I Had To Remove This Bit From My Book For A Simple Reason
And I think you would agree with me on?this
I wanted the simplest prose possible.
Before writing the zero draft, it was clear that most people would struggle to understand my concept. I had to find a way to break it down into simple, digestible bits.
Initially, the target was silly. I wanted everybody who could read to read. On one level, it is a good guide. Clarity was one of the goals.
On the other, I don’t know who specifically to market it to. Books are best sellers because they sell. For you to sell, you need to have a market. If you have none, how will you plan your strategy?
I was na?ve.
It happens when one does the things they love, usually at the initial stages. It comes even more to the fore when you hope to monetize it.
Later, I discovered my target readers were biologists, physicists, and citizen scientists.
For biologists, it was to highlight the new understanding of evolution distant from Darwinian concepts.
For physicists, it was to explain how thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum mechanics have a say in my theory in a direct way rather than the indirect constraints often highlighted in biology.
For citizen scientists, I was to open them to a new idea of evolution that they can pursue untethered by instituted academic boundaries.
When I wrote the book, I considered myself a citizen scientist.
More than that, I thought I was a rogue scientist.
Here I was, trying to contribute to a field I barely had any formal training in. All I knew was basically self-taught. Self-taught in the sense of doing individual research without enrollment to any school in evolution.
Thus, I knew rejection was inevitable.
Rejection is the order of the day for both budding and well-seasoned researchers.
E. O. Wilson and his team had a paper rejected because it contrasted the age-old concept of kin selection.
Lynn Margulis’ idea of symbiogenesis was rejected several times before its acceptance and eventual rise to the best paper in her department that year.
Roger Penrose, the Nobel Laureate, has had several rejections despite being one of the leading scientists in black hole theory.
I’ve had my share of rejected articles in the field I have special training in. What, then, should I expect from a different field?
Rejection is almost inevitable.
The strategy, then, was to be?clear
Writing has a way of revealing your stupidity.
Seth Godin’s shortest post highlights this succinctly:
The problem you can’t talk about is now two problems.
You have to define it first, then find its solution.
For a while, I struggled to find the best way to start. A few weeks before the global pandemic hit our country, I started writing it, but it didn’t come out the way I had pictured it. For days I rewrote the introduction.
Then one day, it became clear as day.
Probability.
That was the key.
Math can break down complex concepts into simple ones in the most efficient ways. It did that to my theory. The other concepts began to make a tonne of sense.
I doubt I would have been able to make this leap if I had not started writing.
Paul Graham reiterates how clear writing is a surrogate marker for clear thinking.
There are no good writers. Only good thinkers.
I believe?—?emphasis, believe?—?I cracked this barrier when I continued iteratively writing the introduction, making steps through editing and re-editing.
A month later, after edits and micro edits of the introduction, I made the decision to write.
I love reading, but I had to sacrifice it this one month. I decided not to read but write the entire book, day after day.
It was July, 2020.
I did just that.
I even did a whole repeat of the introduction, now that I had a better understanding of my theory. Every day, without failure, I wrote. The book jelled out of my fingers chapter after chapter.
On the 31st of July, I wrote the final words of the draft.
The biggest hurdle was the editing. I struggled with clarity. After every edit, the bar for clarity rose a notch higher. It gets higher every day now that I write daily.
But other than clarity, there’s one thing I wanted to leave out of my book.
It was math.
Most people don’t like equations
I tried.
At some point, it was inevitable.
Most people don’t like equations.
The simplest we know is:
E=MC2 (C squared).
The other simpler one is:
F=ma
But imagine an equation such as this:
Pa=1/N
Does it even make sense?
I’ll try to explain it in this article.
At the same time, I’ll try to simplify it for every reader who finds their way through to the end of this article.
Pa=1/N
This is the equation I used to show the identification of an organism.
This was a rough estimate for readers to understand the role of mergers. It, however, had a flaw. In case there is no merger, and an organism exists by itself, it cannot have a probability of annihilation of 1/1=1. So this equation is only a rough one.
But once you get it, it makes it easier to understand the next one:
T’a = 1-Pa
In probability, the prime is the result one gets from subtracting 1 from a probability.
Suppose the probability of getting an A is 1/9. We can abbreviate it as P(A). Thus, the probability of not getting an A is 1–1/9 = 8/9.
The P’(A) = 8/9. The P prime ‘A’.
If the probability of annihilation, Pa is 1/7, then the probability of no annihilation is 1–1/7= 6/7.
The P’a is 6/7.
If one replaces probability with tendency, then the tendency to avoid annihilation uses the same logic.
Thus, the tendency to avoid annihilation is 1?—?the probability of annihilation. One does not need to know the probability of annihilation. They just need to know it exists, in abstract form, as probability does.
Then using the same laws, subtract it from 1 to get the negated end?—?the probability of NOT being annihilated.
If you consistently are NOT being annihilated, then it can be argued that you have a tendency to avoid annihilation.
Let’s say your probability of annihilation is 1/1000.
It means that in 1000 attempts at killing you, only one will be successful. Thus, for 999 times, there is the chance of escaping annihilation.
We can then conclude that you have a tendency to avoid annihilation, simply because you have more successful than fatal outcomes. You tend to succeed rather than fail.
You have a tendency to avoid annihilation.
The symbol I eliminated from my?book
This is the symbol:
≥
The more accurate equation ought to be:
T’a ≥?1-Pa
It would mean that an organism has a tendency to avoid annihilation which can be greater than 1 minus the probability of annihilation.
At baseline levels –
T’a =?1-Pa
But the more comprehensive equation is:
Ta ≥?1-Pa
In all honestly, if my main intention is clarity, would most readers understand the second equation?
It is easier to get the idea from the former than the latter.
For that reason, I stuck with the latter equation. The inequality would likely scare readers away.
At some point, I had to talk about it and in this case, write about it. Mostly, to discuss the originality of my idea, but even more, to have evidence of my work out in the public.
Let this article serve as evidence of the equation explaining the theory of Organismal Selection.
As I?close…
This will be the first place I shall discuss this inequality.
I hope to discuss the other aspects in peer-reviewed journals and conferences.
For now, I share it with you, dear reader, for making it to this point of the article.
That is the equation that captures the whole essence of the theory of Organismal Selection.
But if you want to find out more about this theory, you can start with this article followed by this one.
Then you can give me your feedback.