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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
Elizabeth Liddle:
I was simply asked to provide an example of a computer code that writes itself, by means of random variation and selection. Avida does that,
Avida does not modify the code that it's written in. The Avida code modifies the digital organisms. It [Avida] does not modify it's own code! Avida is not an example of a computer code that writes itself, much less one that does so using random variation.Mung
June 26, 2011
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And you'll have to forgive the irritable tone. I do get a bit fed up when people repeatedly accuse me of deliberate evasion and dishonesty. I make mistakes, but never deliberately, and I always correct myself as soon as I discover an error. I hope you will eventually come to realise that.Elizabeth Liddle
June 26, 2011
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Mung, you may find my writing opaque, but I am not attempting to avoid commitment or to mislead, prevaricate or hedge. I'm finding you very hard to communicate with, but I guess I will keep trying. No, of course, EA didn't evolve Java. Nor does an organism that evolves camouflage also evolve DNA at the same time. It should be clear, with a little imagination, which level I am talking about. Obviously, I am talking about the level of code at which the digital organism performs the logic function, not the level of code in which the digital organism is written. And it is the code at that level that is randomly varied. Organisms do not evolve by randomly altering the bases from which DNA is constructed. Variation occurs at a higher level than that. Ditto with Avida - the variation occurs at the level of the virtual genome. If you read the linked paper, you would have understood what I meant. Actually, it seems pretty clear to me anyway.Elizabeth Liddle
June 26, 2011
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Elizabeth Liddle:
That’s exactly what evolutionary algorithms do – evolve their own code.
You could do a better job of being less ambiguous. What do you mean by your claim that EA's evolve their own code? So take ev, for example. It's written in Java. It evolves the Java code that it's written in? It evolves the fitness function? It evolves the code that codes for the fitness function? And this is the way EA's always work, by loading their code into memory and randomly changing the memory locations and hoping that the EA still functions? No, I'm afraid not. So what on earth do you mean when you say that EA's evolve their own code? You don't really mean they evolve their own code, the code they are written in, do you? equivocate - to use ambiguous or unclear expressions, usually to avoid commitment or in order to mislead; prevaricate or hedgeMung
June 26, 2011
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kf: it is not "bait and switch". I was simply asked to provide an example of a computer code that writes itself, by means of random variation and selection. Avida does that, and it does it on "differential functionality". I can't tell you how many bits, but I wasn't making any claims about how many bits. I guess I could find out.Elizabeth Liddle
June 26, 2011
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Chris Doyle @ 7: "It’s like you know you can’t justify what you’re saying, but feel the need to say it anyway." Are you asking me to justify your claim that I can't justify my claims?paragwinn
June 26, 2011
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Dr Lidle: Pardon me but these are as is directly stated, designed, digital "organisms" being simulated on a computer. This is yet another case of bait and switch. That may be effective sales tactics, but it is not serious evidence. In particular, we are not here seeing chance variation plus selection on differential functionality, writing complex information that fulfills real and specific function beyond 500 - 1,000 bits. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
June 26, 2011
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kf:
Dr Liddle: You may believe that, but the problem is that here are so many serious issues of in effect digital code writing itself out of lucky noise filtered on function, that we would like to see an observational data point before taking such seriously. As Gil in effect pointed out in the OP. GEM of TKI
Well, the observational data are here: http://myxo.css.msu.edu/papers/nature2003/Nature03_Complex.pdf The case study figures are particularly informative.Elizabeth Liddle
June 26, 2011
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That's a fair general point, CY (it is true that the word "evolution" is used in a great many senses) but in the OP Gil linked to, he was using it in a sense in which it is never (at least in my experience) used, namely, as a synonym for "development". And if he really was using it in the sense of "change", and thus covering "development", then his claim is completely irrelevant to the explanatory power of Darwinian theory. Darwinian theory isn't even about the way organisms change (although it accounts for it) but the way that populations do.Elizabeth Liddle
June 26, 2011
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Lizzie, "In Gil’s case, if he thinks that his former thread about believing in evolution had anything to do with believing in evolution, then I think he’s missed something" I don't think Gil needs any defenders; he does well enough on his own. I really think it depends on what is meant by evolution, and that meaning is often vague among Darwinian evolutionists. At one moment it means microevolution and at the next moment it means macroevolution, and yet at another moment it means both. At least one of those examples of evolution I gather Gil accepts. In fact, I know that he does; so I don't think that charge is exactly fair. You have to understand what both creationists and ID people get accused of often by Darwinists, and it gets quite nasty. First of all, when a person mentions that they are a creationist (I'm not, but I think they get the brunt of the abuse) the insinuation goes like this: "Ok, well you don't believe in evolution then, which is quite surprising, since it's so obvious; things change." That's where it starts, and this obviously refers to that which no-one really disputes: microevolution. So when the creationist clarifies that he/she does in-fact believe in microevolution, that's where the abuse begins to spin out of control; because in using the term "microevolution," they have demonstrated their ignorance of evolution, because the term is not used anymore; so it is claimed. Suffice to say that creationists and some ID folk still use the terms because they do not accept the other part of evolution: extrapolating that small changes mean large changes. In other words, they believe that the evidence for microevolution is strong, while the evidence for macroevolution is forced from the fact of microevolution and a few other factors. So it really becomes a double standard when the Darwinian evolutionist is allowed to use microevolution (small changes) in such a way to point to macroevolution (large changes), while when the creationist or ID supporter uses microevolution to distinguish the two, they are accused of being ignorant of evolution. They are not ignorant of evolution; they just understand the distinctions a little better. That the Darwinists don't use the terms any more is misleading. SOME may not use the terms, but they use the concepts all rolled into one sort of like...I don't know, a bible as a weapon, so to speak? So I would say that Gil truly does believe in evolution, and he's not being disingenuous in stating so.CannuckianYankee
June 26, 2011
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Dr Liddle: You may believe that, but the problem is that here are so many serious issues of in effect digital code writing itself out of lucky noise filtered on function, that we would like to see an observational data point before taking such seriously. As Gil in effect pointed out in the OP. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
June 26, 2011
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Mung:
Elizabeth Liddle:
Avida doesn’t specify how the function is to be performed, and indeed, in any given Avida run, the digital organisms that perform the function can differ greatly in how they do it. In other words, there is no target solution, merely a range of problems to be solved.
Lizzie, you’re not doing yourself any favors. Read the sections on Avida in SitC. Chapter 13 p. 286 Chapter 13 fn46 p. 533 For the moment I’m going to avoid comment on what you’ve written and give you a chance to read up. You might want to do so before continuing to post more material on Avida. Cheers
I appreciate it Mung, but I'm quite happy for you to post your own critique here, now. I have read the cited pages and footnotes of Meyer's book, and nothing he says there renders my statement false. I didn't claim that Avida was a simulation of biology, nor did I claim that it was anything like as complex. I simply said it was an example of "code writing itself". It does. Yes, it does so within a highly designed environment, in which the replication machinery is already present (analogously to starting biological evolution with a functional living cell already in existence), but each digital organisms at the beginning of each run performs no function EXCEPT self-replication, and at the end we have a population of organisms that perform complex logic functions. That code that is contained within those organisms was programmed by nothing more than Darwinian processes. There is no target solution, only a target function, and as I said, every solution AFAIK is different.Elizabeth Liddle
June 26, 2011
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kf:
Do genetic algorithms write themselves?
The environment doesn't, but the digital organisms, in effect do. Or rather, they are written by "Chance" and the rules of "Necessity" within that environment. Exactly as Darwinian theory postulates organisms are "written" in Nature.Elizabeth Liddle
June 26, 2011
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Mung:
Lizzie: I’m still stuck at my computer, unfortunately. I’m trying to debug some code, You should try writing your code test first ;) Are you using Java? ANT, JUnit. Haha, even one written by a guy named Darwin: http://www.darwinsys.com/java/testfirstjava.pdf Google Test First Development, Test Driven Development and Test Driven Design. http://www.extremeprogramming......first.html http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TestDrivenDevelopment http://www.agiledata.org/essays/tdd.html I can recommend some Java books if you want.
Thanks, but it's not Java, it's MatLab, and it's a stimulus presentation set, so I need to check the timings, given the refresh rate of the computer I'm using. So I need to run it in real time. Also there are some other problems in getting the triggers to talk to the data acquistion computer.Elizabeth Liddle
June 26, 2011
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Elizabeth Liddle:
Avida doesn’t specify how the function is to be performed, and indeed, in any given Avida run, the digital organisms that perform the function can differ greatly in how they do it. In other words, there is no target solution, merely a range of problems to be solved.
Lizzie, you're not doing yourself any favors. Read the sections on Avida in SitC. Chapter 13 p. 286 Chapter 13 fn46 p. 533 For the moment I'm going to avoid comment on what you've written and give you a chance to read up. You might want to do so before continuing to post more material on Avida. CheersMung
June 26, 2011
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DrBot:
Generally speaking any search has to have a target or it isn’t a search ...
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can't believe how often I have to argue over this very simple fact (MathGrrl comes to mind).Mung
June 26, 2011
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Lizzie:
I’m still stuck at my computer, unfortunately. I’m trying to debug some code,
You should try writing your code test first ;) Are you using Java? ANT, JUnit. Haha, even one written by a guy named Darwin: http://www.darwinsys.com/java/testfirstjava.pdf Google Test First Development, Test Driven Development and Test Driven Design. http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/testfirst.html http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TestDrivenDevelopment http://www.agiledata.org/essays/tdd.html I can recommend some Java books if you want.Mung
June 26, 2011
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Elizabeth Liddle @12:
Well, yes, they do. Or can. That’s exactly what evolutionary algorithms do – evolve their own code.
Like Avida?Mung
June 26, 2011
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How much does stupid cost? Because I've been getting it for free for years now. ;)Mung
June 26, 2011
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Do genetic algorithms write themselves?kairosfocus
June 26, 2011
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Do your parallel processing algorithms write themselves, if so, how?
No. Why do you ask? its not like I ever claimed that they were (and btw, they are not 'mine' - I was referring to research done by others) Of course you could use a genetic algorithm to design the code, but biology doesn't use algorithms, it uses neural circuits, so you could try evolving the processing circuitry. If you were attacking a low level vision task like optic flow field sensing then the basic mechanism is quite simple - a photo receptor and a few transistors repeated n times across a surface - quite easy to see how something like this can evolve when you understand the processes involved.DrBot
June 26, 2011
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And, of course the ornithopter software being discussed was sure not written by monkeys at keyboards, fileted by trial and error and fed into hill climber algors.
No, but genetic algorithm could have been employed as part of the process.DrBot
June 26, 2011
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KF:
I can imagine someone going into a board-room and proposing to write software by putting monkeys at keyboards, filtered through trial and error,t hen when one works, it is fed into a hill-climber algorithm. No-one in his right mind would walk into a boardroom with such a proposal.
No, that would be crazy, what you described would never work, but there are a number of companies founded on the idea of using genetic algorithms to generate designs, be they code or neural networks, or electronic circuits. They get venture capital funding because they can demonstrate that the techniques they use deliver results.DrBot
June 26, 2011
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Joseph: Joseph:
Elizabeth:
This program evolves, through Darwinian mechanisms, result in a program that is quite different, and has different functionality, from the original human-written original.
It didn’t say that.
It may not have done, but that's what it does.
Populations of digital organisms often evolved the ability to perform complex logic functions requiring the coordinated execution of many genomic instructions.
http://myxo.css.msu.edu/papers/nature2003/Nature03_Complex.pdf The initial seeded digital organisms perform no logic functions. Their only function is self-replication. What evolves are digital organisms that incorporate code that performs complex functions.
And I would bet Avida uses a targeted search.
As in WEASEL? No, it doesn't. The fitness function simply requires that the organism performs a function. The more complex the function, the more "energy" it receives (analogous to an organism evolving functions that enable it to catch more nutritious, if trickier, prey). Avida doesn't specify how the function is to be performed, and indeed, in any given Avida run, the digital organisms that perform the function can differ greatly in how they do it. In other words, there is no target solution, merely a range of problems to be solved.Elizabeth Liddle
June 26, 2011
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People I know who have done this have often remarked how “clean” and compact the resulting code often is, compared with the code produced by human programmers.
I knew someone who used a GA to evolve logic circuits that included integral fault checking systems - so the circuit would flag a fault if any part of the circuit developed a fault (including the fault checking part) (one of their papers is here.) The circuits they evolved were also cleaner and simpler than those designed by humans - I believe no one had ever managed to design a circuit like this where the fault checking was integral to the logic function rather than a separate circuit (that couldn't detect faults in its self) joseph @ 26 - by targetted do you mean simply chasing and trying to match a set of criteria, or searching for something that has been specified in advance? Generally speaking any search has to have a target or it isn't a search, but 'targetted' means something more specific - pre-specified and unchanging (I believe - but I could be wrong)DrBot
June 26, 2011
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Joseph:
Elizabeth: There is plenty of evidence that Darwinian process can result in new, useful and functional multi-part systems.
That is false.
Well, I don't think it is false! We know the kinds of phenotypic effects that incremental variants of regulatory genes do to the expression of hox genes, and why this results in potentially large changes to, for example, the numbers of limbs, the length of a limb, the number of bones in a limb, the number of digits, etc. And I gave you a reference to a paper in Nature that describes the evolution of a whole new body part (the helmet of tree hoppers).
BTW Darwinian mechanisms cannot account for HOX genes. And you cannot use what needs an explanation in the first place to do the explaining.
Why can't Darwinian mechanisms account for Hox genes?Elizabeth Liddle
June 26, 2011
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Elizabeth:
This program evolves, through Darwinian mechanisms, result in a program that is quite different, and has different functionality, from the original human-written original.
It didn't say that. And I would bet Avida uses a targeted search.Joseph
June 26, 2011
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Elizabeth:
There is plenty of evidence that Darwinian process can result in new, useful and functional multi-part systems.
That is false. BTW Darwinian mechanisms cannot account for HOX genes. And you cannot use what needs an explanation in the first place to do the explaining.Joseph
June 26, 2011
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Joseph @ #19, from your quotation:
The virtual environment is initially seeded with a human-designed program that self-replicates. This program and its descendents are then subjected to random mutations of various possible types which change instructions within their memory; resulting in unfavorable, neutral, and favorable program mutations. Mutations are qualified in a strictly Darwinian sense; any mutation which results in an increased ability to reproduce in the given environment is considered favorable. While it is clear that the vast majority of mutations will be unfavorable—typically causing the creature to fail to reproduce entirely—or else neutral, those few that are favorable will cause organisms to reproduce more effectively and thus thrive in the environment.
In other words, the environment is seeded with a very simple, human-written program. This program evolves, through Darwinian mechanisms, result in a program that is quite different, and has different functionality, from the original human-written original. Apart from demonstrating biological evolution, this kind of environment is genuinely useful. We can start out with extremely basic code, and let something far more complex and clever evolve. People I know who have done this have often remarked how "clean" and compact the resulting code often is, compared with the code produced by human programmers.Elizabeth Liddle
June 26, 2011
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Joseph:
And Liz- Darwinian processes do have limits- there isn’t any evidence that they can construct new, useful and functional multi-part systems. Why doesn’t that count against it?
Well, it would be if there wasn't any evidence but there is! There is plenty of evidence that Darwinian process can result in new, useful and functional multi-part systems. That evidence may not amount to any one complete specification of any one complete system (I don't know about that) but there is plenty of evidence of the kind of mechanisms that would enable it to do so, most importantly being the discovery of hox genes. And there was a very interesting recent paper here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v473/n7345/full/nature09977.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20110505Elizabeth Liddle
June 26, 2011
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