissal of published research.

I don't flippantly dismiss research. I have not done so with respect to any research relevant to the thread topic. I have however criticized OOL beliefs as faith based and related research results as empirically inadaquate many times. The critiques are not flippant. They are carefully thought out and I'm more than willing to engage OOL enthusiasts in discussions about specific research findings. A pattern has emerged over the years. When actual papers are analyzed we find the researchers making careful claims as to what is indicated and what is not which contrasts sharply with the claims of OOL ideologues.

Remember Pons & Fleischmann?

Yes.

I had the inspiration/perspiration reversed…

Yep. No need to fix it though. If corrected it would be a non sequitir. Besides I am sure you are working too hard on the OOL to bother with silly little details like proper quote attribuition. You've made your point that MG's FLE is one of the great conceptual innovations in history, just leave it at that.

If there is any scoffing it is justified by the difference between results and the faith based claims of OOL adherents.

Thank you. I mean, look at the dearth of results from the "hard working" ID community versus their faith based claims of what can and can't happen and what will and won't work. This thread is another case of comedy that writes itself - IDists complaining about "flippant" dismissal of published research.

BRADFORD and JOY:
Thanks for the good input to my question. I just finished writing Ken Miller, to see if he would be interested in reading the book.

You're welcome gore. It would be good to see Miller read The Design Matrix and even better to get some input from him.

Of the four articles you linked above, the first two are coverage of Lolle and Pruitt's original Nature article, and the last two have no relationship to "EAM" at all as far as I can tell. So this controversy involves one experiment from Lolle et-al with several followup experiments. So far only one group, Lolle's group, has seen this gene-reversion phenomena. The Weigel and Planck study simply suggests that genes mutate at a faster rate than expected and that even a compact genome contains significant redundancy. It doesn't suggest what mechanism "triggers" this evolution and it doesn't suggest this evolution only occurs in response to environmental changes and it certainly doesn't suggest the plant intentionally mutates itself somehow. It only says that plants very quickly evolve which helps them optimize survival to their environment. Optimization to the environment certainly sounds exogenous to me.

In short, I'd have to agree that you'll have to wait for your predictions about EAM to materialize.