The Selfish Gene -Richard Dawkins

The Selfish Gene -Richard Dawkins

Prediction in a complex world is a chancy business. Every decision that a survival machine takes is a gamble, and it is the business of genes to program brains in advance so that on average they take decisions that pay off. The currency used in the casino of evolution is survival, strictly gene survival, but for many purposes individual survival is a reasonable approximation. If you go down to the water-hole to drink, you increase your risk of being eaten by predators who make their living lurking for prey by water-holes. If you do not go down to the water-hole you will eventually die of thirst. There are risks whichever way you turn, and you must take the decision that maximizes the long-term survival chances of your genes. Perhaps the best policy is to postpone drinking until you are very thirsty, then go and have one good long drink to last you a long time. That way you reduce the number of separate visits to the water-hole, but you have to spend a long time with your head down when you finally do drink. Alternatively the best gamble might be to drink little and often, snatching quick gulps of water while running past the water-hole. Which is the best gambling strategy depends on all sorts of complex things, not least the hunting habit of the predators, which itself is evolved to be maximally efficient from their point of view. Some form of weighing up of the odds has to be done. But of course we do not have to think of the animals as making the calculations consciously. All we have to believe is that those individuals whose genes build brains in such a way that they tend to gamble correctly are as a direct result more likely to survive, and therefore to propagate those same genes.

We can carry the metaphor of gambling a little further. A gambler must think of three main quantities, stake, odds, and prize. If the prize is very large, a gambler is prepared to risk a big stake. A gambler who risks his all on a single throw stands to gain a great deal. He also stands to lose a great deal, but on average high-stake gamblers are no better and no worse off than other players who play for low winnings with low stakes. An analogous comparison is that between speculative and safe investors on the stock market. In some ways the stock market is a better analogy than a casino, because casinos are deliberately rigged in the bank's favour (which means, strictly, that high-stake players will on average end up poorer than low-stake players; and low-stake players poorer than those who do not gamble at all. But this is for a reason not germane to our discussion). Ignoring this, both high-stake play and low-stake play seem reasonable. Are there animal gamblers who play for high stakes, and others with a more conservative game?

The Godfather of handicappers: Pittsburg Phil changed the game forever - By Ryan Goldberg

The Godfather of handicappers: Pittsburg Phil changed the game forever - By Ryan Goldberg

One of history’s greatest horseplayers, George E. Smith, better known as “Pittsburg Phil,” was collared in the paddock one day in the 1890s by a young Jacob Ruppert, then a businessman and Thoroughbred owner, later the owner of the New York Yankees. Ruppert needled him about the “easy life you lead. Just a few hours of pleasant work every afternoon out in the open air, and getting rich.”

Phil asked Ruppert why he only came to the races on Saturday or when a horse of his was running.

Because I have my business to handle, Ruppert answered.

“You don’t think, then,” Phil persisted, “that if a merchant only gave four or five hours a day to his business, he would be successful in it.”

“He might not last a year,” Ruppert said.

“Neither would I,” Phil said, “in the business of betting.”

Phil often said the reason most bettors lose is their unwillingness to put in the time. He once observed, “Playing the races appears to be the one business in which men believe they can succeed without special study, special talent, or special exertion.”

Shortly before he died, in 1905, of tuberculosis at age 43, Phil offered this counsel to a New York turf writer named Edward Cole. Cole was the only writer to whom Phil confided his methods. Three years later Cole published that wisdom in a book called “Racing Maxims and Methods of Pittsburg Phil.” The book went out of print for decades but found a second life, importantly, after it was reprinted in the 1960s.

Pittsburg Phil’s book provided a handicapping blueprint framed by anecdote and aphorism. Matching this style, the modern volumes of Tom Ainslie, Andrew Beyer, Steve Davidowitz, and others followed Phil’s original contribution. Seen this way, Phil was the first modern handicapper. He perfected the art of picking winners, and a century after his death his maxims and methods remain instructive, in some cases timeless.

Phil approached the game not only logically but philosophically. The lessons may sound like common sense, but only because they are now accepted handicapping wisdom:

A good jockey, a good horse, a good bet.

You cannot be a successful horse player if you are going to get the worst of the price all the time.

Watch all the horses racing closely.

Know when to put a good bet down and when not to. Don’t temper your bet to the price.

Phil was alone among the spectacular bettors of his time – a headline-grabbing era of high-rollers, sporting owners, and larger-than-life match races – in that he never went broke or lost his nerve betting ungodly sums of money. His scores put a dozen or more bookmakers out of business. When he died his estate came to almost $2 million, a sizable fortune in those days. Almost all of it came from playing the horses.

There can be no great success in betting the races without great commitment, hard work, due diligence, discipline, and realization of the "right type of thinking". It is our attitude, beliefs, and the best way to do anything ourselves is to learn something about it first.

Without knowledge of complex it is insane for us to embark on it. Everyone is an athlete. The only difference is that some of us are in training and some are not. Do think about it!

Prior embarking on this game we must first have the sense of what an athlete or an athlete in motion should look like and behave like. If we never watched or played sports in our life it might be difficult. Our mind at least notice the great athletes and the injured one and we should have a good look and see who is sickly. There is something to check for before we think we have found a great athlete whether or not that are actually physically talented or it is a flaw.

In all of horse racing there is only one disputable truth. That is the outcome of every race is uncertain and could never have been anticipated.

We are not being forced to be someone audience to their opinion. listening to someone opinion means that we have to decide or change our opinion, it is eithrt we will do something great or they are sincerely wrong.

The odds are complied by mere human beings and can be affected by weight of money from like minded individuals. Never let a price affect our selections process as we have already decided it is the winner. Don't let the price bother us. Just choose the horse we think will do the business. Prices don't really count. After all the horse does not know what price he has been offered at.

It is first hand info that we heard directly ourselves or was it the majority of it from a friend of a friend.

Genuine information is very rare as a rocking horse manure.

Take our time don't rush things by trying to win a lot of cash in a short space of time. We need a lot of luck to win a quick buck.

Whatever one uses, it is how data is interpreted.

We can make money on just about anything, as long as we correctly interpret the right information.

The horse conditions has more to do with winning or losing a race than the weight he carries. A horse in poor condition cannot beat one of his class. A high class horse cannot win a race with feather on his back if he is not in condition.

Fast and fit horses always win.

The unknown factors that can influence the outcome of the race are the form of the horse on the day of the race and the luck in running during the race. All sportsmen know the importance of the form on the day, if the sportsmen can have an off-day, so can the horse. We can't foresee the factor of luck during the race, so we can only trust that the jockey will do his best, although the run-style and effect of the draw can be very significant.

Handicapping is an a challenge. Betting is an art and Money Management is a chore.

There are no holy grail of finding a winner and will never be one, none whatsoever but there are simply one or two of many possible tools that can be used in conjunction with others. This game is a game of chance and it can only be well figured out to a certain extent. IMHO it is only through serious critical thinking, hard work, due diligence and discipline combine with patience and consistency. And through logic, observation and evidence we can win and stay ahead.

Selfish Gene Theory

Selfish Gene Theory

The modern refinement to Darwin's Theory of Evolution. All living creatures are made up of DNA segments which compete with segments from other creature's DNA and cause evolution through survival of the fittest.

A far better explanation of Selfish Gene Theory can be found at www.world-of-dawkins.com.

Very broadly:

Every creature, in the long-run, acts to maximize the number of its descendants. Any creature which does not act this way will eventually be out-bred by those who do. While a creature may have enough for its own needs the number of descendants it can have is bounded only by the resources around it. Hence creatures are generally insatiable.

This may seem wrong for humans, who have free will and are not mere programmable automaton, but in fact humans make logical decisions to satisfy their emotions, and human emotions are as murky and as illogical as any of those found in their animal counterparts.

Many of Charles Darwin's thoughts and opinions were strongly influenced by religion, and also the lack of understanding of DNA molecules, and of the process of information replication. We think of Darwin as being the creator of modern evolutionary theory, but in fact in retrospect he was confused about the subject, and a fuller understanding came much later, with the recognition of work by Gregor Mendel, and James Watson and Francis Crick's elucidation of the DNA molecule. Darwin was simply the first to publish suggestions that evolution occurred by a process of survival of the fittest.

The purpose of evolution is not, as Darwin suggested, survival of the species, it is simply the survival of the information in the genes of the individual. The individual is almost irrelevant to the genes - they are useful containers of the genetic code, but are in the final analysis expendable, and can be cast away if doing so can cause a greater reproduction elsewhere.

Life and evolution is pattern reproducing for no other reason than this: patterns which are good at reproducing tend to reproduce themselves - other patterns do not. The behavior we see in living things is simply behavior which has a history of causing replicating the patterns. The genetic code dictates behavior, and behavior changes the success of the replication process. The genetic codes which cause behavior which causes a more replication of the pattern becomes more prevalent.

This is what we call survival of the fittest. We talk about purpose of reproduction or the purpose of evolution because it helps to explain behavior and to focus on the process, but in fact it has no more purpose than a group of random numbers. We might say that evolution has created leaves which are green so that they can photo-synthesize, but in fact the process of evolution has merely selected for DNA patterns which generate green leaves because they were better at reproducing themselves than other forms of DNA.

We are used to things moving in a certain direction because they have a purpose - a wild animal goes hunting because it is hungry, for the purpose of finding food. Evolution too appears directed. Animals develop fur for the purpose of keeping warm and so on, but this does not mean that there truly a purpose behind it - just a mechanism which makes it happen.

Selfish Gene Theory regards the visible organism (the cat, human, flower, amoeba or whatever) as the host. It is like a big lumbering robot whose purpose is to replicate the genes it carries in its cells.

This is the essence of selfish gene theory. All common characteristics of living things have their roots in this phenomenon, including humans.

I really don't want to know

I really don't want to know

I really don't want to know

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