Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Selling Stupid

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Granville Sewell’s sin is pointing out the obvious that anyone can understand. This represents a tremendous threat. As David Berlinski has observed, Darwinists — who have invested their worldview and even their careers in Darwinian storytelling — react with understandable hostility when told that their “theory” is simply not credible.

It’s really easy to figure out that the Darwinian mechanism of random mutation and natural selection cannot possibly do that with which it is credited. Life is fundamentally based on information and information processing — a software computer program and its associated, highly functionally integrated execution hardware. Computer programs don’t write themselves, and they especially don’t write themselves when random errors are thrown into the code. The fact that biological computer programs can survive random errors with remarkable robustness is evidence of tremendously sophisticated fault-tolerance engineering. The same goes for the hardware machinery of life.

One of my specialties in aerospace R&D engineering is guidance, navigation and control software. The task of designing GN&C algorithms and the associated hardware that would permit an ornithopter to land on a swaying tree branch in gusting wind is so far ahead of our most sophisticated human technology that we can only dream about such a thing. Yet, birds do this with ease.

Darwinists want us to believe that this all came about through a process of throwing monkey wrenches in working machinery and introducing random errors into highly sophisticated computer code.

In addition, they argue that because the sun provides energy available to do work, all the obvious engineering hurdles can be dismissed as irrelevant to the discussion.

This is simply not credible.

In fact, it’s downright stupid.

Selling stupid is a tough assignment.

No wonder Darwinists have their panties in a bunch.

Comments
I like Word Mutagenation. It nicely demonstrates cumulative selection.Indium
July 13, 2011
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Bflockquote>Does the demo illustrate “the power of cumulative selection”? Unlike Weasel, Itatsi explores any and all of "functional space". It does not have a target. It ranks fitness not by closeness to a target, but by the sum of the fitness of genes. In this case, genes are letter pairs, triplets, etc. that occur in dictionary words. Although you don't need a target, it makes no sense to call something a GA if there is no way to assign fitness. What I find interesting is that Itatsi makes novel words. Words that are not in the dictionary, but which are obviously pronounceable and which look like words. And it can do it in any language that uses the 26 letter alphabet. If you watch a number of demo runs you will notice that it doesn't get stuck trying to reach a specific target. That is because an asteroid comes along occasionally and kills off the "most fit" individual. Making it possible to branch in unexpected directions. It's an exploration of functional space, and it makes it clear that at least some spaces have fitness gradients that are connectable by incremental steps.Petrushka
July 11, 2011
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Nice. Does the demo illustrate "the power of cumulative selection"?Mung
July 11, 2011
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To be more realistic we could perhaps examine the progeny for realistic english words and use the number of identified words as a measure of fitness.
http://itatsi.com Try the default demo.Petrushka
July 9, 2011
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fallacy [?fæl?s?] n pl -cies 1. an incorrect or misleading notion or opinion based on inaccurate facts or invalid reasoning [ --> or emotional manipulation of perceptions or distraction etc] 2. unsound or invalid reasoning 3. the tendency to mislead 4. (Philosophy / Logic) Logic an error in reasoning that renders an argument logically invalid [from Latin fall?cia, from fallax deceitful, from fallere to deceive] Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003 --> If fallacies were not persuasive, we would not have to be warned against them!kairosfocus
July 9, 2011
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Mung- In my version we shall assume, for the sake of argument, that the “intermediate” strings are a feature of the environment that offers a selective advantage to the closest matching string(s). . . IOW, as soon as you step out of Dawkins’s fictitious world into the real world there is no “power of cumulative selection” worth demonstrating. The string against which the "organisms" are judged represents the environment in the WEASEL program. That is the case whether you are using the intermediate strings you propose, or the distant string as in the original. If you change the string (environment) in random ways in every generation, then there will be no cumulative selection because the changes that get closer to one string will not necessarily be closer to the next string. If there were chaotic changes in the real world environment in a time frame less than a generation, then evolution would not be effective at creating anything.Walter Kloover
July 8, 2011
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Targeted search that rewards nonsense — non functional — phrases on advances in mere proximity?
Yet another "important way" in which the the Dawkins program is misleading! In my version we shall assume, for the sake of argument, that the "intermediate" strings are a feature of the environment that offers a selective advantage to the closest matching string(s). Surely that is at least as "realistic" as the Dawkins program. To be more realistic we could perhaps examine the progeny for realistic english words and use the number of identified words as a measure of fitness. Wait, hasn't this all been tried before? By monkeys, no less? IOW, as soon as you step out of Dawkins's fictitious world into the real world there is no "power of cumulative selection" worth demonstrating.Mung
July 8, 2011
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I intend to write my program in Ruby. http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ It's a wonderful language that I actually enjoy (gasp!) using to write programs. You can download Ruby from the downloads page. http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads/ If you're running Windows, I suggest using the Ruby 1.9.2-p180 RubyInstaller. It's free. Open source.Mung
July 8, 2011
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Elizabeth Liddle:
Mung, I simply do not understand your version.
You're an intelligent person. You've written your own WEASEL program(s). I find it hard to believe that you don't understand the program I propose to write. Certainly, if you wanted to, you could write it yourself.
And it doesn’t remove the biggest dissimilarity with biology, because you still have a single target to which there is a single solution.
I intend to introduce multiple targets. A new "intermediate" target every generation. My #2. At no point would the string used as the parent for the next generation be chosen based on comparison to the final target phrase. This is a MAJOR difference from Dawkins. Don't you agree? Quoting Dawkins: "...the mutant ‘progeny’ phrases were judged according to the criterion of resemblance to a distant ideal target"
Biological evolution has multiple targets to which there are multiple solutions.
That's irrelevant, actually. But we can deal with that in later versions. Let's get over that first hurdle first. My version proposes a different target every generation. Each string in the population is a possible solution. But please get it out of your head right now that I am proposing to accurately model evolution. Dawkins's WEASEL does not do so and neither shall mine. (At least not at first.) All I'm concerned about is that mine model evolution at least as well as the Dawkins version, if not better. First, we're going to get rid of that oh so non-Darwinian criterion of resemblance to a distant ideal target that every mutant progeny is judged against. Do you just not understand how I propose to do that, or do you assert that I intended to still use that final target phrase as a criterion of fitness? The real debate is over "the power of cumulative selection." What happens to it when we dispense the final target phrase as the judge of "fitness"? Do we still get there in 43 generations? I'd bet the farm! While I retain the "final target phrase" it's no longer there as an ideal. It has no impact on whether a mutant progeny lives or dies. It has no effect on reproductive success. It's only there now to let us know if we've hit it. To be sure, Dawkins admitted his program "is misleading in important ways." He tells us what one of those ways is. You've identified yet another. So now let's test to see just how important those misleading aspects of the program are to his argument, and what happens to his demonstration when you dispense with the misleading bits of it. Interested?
For instance a target might be “be inconspicuous to predators” and solutions might include camouflage, disruptive patterning, movement habits, decoy patterns etc. But “attract a mate” might be another target, and some of the solutions to this target may conflict with solutions to the first.
Why is it, do you suppose, that Dawkins did not incorporate all these things into his program?
WEASEL is simple to a fault, in that it has one target to which there is one solution.
Simple to a fault as a figure of speech? Or do you mean it had only one fault, in spite of Dawkins's own admission that it is "misleading in important ways."
With the proviso of that vast oversimplification, the actual mechanism is the same as is posited in biology.
That cannot possibly be the case. The fact that you, as a very intelligent and educated person think so, highlights just how fraudulent the program really is.Mung
July 8, 2011
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Targetted search that rewards nonsense -- non functional -- phrases on advances in mere proximity?kairosfocus
July 8, 2011
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Mung, I simply do not understand your version. And it doesn't remove the biggest dissimilarity with biology, because you still have a single target to which there is a single solution. Biological evolution has multiple targets to which there are multiple solutions. For instance a target might be "be inconspicuous to predators" and solutions might include camouflage, disruptive patterning, movement habits, decoy patterns etc. But "attract a mate" might be another target, and some of the solutions to this target may conflict with solutions to the first. WEASEL is simple to a fault, in that it has one target to which there is one solution. With the proviso of that vast oversimplification, the actual mechanism is the same as is posited in biology.Elizabeth Liddle
July 8, 2011
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hi kairosfocus, Most of those versions of WEASEL suffer from the same flaw as does Dawkins' version. They use their knowledge of the final target phrase to direct the search to the solution and find it without fail. As Dawkins says, that's misleading:
...it is misleading in important ways. One of these is that, in each generation of selective ‘breeding’, the mutant ‘progeny’ phrases were judged according to the criterion of resemblance to a distant ideal target, the phrase METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL. Life isn’t like that. Evolution has no long-term goal.
So I want to make one that is less misleading. Doing so will show the fraudulent nature of his version. Oh well. I hear that's how science works. The version I propose will not judge against the distant ideal target. So each new generation is going to get it's own target against which "fitness" will be measured. Perhaps I'll even make a version where the same target will persist for a few generations. But for now, simple is best. The problem is, without that distant ideal, how can we show that "cumulative selection" is all it's cracked up to be? I'm guessing we can't. Having that distant ideal target is precisely what is required to demonstrate "the power of cumulative selection."Mung
July 8, 2011
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Check out here and click the simulations tab. Notice, it has been shown that a well tuned targetted, proximity reward search, suitably tuned, will give on at least some "good" runs a latching of the output letters once they go correct. Latching does not have to be explicit (partitioned search) to appear in the output on runs good enough to showcase.kairosfocus
July 8, 2011
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mung, C++mike1962
July 8, 2011
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Fraud Weasel
Weasel isn’t just “a bit of a cheat”, it’s a total cheat.
Indeed. mike1962, what language(s) did you use to write your code? I'm considering writing a version of the WEASEL program to show how and why the Dawkins version is fraudulent. Version 1. Use the same target phrase from Shakespeare. Version 1a. Allow a user input phrase (because Version 1 would never find the target, lol). 1. So before we perform any selection I'd look for a phrase that matches the final target phrase. WEASEL = "Methinks it is like a weasel." 2. If none is found then generate an intermediate phrase having the same number of letters. 3. Compare all the strings in the current population to the intermediate phrase. 4. Find the best match. 5. Create the new population from the best match. 6. Apply the mutatation operator to each string in the new population. 7. Start over at #1. This should be simple enough to code. What this version does is remove the first major obstacle or objection to the Dawkins version of the WEASEL program, which is the final distant target the selection operator knows about and compares each string to resulting in the deterministic outcome. We do that by injecting an intermediary, which is the "current environment" for each generation. We keep the best match and move on to the next generation and it's current environment. Now how many generations will it take to find the same target phrase from Shakespeare? Can we show that this will perform better than a blind search? Are we still not using "cumulative selection?" And if not, why not? Weasel is a fraud.Mung
July 8, 2011
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Liz: But if all you want is any solution to the problem of survival in a given environment, all you need is the environment.
This is the hypothesis, that a mechanism is robust enough to do exactly that in a "blind" way without any intervention of intelligence along the way.
"And the random generator/self-replicator are simply the prequisites for natural selection.
"Simply" she says :)
You may well question whether those could have arisen from non-selfreplicating entities, but that wouldn’t be a critique of Darwinism, but an OOL question."
Wrong. It is a critique of "blind" evolution. And the entire question is intimately tied to OOL. I'm not anti-evolution, mind you. I'm not a Bible thumping creationist who thinks "God done it" in six 24-hour days. What I oppose is the notion that it's a blind process, with no intelligent infusion(s) leading from the LUCA to man. The notion is folly and seriously lacking in real-world provenance. You know that. ;)mike1962
July 8, 2011
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The fitness function has to be "intelligently crafted" if you want either a solution to a specific problem, or a specific solution. But if all you want is any solution to the problem of survival in a given environment, all you need is the environment. And the random generator/self-replicator are simply the prequisites for natural selection. You may well question whether those could have arisen from non-selfreplicating entities, but that wouldn't be a critique of Darwinism, but an OOL question.Elizabeth Liddle
July 8, 2011
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And WEASEL is important for another reason: It counters the stupid “tornado in a junkyard”-calculations of some anti-evolutionists because it shows that the odds can be changed dramatically with cumulative selection
Right, it shows how the odds can be changed for hitting a target string using an intelligently crafted random generator and fitness function. A great example of ID.mike1962
July 8, 2011
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Indium 1. Real biological mutations can happen for any gene. Since there is no target explicit latching is completely impossible in biology anyway.
Sidebar: I disagree that it is conceptually impossible to latch features in biological entities. One possible way to do it is with redundant checks that would "kill the baby" if certain features varied beyond a certain range. And the checks have checks too in such as way that any damage to any part would "kill the baby." Etc. At any rate, the characters in Weasel are mere analogies to genes. They are not genes or anything like genes.
2. For high mutation rates and low population sizes sometimes good characters can indeed be lost again, even for a program like WEASEL for which such an event is extremely unlikely because of the way the parent is chosen.
Right. But no explicit latch is required because the way the mutation and fitness algorithms work together it guarantees the outcome: a given character has a low change of mutation WHILE adding to the fitness score if it matches the parent. What "fitness score" is judging genomic variation? "The environment?" But "the environment" is blind, there is no target to compare it to. So Weasel not analogous at all to blind evolution. Remember, what Dawkins says, "it's a bit of a cheat. Weasel looks to the future. [Blind] evolution doesn't look to the future." But Dawkins doesn't make the point strong enough. Weasel isn't just "a bit of a cheat", it's a total cheat. He should have just use an example of sorting socks from a drawer by color, or cite how a building is constructed. Both have a target and a fitness function and accumulate small changes. And they're easier to grasp conceptually. (But they are too obviously "intelligent", I would suspect, for his purposes.) Weasel is a great example of ID.
Again, WEASEL is therefore more closely (and still only loosely…) related to evolution and can at least demonstrate a few additional effects and dependencies that are also known in biology.
The mutation may demonstrate a random variation but the fitness function kills any analogous value it may have to blind evolution. The mechanism taken as a whole is no demonstration of blind evolution, and is needlessly complicated for the intended audience of Blind Watchmaker.
3. Implementing explicit latching needs more code. Why do it when there is no reason for and several against it?
Explicit latching requires less code. I've written it both ways. I think this particular horse is beat to death.mike1962
July 8, 2011
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Mike1962
The randomness part of Weasel is an unnecessary complication given that the method of random generation and the fitness function guarantees the outcome within a statistically predictable number of iterations. And might as well just latch the characters and get it done faster. The outcome is the same and it still demonstrates cumulative selection
One can guess several reasons why explicit latching was not part of WEASEL: 1. Real biological mutations can happen for any gene. Since there is no target explicit latching is completely impossible in biology anyway. 2. For high mutation rates and low population sizes sometimes good characters can indeed be lost again, even for a program like WEASEL for which such an event is extremely unlikely because of the way the parent is chosen. Again, WEASEL is therefore more closely (and still only loosely...) related to evolution and can at least demonstrate a few additional effects and dependencies that are also known in biology. 3. Implementing explicit latching needs more code. Why do it when there is no reason for and several against it? For me, it´s still a mystery why so many people make such a fuss about the WEASEL program. It has absolutely zero scientific value. The only purpose was the demonstration for a lay audience that there can be an extremely large difference between a random search and a more or less cumulative search with some form of selection acting on variable offspring candidates. So what? Mung There is nothing fraudulent about WEASEL. It just shows the simple fact that cumulative selection is (not very surprisingly) much more efficient than selection acting only on the full target string (random search). You may doubt that in every case there is a cumulative path available in real biological evolution. But this does not change the fact that if there is such a path (as in WEASEL) then cumulative selection is extremely efficient. And WEASEL is important for another reason: It counters the stupid "tornado in a junkyard"-calculations of some anti-evolutionists because it shows that the odds can be changed dramatically with cumulative selection. This of course means that antievolutionists have to work harder and invent more sophisticated tools like CSI, FDCSI or whatever. Interstingly, all these funny new information measures still in some way reference the basic tornado-in-a-junkyard probability...Indium
July 7, 2011
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WR is clueless. Weasel is a fraud. It's handwaving. Don't watch what I am doing with my other hand. 1. The program was designed for a purpose. 2. That purpose was to show how evolution makes the appearance of highly improbable things fall easily within the realm of what is probable. 3. It fails to do that. Yet people like you continue to believe that it has not failed. That's what makes it fraudulent. Dawkins was not honest about it.Mung
July 6, 2011
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Mung,
If I was using single-step selection I’d get it right the very first time, since I know what the target is
Indeed! I will write to Dawkins and let him know that he can just write the sentence out! There's actually no need to go to all the trouble of writing a program (latching or non latching) to do it.
The claim that Dawkins makes is that a search algorithm that uses “cumulative selection” performs better than a random search. But when does a search algorithm that uses “cumulative selection” perform better than a random search. And why?
All that and more has been covered in the links I have previously added to this thread. The mathmatics has been worked out to the Nth degree already. If you really wanted to know the answers then you easily could have.
These are the things we need to know to test the claim. These are the things we are not told.
What are you blithering about? What claim? What is it that you are not being told? I linked to the actual New Scientist article, you can read it for yourself. If you were after the truth rather then a talking point then perhaps you would have already read it. Then you would be as up to speed as the rest of us. Or read the book. Have you ever stopped to think that perhaps it's not a conspiracy, perhaps it's just that you don't know as much as you think you know? Why Elisabeth takes the time out to educate you I don't know. Good for her but I could not bear to do it, not climb that mountain.WilliamRoache
July 6, 2011
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Yup, deniable, useful goons doing the Alinskyite dirty work not even realising they are cat's paws for a dangerous, destructive radical agenda -- did you see how they could not even apply the Categorical imperative to identify what is morally unsound? No need for a widespread conspiracy, just have a few sponsored agents of influence set up astroturf fever swamps for mobs of the ill adjusted and educationally lobotomised who are bewitched by the Plato's cave shadow shows that stand in for reality (why else do you think they want to control education and the media) to stoke up on rage, deceptive talking points and turnabout accusation tactics. Then, point them to latest targets to swarm down. But this time they picked the wrong target: my family. That's a nuke threshold, a point of no return.kairosfocus
July 6, 2011
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kairosfocus, what you are bringing to light is a common strategy. I remember I challenged Dawkins on a youtube video and I got the same email deal for a week lol. Not from Dick of course, some minions.junkdnaforlife
July 6, 2011
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Paragwin: Nope, while your remark is distractively tangential in this thread, I will give a one-shot response for record. I will take note of a thread-jacking here, too. "William Roache" has shown the significance of Plato's warning on the ruthless, amoral agendas and factions that evolutionary materialism lets loose in a culture when it is pushed and backed by powerful elites. It is very clear that this is a voice for the faction that has sought to hold my family hostage under a mafioso type threat, and is seeking to "justify" that by labelling me an insane bigot. By means of turnabout accusation. He has no hesitation to refuse to address the pivotal issue, the grounding of OUGHT, and the question, what IS can bear the weight of ought. So, what he is doing -- just as what is plainly his ilk have tried to do with my family -- is to try to hold language and ideas hostage. Words like"rights," "marriage" and -- in the wider context -- even "science," are being radically redefined and that redefinition is pushed on us through intimidation tactics. Ultimately, if you dare object, such intend to rob you of your livelihood [hence the expelled phenomenon], then -- as this case shows -- your family [you are a child abuser ("thank you" Mr Dawkins for that particular nasty slander . . . ) and are unfit to be foster then adoptive then eventually natural parents], and your conscience or soul [how dare you think or teach differently than we do on what we feel is our "right"]. He who would rob me of my daily bread, would rob me of my life. He who would rob me of my children, would rob me of my posterity. He who would rob me of my conscience, would rob me of my soul. Notice how, in his agenda, he refused to engage in the foundational issue of the is-ought challenge, and how he refused to take the steps to assess per the Categorical Imperative what is morally sound or unsound. Instead, he arrogantly and insistently demands, three times, that I answer yes or no to his artfully loaded questions that in this context are really accusations that beg a lot of questions. Yet another warning about what we are up against. So, the real question is whether we will learn from the lessons taught us by history and those who have had to reflect upon it. Let Mr "Roache" and ilk boast elsewhere as they will, the record is plain enough. On the focal topic for this thread, let us note the unanswered challenge that Gil posed in the OP:
One of my specialties in aerospace R&D engineering is guidance, navigation and control software. The task of designing GN&C algorithms and the associated hardware that would permit an ornithopter to land on a swaying tree branch in gusting wind is so far ahead of our most sophisticated human technology that we can only dream about such a thing. Yet, birds do this with ease. Darwinists want us to believe that this all came about through a process of throwing monkey wrenches in working machinery and introducing random errors into highly sophisticated computer code . . .
How do they try to get us to accept this as though such a practical impossibility were a "fact"? Why, by redefining science to confine it to a materialistic straightjacket, and to then intimidate those who would beg to ask inconvenient questions, of course. The same tactics, the same tactics. It is time for us to heed Plato's warning. GEM of TKI F/N: On the immediate topic in this thread, which is related to the main topic, M62 nails it well in 261. That is how a Weasel is designed, tuned and implemented. Whether or not it explicitly or implicitly latches, that is what it is doing, and how. In addition, as I warned by clipping already, it is all a sham, a distraction from the key question -- same tactics, yet again -- of arriving at islands of function in large config spaces, as it works by rewarding non-functional nonsense phrases on mere increments in proximity to target. Impose the criterion that it must provide a set of functional words from the dictionary, even if unrelated to make progress, and at once it would collapse. So, how much moreso, are we to see that the complex code in DNA for functional body plans cannot credibly be explained on accumulations of errors filtered by trial and error. But, as we have been seeing, that is what the new misleading icon, Weasel and kin, are being used to bewitch many into believing.kairosfocus
July 5, 2011
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Kairosfocus, It seems WilliamRoache has matched your masterful baiting skills.paragwinn
July 5, 2011
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DrBot @232:
Obviously I was just blowing smoke...
Obviously. And you can't cover up the fact that you were just blowing smoke by blowing yet more smoke. Citing references might help though. I'm not going to hold my breath though. I sense the sort of smoke you're blowing isn't fatal.Mung
July 5, 2011
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The illusion begins by talking abut single-step selection rather than search. If I was using single-step selection I'd get it right the very first time, since I know what the target is. He's not really comparing different types of selection, he's comparing different search algorithms. The claim that Dawkins makes is that a search algorithm that uses "cumulative selection" performs better than a random search. But when does a search algorithm that uses "cumulative selection" perform better than a random search. And why? How much better does a search algorithm that uses "cumulative selection" perform than a random search algorithm? These are the things we need to know to test the claim. These are the things we are not told.Mung
July 5, 2011
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What's Wrong with WEASEL The Weasel program was designed to make a point. That essential point was that there are better (more efficient) ways to find something than looking for it by using blind chance mechanisms. Supposedly, evolution offers just such a way. So while an eye may be extremely complex, and hard to find by a stochastic search process, evolution makes it infinitely more probable to find an eye than does using a blind search. The proof: WEASEL. 28 slots. 27 characters. What's the probability of choosing each character at random for each of the 28 slots and finding that our string matches the target phrase. Slim and none. How many monkeys would it take? How many typewriters? How much time? But if we use cumulative selection! Now let me ask a question. Let's say that cumulative selection offered a 10x improvement over blind search. How many generations would it then take? But I doubt that would have impressed Dawkins readers. Let's say that cumulative selection offered a 100x improvement over blind search. Impressive yet? So just how much better is cumulative selection than a blind search? Eh, Mr. Dawkins? The only thing Dawkins demonstrated with WEASEL is that people are gullible when faced with junk science that reinforces what they already want to believe.Mung
July 5, 2011
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WR:
So two different characterizations of Weasel, two different outcomes. Both get there.
Not in dispute. See my comments on latching earlier in this thread.
What, biological evolution? It’s an example.
An example of what? Intelligent Design?
So we’re all agreed I think that cumulative selection is an unavoidable component of micro-evolution.
Well, the only example of cumulative selection I've seen has a distant target known in advance. So if that's what you mean...Mung
July 5, 2011
July
07
Jul
5
05
2011
03:35 PM
3
03
35
PM
PDT
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