The Simulation Wars

_{William Dembski
March 26, 2009

Intelligent Design

1}_{Categories
Intelligent Design}

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I’m currently writing an essay on computational vs. biological evolution. The applicability of computational evolution to biological evolution tends to be suspect because one can cook the simulations to obtain any desired result. Still, some of these evolutionary simulations seem more faithful to biological reality than others. Christoph Adami’s AVIDA, Tom Schneider’s ev, and Tom Ray’s Tierra fall on the “less than faithful” side of this divide. On the “reasonably faithful” side I would place the following three:

Mendel’s Accountant: mendelsaccount.sourceforge.net

MutationWorks: www.mutationworks.com

MESA: www.iscid.org/mesa

Comments

JT, I hoped someone would bring up MESA. The reason I have harped on the Wandering Weasel is that it is similar in flavor to MESA. The fitness function in MESA is static, but noisy. The Wandering Weasel fitness function varies randomly in time. In MESA, there is the question of how coupling affects optimization speed. In the Wandering Weasel program, there is the question of how the "match" of mutation rate to the rate of environmental change affects tracking of the environment. There is also the question of the impact of self-adaptation of mutation rate on tracking of the environment. It took very little change to the Weasel program to obtain a system comparable in complexity and interest to MESA. I'll note that I believe that information gain in the Wandering Weasel is analytically tractable -- in the case of fixed mutation rate, anyway.
The simulation has only one target, a string of all 0’s (more about that in a minute).
In both programs, it is irrelevant how the target is initialized. Any is as hard to locate as any other.
I don’t see what purpose it serves to make fitness, or an aspect of fitness, random.
Actually, there is randomness in selection, and you can model that by adding random quantities to fitness and making selection deterministic.Sal Gal_{March 29, 2009
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[111 cont.] Note: I always consider the I.D. conception of intelligence a fundamental flaw and that has nothing to do with playing the devil's advocate. I had a graduate level course in the Theory of Computability and I realized the applicability of it to the evolution debate. It never occurred to me for it to be unreasonable in the slightest to view humans, the universe, cogntion, and evolution strictly in a TM computable framework. It would have seemed to me at the time to be a self-evidently valid approach to both sides of the debate. Well, the I.D. conception of intelligence is diametrically at odds with such a view. So I do sincerely believe there has been something fundamentally wrong in the I.D. conception from the outset.JT_{March 29, 2009
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Sal Gal: See the Scholarpedia article on ES’s. Thanks, I will do that. ------------------- To all - Admittedly I have aligned with the adversaries of I.D. to a great extent in this forum. Actually I started many many years ago to prove evolution wrong, but if a person spends enough time researching the enemy, and get emmersed in their terminology and way of understanding the world, you eventually make a transition to identify with them as well. (A remote variant of the Stockholm Syndrome, I guess). And also, if someone else is getting all the glory for ostensibly proving evolution wrong -you might as well try to take them down a peg or two. I don't think that makes me a troll. If the name of the forum were "Evolution- the Only True Science" my sentiments might be different. The post I made in 109 is serious for example, and I would assume and hope that someone in this forum is actually familiar with MESA enough to address it.JT_{March 29, 2009
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I just got finished reading the overview of MESA written by Dr. Dembski. MESA was one of the simulations he asked us in the OP to consider and no one else in this thread has discussed it yet. I have only read the overview and don't have more time to devote to it now, so if Dr Dembski or anyone else familiar with MESA wants to counter my observations below, go ahead. The simulation has only one target, a string of all 0's (more about that in a minute). The only type of modifications possible in the simulation either make it achieving the target more difficult, or effect it randomly. In the latter case, there is a "Fitness Perturbation" options in the simulation. You can set a "Fitness Perturbation Range" k but then that just causes the fitness function for each individual to be effected randomly in that range. I don't see what purpose it serves to make fitness, or an aspect of fitness, random. So you have something that is fit according to some criteria, and you say, "Let's just randomly change its fitness level, so that some significant portion of its fitness is not tied to anything identifiable at all." What sort of conclusions could you draw from such a simulation. The other fitness option "Binomial Fitness Perturbation" also revolves around a "binomial random variate". The other type of modification is coupling of variables and will always make achieving the target more difficult. So once again, the only type of modifications allowable in the simulation either make it more difficult to achieve the target, or effect it randomly. If the simulation's intent is to demonstrate the untenability of evolution then why do the only options available make it more difficult? Why wouldn't there be any options to make it easier (at least for testing purposes)? The one option I am thinking of is the possibility of multiple targets. Supposing the word "ostensibly" occurs by blind chance in some context, and someone observes the probability of that happening is 26^-9. They have made a fundamental error, because what is noteworthy is not that specific string of characters, but rather that it is a word from the english language. So you would have to modify the odds to account for the number of words in English of that length (as we would be just as amazed at any word of that length occurring by chance). Of course, Dr. Dembski knows this and has undoubtedly himself addressed this topic more systematically elsewhere. So then why does the MESA simulation only have one target (all 0's). Obviously multiple targets would drastically increase the odds, and presumably it would be something that someone running the simulation would want to consider. It seems its what evo-theorists themselves repeatedly point out in this forum for example - that there isn't ony one potential target. So why is such an option left out of the MESA simulation.JT_{March 29, 2009
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JT, It is easy to arrange for self-adaptation of the mutation rate in the evolution strategy. See the Scholarpedia article on ES's. The upshot is that you, the programmer, can set the mutation rate to a large value, and it generally will go to a small value as the parent approaches the target sentence in the Weasel problem. Fine-tuning of the initial mutation rate is not required. In my Wandering Weasel variant, the mutation rate generally will go to a value that "matches" the mutation rate of the environment. In other words, the best setting of the mutation rate in reproduction depends upon how rapidly the environment changes. There is no need for the programmer to "smuggle in" information about the rate of environmental change in initialize the mutation rate for reproduction. The ES generally can adapt the mutation rate to the rate of environmental change. I'm not making this stuff up. As I've said before, there's a huge base of theory and practice for evolutionary strategies.Sal Gal_{March 29, 2009
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Clive, I was asking about genetic entropy. Some people believe that ever since The Fall, evolutionary change has only destroyed information supplied by the Designer. A maxim from Coleridge's Biographia Literaria I try to keep in mind: "until you understand a writer's ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding." I know nothing about what you know and don't know. When I write of statistical information, I have stuff like entropy, conditional entropy, relative entropy, and mutual information in mind. See Wikipedia. Sorry, but I'm not flying by the seat of my pants when I talk about information, and much of what I say will not make sense if you do not know the formal definitions.Sal Gal_{March 29, 2009
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Off topic but I hope someone can help me out. I would like to know how electro-magnetic radiation is handled by the body; i.e. do we have a radiation firewall imbedded in our cells? Can anyone point the way here?Oramus_{March 29, 2009
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jerry, you write:
Keep on typing and we can expect a sonnet or two by the end of the millennium. Maybe quicker if you hire a couple monkeys.
As it happens I've published a small amount of poetry in literary journals. Only a bit of it (this for example) deliberately uses randomization as a technique. But it's worth noting that many writers and artists over the past century and longer have deliberately used randomness as a generative technique: James Joyce, John Cage (both in his poetry and his music), Louis Zukofsky, and Italo Calvino are just a few names that come to mind. My point is that in literature, chance can be valuable and can even enhance meaning (sometimes a "targeted" meaning, sometimes meanings outside the writer's control).David Kellogg_{March 29, 2009
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"Hey! A mutation that adds functionality! My mistake adds meaning and improves the sentence." Keep on typing and we can expect a sonnet or two by the end of the millennium. Maybe quicker if you hire a couple monkeys.jerry_{March 29, 2009
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JT,
How difficult would it be for nature to create something that was flat on the bottom and more curved on the top?
Interestingly, the evolution strategy was first used, back in the mid-1960's, for "evolving optimal shapes of minimal drag bodies in a wind tunnel." On a couple of occasions, I've heard one of the inventors of the ES, Hans-Paul Schwefel, say that he couldn't think of any other way to solve the problem. The Weasel program implements an ES. "Weasel program" is actually a misnomer. It would be more appropriate to say that Dawkins applied an ES to the Weasel problem. Focusing on this toy problem is absurd. ES's have been applied successfully to an enormous range of real-world problems. There is a sizable body of theoretical results on simple forms of the ES.Sal Gal_{March 29, 2009
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Clive, Thanks---it looks as if several others lost posts at around the same time, so the server move seems a likely cause.madsen_{March 29, 2009
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Sal Gal, What is my position on what? Do I think that organisms accumulate "statistical information"? If I had any idea what you mean by this, I might be able to answer. Are alleles statistics? What new environments are humans pushing into? flats and condominiums? To be honest, I can't much sense of most of what you wrote, because it isn't very clear in the particular points, and the particular points are not unpacked and explained before a new point is taken up. The map is not clear and we keep taking detours.Clive Hayden_{March 29, 2009
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madsen, I personally have not deleted any comments at all except from David Kellog asking to be taken out of moderation. We switched UD to a new server, so that may explain these strange occurrences.Clive Hayden_{March 29, 2009
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jerry, One of my posts also vanished this morning. Hopefully some explanation will be forthcoming.madsen_{March 29, 2009
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madsen, My post went up at 7:47 this morning on a laptop as I was eating breakfast. I went up stairs about an hour later to our office and used a second computer and saw that my post was gone. I went back to the laptop and there it was on the browser as I left it. I saved the file and took a screen shot to make sure I wasn't dreaming. I then refreshed the browser and the comment that had been deleted was still there. I opened a new window and a new screen of the page and it was still there. I tried to refresh again and it was still there but not on the other computer which I now had side by side. I closed the browser on the laptop and reopened all again and the page was still there on the laptop but not on the desk top computer. This has never happened before because I frequently refresh the screen when I am logged on to see if something new came up and it always updates correctly. So while I understand the cache often has pages saved when I refresh they always change to the updated version but not this time. The odd thing was the page that was deleted kept on reappearing and it had my deleted comment on it as if it was trying to fool me into thinking it was still there. I then turned the computer off and after rebooting the page with my comment on it was gone and replaced by one with other comments that was on the other computer. Very strange. But I do have the screen shot and the old saved file still on the laptop.jerry_{March 29, 2009
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It seems more posts have gone missing. Is this due to the spamming problem, or have they been deleted by a moderator?madsen_{March 29, 2009
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Hazel, By all means go right ahead. No one is asking anyone to stop posting. All I am suggesting is that many posts don't deserve a reply. But some people feel they must reply to everything and I am saying that is often a waste of time. Others feel if there is no reply to their comment, then they have some how won the argument. And many of the posts are not meant to inform or have a conversation and these are the types of comments that should not be answered.jerry_{March 29, 2009
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to Jerry: I am not making up nonsense, I am not trying to "thwart, deflect, [or] distort." - I am trying to have an honest discussion about limited, specifics aspects of the topic. I am just trying to clear about one simple point - one that has nothing to do with the history of Weasel or it's application, or lack thereof, to evolution. Why should kairosfocus, you, or anyone else feel that there is something wrong or threatening about this? And in particular, if you don't think the topic is interesting or worthwhile, why do you keep posting about it?hazel_{March 29, 2009
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This comment was deleted after it was posted at 7:47 as comment #89 this morning. I assume someone found something objectionable in it. Here is what I wrote earlier. Kairosfocus, you wrote “There is actually very little point in onward extension of the issues over minutiae of Weasel ” There is nothing but truth in that. But you then wrote about 3000 words on the subject. Your are being baited and by responding to the bait you are feeding the Alice in Wonderland world this new group of critics are trying to create. They will make up nonsense and you feel you must refute every bit of nonsense they write. For example, two have already wrote about artificial selection or breeding as part of this discussion. My suggestion is that you and the rest generally ignore them. As I said they are not here to discuss or learn or have an honest debate. They are here to thwart, deflect, distort and then revel in their own absurdity. It is easy to determine when an honest discussion is going on and when it isn’t. I suggest politely saying good bye when it becomes obvious that one is not being held. They will claim all sorts of victory with their last comments and their objections to ID or anything else being said are not being answered but attempts to answer each irrational and farcical thing they say is only feeding them. Watch what they say to this comment that I am making here and if you or anyone else tries to answer them, they will silently know they have won. ---------------- Interesting why it was deleted but I will keep posting it till I am told why it shouldn't be posted.jerry_{March 29, 2009
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KF: Under reasonably accessible co-tuning of program mutation rates, population sizes and this filter, we will see that once a letter goes correct, form genration to gneration, the champions will preserve the correct letters due to that co-tuning. In the explicit case, a per letter distance metric specifically locks the letter once it hits the target. In the implicit case, the use of a mere proximity metric co-tuned to population size and mutation rates sets up that there are some zero-mutations members of the population, and so only members that have at least that many correct letters will advance I may not be reading you correctly, but you seem you want to suggest the following: That what Dawkin's has done is contrive something via "cotuning" of various parameters (mutation rates population sizes, etc) to merely give the appearance of something ("latching") which can actually be accomplished via a much simpler method (design (?)). In essence, you're saying what Dawkin's has done is a parlor trick, accomplished through an intricate formula. But as far as "cotuning" there is no such intricate balancing of parameters necessary in the Dawkin's version. Both the explicit latching version and Dawkin's version employ a certain mtuation rate. The mutation rate in Dawkin's case doesn't require some specific value, just any reasonable value will do. The only difference between the explict version and Dawkin's version is that the latter actually has a population of animals, so that when a mutation occurs its occurring to only one or a few individuals in that population. That's how it would happen in nature, right? In the explicit latching case, there's only one individual - its would be like saying any negative mutation in a population by necessity had to overtake the entire population, and you have to introduce this agent into this picture to say, "Nope we can't have a mutation happen there - that's not allowed." (W/apologies if I've misunderstood what you're saying). In essence, on dozens of parameters of crucial importance to the cosmos as we see it, we live in a universe that is knife’s edge balanced to facilitate the existence to the kind of carbon chemistry aqueous medium cell based life we observe and experience. Scale and constitution of the observed cosmos are directly connected to the existence of the sort of galaxy in which we live, and its having a habitable zone, such as our local spur between two major spiral arms and a bit over 1/2 way from the central core to the rim. In turn, it seems there are a few dozen more interesting finely tuned factors that have led to our having a habitable planet such as our own on which we live. Indeed, the best explanation for our cosmos, in light of the factors and patterns we see, is that it is the product of design, powerful, elegant design too. And, it is COSMOLOGICAL design that points to an extra-cosmic, powerful and intelligent, artistically creative designer. Is life's emergence and development tracable to preexisting and coexisting physical conditions in the universe? If it is then we don't have to think of life being designed anymore than a new born baby is designed. I mean I personally understand the sentiment for someone to look at a newborn baby and see the Hand of God at work - I would say its a valid sentiment. But it doesn't explain from an operational standpoint why a baby has his mother's eyes or his father's nose or his Uncle's baldness gene.(Actually I think the "Hand of God" would be the universe.) The implication regarding the probability of getting necesary parameters in the universe for life speaks for itself. But as I've said many times, "Design" or "Intelligent Design" as conceived in I.D. as a nondeterminsitic third force distinct from either chance or necessity is incoherent and does not explain anything. And also you talk about God being "creative" and "artistic" and to me this really lessens God. "Form follows function" has been an ethos in the Western World for two centuries. Beauty in architecture for example comes from matching to the environment. Analysis of an envrionment is an iterative observational activity, and admittedly also simulational activity. It is also objective and nonpersonal. It is constrained by environmental factors. When I think of "artistic" people, I think of neurosis, self-indulgence, insularity, emotionalism, vanity, etc.JT_{March 29, 2009
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typo: I mean 'thick fog,' but 'think fog' has its own richness. Hey! A mutation that adds functionality! My mistake adds meaning and improves the sentence.David Kellogg_{March 29, 2009
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I think a different question may provide a way to cut through the think fog of kairosfocus's writing. Here it is: kairosfocus, please look a few of the the Weasel programs created by Zachriel, Patrick May, and others that claim not to use latching: Do those programs work by what you call "implicit latching"?David Kellogg_{March 29, 2009
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Sal Gal [63]: The Weasel program makes better sense if you stop thinking of the simulated organisms as genotypes, but instead as phenotypes making 28 predictions of the environment. The count of matching characters in the fitness function is then the total payoff for correct predictions. Dawkins specified an environmental sequence of symbols and held it constant to provide a clear illustration of information accrual through selection. Just wanted to say I personally wasn't ignoring your post. The signficance of what you're saying above just now fully hit me: If a sequence of characters representing an appproximation of the weasel sentence is thought of as phenotypic characteristics of an organism (as opposed to a genetic recipe) its easier to think of an incremental improvements in the utility of such a sequence. So, I was thinking just now about one aspect of the environment that say birds for example are able to exploit: 3-D space. So land animals are only able to exploit essentially 2 dimensions. And as it happens there is this invisible substance called air occupying large amounts of 3-D space and its possible for this substance to be grabbed and climbed (like say a tree). And what is it that enables air to be climbed? Well for humans at least a very simple innovation - the air foil: something that is completely flat on the bottom and slightly curved on the top. That is the only thing necessary to create lift, and its principle is simple: When air moves over a wing the air pressure on the bottom of a wing is greater than on the top because of the slight differences in shape between the two - causing lift. It took the Wright Bros for ever to discover it, but its an extremely simple device. This is what enabled flight (plus deflectable control surfaces on the wings and tail). How difficult would it be for nature to create something that was flat on the bottom and more curved on the top? What would incremental improvements in flying control do for an organisms ability to say, catch insects, escape predators, or gain access to exploitable environments physically remote from potential competitors. It seems that what enables air to be climbed is a simpler device than what enables a tree to be climbed. (Not that any of this pertains specifically to what you were talking about.)JT_{March 29, 2009
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Oops again - I forgot to check the formatting before I hit submit: here kf's quote is correctly shown: At 84, when david kellogg wrote to kairosfocus, “your comment helps me understand what you mean by “implicit latching.” You mean “non-latching,” kf again gave a long explanation about explicit and implicit latching. I will agree with kairosfocus about how implicit latching works. I am also not at all interested in the history or larger purpose (or non-purpose) of Dawkin’s program. I just want some clarification of this one little point. to kairosfocus: in explicit latching, the letters latch because the mutation function includes a rule that says once a letter is fixed, it cannot mutate again. in implicit latching, the letters latch because the fitness function invariably does not select for phrases in which correct letters have mutated. In kf’s words,
In the explicit case, a per letter distance metric specifically locks the letter once it hits the target. In the implicit case, the use of a mere proximity metric co-tuned to population size and mutation rates sets up that there are some zero-mutations members of the population, and so only members that have at least that many correct letters will advance. Since it is hard to get to a double that substitutes a new letter for an old that has reverted, on probabilistic grounds, the correct letters will overwhelmingly latch in such cases.
So we are in agreement, I think, that the mechanisms that cause the latching are different in the two cases: in explicit latching, the mechanism is a rule about letters that is invoked in the mutation function, and in the implicit case, the mechanism involves members of the generation being selected, on probabilistic grounds, by the fitness function. Is this correct, kf? I think it would be useful, and I certainly would appreciate it, if your response, if any, would addresses just the subject and not the many others that you often include in your replies. Thankshazel_{March 29, 2009
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At 84, when david kellogg wrote to kairosfocus, “your comment helps me understand what you mean by “implicit latching.” You mean “non-latching,” kf again gave a long explanation about explicit and implicit latching. I will agree with kairosfocus about how implicit latching works. I am also not at all interested in the history or larger purpose (or non-purpose) of Dawkin’s program. I just want some clarification of this one little point. to kairosfocus: in explicit latching, the letters latch because the mutation function includes a rule that says once a letter is fixed, it cannot mutate again. in implicit latching, the letters latch because the fitness function invariably does not select for phrases in which correct letters have mutated. In kf’s words, In the explicit case, a per letter distance metric specifically locks the letter once it hits the target. In the implicit case, the use of a mere proximity metric co-tuned to population size and mutation rates sets up that there are some zero-mutations members of the population, and so only members that have at least that many correct letters will advance. Since it is hard to get to a double that substitutes a new letter for an old that has reverted, on probabilistic grounds, the correct letters will overwhelmingly latch in such cases. So we are in agreement, I think, that the mechanisms that cause the latching are different in the two cases: in explicit latching, the mechanism is a rule about letters that is invoked in the mutation function, and in the implicit case, the mechanism involves members of the generation being selected, on probabilistic grounds, by the fitness function. Is this correct, kf? I think it would be useful, and I certainly would appreciate it, if your response, if any, would addresses just the subject and not the many others that you often include in your replies. Thankshazel_{March 29, 2009
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SG: What Mr Dawkins was trying to convey, circa 1986, courtesy Wikipedia, trying to justify what he did. I add my notes on points, and emphases: _________________ I don't know who it was first pointed out that, given enough time, a monkey bashing away at random on a typewriter could produce all the works of Shakespeare. The operative phrase is, of course, given enough time. [--> that is, he KNEW that the issue is want of search resources to access complex functionality, which is Hoyle's challenge] Let us limit the task facing our monkey somewhat. Suppose that he has to produce, not the complete works of Shakespeare but just the short sentence 'Methinks it is like a weasel', and we shall make it relatively easy by giving him a typewriter with a restricted keyboard, one with just the 26 (capital) letters, and a space bar. How long will he take to write this one little sentence? . . . . [--> Biosystems often have DNA of storage capacity comparable to Shakespeare's corpus, i.e he knew he was making a toy example pointing away from the challenge. The red herring has begun to drag away from the trail of truth.] We again use our computer monkey, but with a crucial difference in its program. It again begins by choosing a random sequence of 28 letters, just as before ... it duplicates it repeatedly, but with a certain chance of random error – 'mutation' – in the copying. [--> And in the real world, what is a credible incidence of mutations,and what fraction of these are credibly beneficial? --> What fraction give rise to novel body plans? With what empirical basis? --> And, that starts with the first body plan, including the DNA - RNA - ribosome enzyme programmable, algorithmic information processing system in the cell] The computer examines the mutant nonsense phrases, [--> the issue of getting to shores of functionality has just been begged without even a pause to note on what that shift in focus does to the relevance of Weasel to OOL and origin of body plans --> Namely it means Weasel is now of zero relevance to the issue Hoyle et al raised: getting TO complex function based on information rich molecules] the 'progeny' of the original phrase, and chooses the one which, however slightly, most resembles the target phrase, METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL . . . . [ --> targetted search rewardign mere proximity without any credible threshold of function --> Ideas of fitness functions are therefore irrelevant, and equivocate off proximity to target vs the sort of algorithmic functionality DNA etc [including of course epigenetic structures . . DNA underestimates the info required . .. ] drives for first life and major body plans --> targetted and with programmed choice, so foresighted] The exact time taken by the computer to reach the target doesn't matter. [--> oh yes it does, as the realistic threshold would credibly never get done in any reasonable time, much less a lunch time] If you want to know, it completed the whole exercise for me, the first time, while I was out to lunch. It took about half an hour. (Computer enthusiasts may think this unduly slow. The reason is that the program was written in BASIC, a sort of computer baby-talk. When I rewrote it in Pascal, it took 11 seconds.) Computers are a bit faster at this kind of thing than monkeys, but the difference really isn't significant. [--> Distractive] What matters is the difference between the time taken by cumulative selection, [--> thus, ratcheting and latching, as observed in the 1986 o/p . . . and decidedly not in the 1987 o/p --> cumulative, programmed selection that ratchets its way to a target, rewarding the slightest improvement in proximity of nonsense phrases, without regard to realistic thresholds of function . . . ] and the time which the same computer, working flat out at the same rate, would take to reach the target phrase if it were forced to use the other procedure of single-step selection: [--> Strawmanised form of the key objection: Mr Dawkins is ducking he issue of getting to shorelines of functionality] about a million million million million million years. This is more than a million million million times as long as the universe has so far existed . . . . [--> he KNOWS -- or, should know [which is worse] -- that a realistic threshold of functionality is combinatorially so explosive that the search is not reasonable --> but good old Will with feather pen in hand probably tossed it off in a couple of minutes by intelligent design --> So he is pointing away from the most empirically credible explanation of FSCI] Although the monkey/Shakespeare model is useful for explaining the distinction between single-step selection and cumulative selection, it is misleading in important ways. [--> if you know from the outset that an exercise in public education is misleading in important ways, why do you still insist on using it? --> Other than, it is the intent to make plausible on the rhetoric what would on the merits be implausible?] 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, [--> He knows -- from teh outset -- that promotion to generation champion based on proximity without reasonable criteria of functionality is misleading in important ways] the phrase METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL. Life isn't like that. [--> he knows that this artificqally selected, targetted search without reference to functionality is irrelevant to the issues over the origins of information rich systems in life] Evolution has no long-term goal. There is no long-distance target, no final perfection to serve as a criterion for selection, [ --> That is he knows tha the has used artificial selection off proximity to a desired future state, not natural section based on differential functionality, begging the question of origin of function --> thus, the underlying question is being ducked and begged] although human vanity cherishes the absurd notion that our species is the final goal of evolution. In real life, the criterion for selection is always short-term, either simple survival or, more generally, reproductive success. [--> tha tis, he knows right from get-go, that hehas begged teh quesiton bigtime, but he obviously thought his rhetoric would work. --> From abundant evidence, that is all too well -- albeit cynically [I doubt that "weasel" is an accident; this paragraph being an exercise in weasel words] -- judged. ___________________________ In short, Weasel is an exercise in manipulative rhetoric, not education, and certainly not science. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{March 29, 2009
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PS: I hereby second (with slight amendments) Jerry's nomination of Weasel [and of the various neo-Weasels] for the growing list of display items for the walls of the hall of infamy in the gallery of misleading icons of evolutionary materialism:
I think the whole discussion should be abandoned and the Weasel program put in ~~a black hole~~ [the list of misleading icons of evolutionary materialism that too often appear in textbooks, the popular media, the Internet and the blogosphere] where it rightly belongs only to be resurrected to show why it is useless and not to emulated. I have said all this discussion is folly because the program is nonsense.
[Moderators, do you think the time has come to host such a virtual hall of infamy here at UD?]kairosfocus_{March 29, 2009
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Clive, Please read 45, 47, 63, and 83. IDers are so focused on parsing the Weasel program that they have forgotten, if they ever knew, what Dawkins was trying to convey. The specification of the target is irrelevant to the point he illustrates with the program. That the target is constant is also irrelevant. I have described trivial modifications to the program that make this obvious. In other words, I have removed what IDers usually object to. The program still accumulates statistical information as it runs, but the only way to see this is to run the program many times. The Weasel program, under interpretation in line with Darwinian evolutionary theory, essentially says that organisms express themselves in 28 dimensions, and that the environment "pays off" exactly one of 27 possible traits in each of those dimensions. In the Wandering Weasel program, I initialize the Markovian environment uniformly at random because most IDers feel that there is something remarkable in setting it to "Methinks it is like a weasel." But the initialization is actually irrelevant. Set the environment to the "weasel" line, and you will see, as the program runs, the sentence wander over the space of length-28 sequences of letters and spaces. There is a weasel, it does wander, and the evolution strategy does track it.
And do we have a better way of “getting across” something that shouldn’t be “gotten across”?
Are you saying that populations of organisms do not accrue statistical information? There is strong evidence that beneficial alleles have entered the human genome rapidly since humans began pushing into a wide range of new environments. One of the authors of Mendel's Accountant, John C. Sanford, says that genetic entropy does not permit this. What's your position?Sal Gal_{March 29, 2009
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4] My thinking is, some event is designed by whatever causes preciptiated its occurence. That volcanic eruption for example was designed and characterized by whatever physical forces precipitated it and constrained it. Orwellian, manipulative, language- corrupting, destructive newspeak. Here, the term "design" -- which is well established as a term and is abundantly exemplified in light of the fact that we live in a technological civilisation -- is being wrenched to try to claim that it means just what it does not mean. Am H Dict:
de·sign (d-zn) v. de·signed, de·sign·ing, de·signs v.tr. 1. a. To conceive or fashion in the mind; invent: design a good excuse for not attending the conference. b. To formulate a plan for; devise: designed a marketing strategy for the new product. 2. To plan out in systematic, usually graphic form: design a building; design a computer program. 3. To create or contrive for a particular purpose or effect: a game designed to appeal to all ages. 4. To have as a goal or purpose; intend. 5. To create or execute in an artistic or highly skilled manner. v.intr. 1. To make or execute plans. 2. To have a goal or purpose in mind. 3. To create designs.
5] Even in the case of human design, there is a context of culture, of necessity, of existing technology that must be considered to fully account for the emergence of new technology. Basic logic, 101: P => Q means that P is sufficient for Q, and Q is necessary for P. That is, NOT{ P AND Not-Q]. However, this is NOT at all the same as that P is equivaslent to Q. that is Q does not determine P; it only constrains it. There are constraints that may well influence how a design is carried though, but they do not determine the design. For instance, the rules of spelling and grammar constrain a good English sentence, but they do not determine it. The "rules" of electronics [based on device physics and circuits - networks theory] constrain designs, but that does not determine the architecture of a microprocessor, e.g. a Pentium or an Athlon or a good old 6800 or 8080 or even a 1971 era 4004. Such a gross error as just captioned, sadly, shows how the evolutionary materialistic, chance + necessity view simply cannot handle the most patent fact of all: we are conscious, reasoning, deciding, acting creatures. It reduces to absurdity, over and over again, as a direct result. JT, when your reductio has reached absurdum, not once but over and over again, it is high time to rethink your key first plausibles. 6] Is the remaining 99.99999999999999999999999999999 of the universe essentially garbage? Why does it exist? First, have you ever seriously star gazed outside the zone of city-lights? (If so, the notion of the beautiful, subtle, intricate cosmos in which we live being possibly garbage should never cross your mind.) Have you acquainted yourself with the science of cosmological origins, and the associated inference to design in light of fine-tuning per the most credible scientific model of cosmological origins? In essence, on dozens of parameters of crucial importance to the cosmos as we see it, we live in a universe that is knife's edge balanced to facilitate the existence to the kind of carbon chemistry aqueous medium cell based life we observe and experience. Scale and constitution of the observed cosmos are directly connected to the existence of the sort of galaxy in which we live, and its having a habitable zone, such as our local spur between two major spiral arms and a bit over 1/2 way from the central core to the rim. In turn, it seems there are a few dozen more interesting finely tuned factors that have led to our having a habitable planet such as our own on which we live. And, it is also interesting that such a planet in such a solar system in such a galactic habitable zone is also by those same factors set up for inviting investigation of the glories and intricacies of the universe. Indeed, the best explanation for our cosmos, in light of the factors and patterns we see, is that it is the product of design, powerful, elegant design too. And, it is COSMOLOGICAL design that points to an extra-cosmic, powerful and intelligent, artistically creative designer. but of course, one is free to shut one's eyes to the obvious, and to dismiss the powerful testimony of the cosmos in which we live, making up stories to make such eye-shutting seem reasonable. S/he, however, is not thereafter free to escape the absurd consequences that flow from that -- including the notion that the glorious cosmos we can so easily gaze upon in wonder, could be discussed in the same context as "garbage." 7 if recognizable sequences from Hamlet are preserved, probabilistic resources don’t enter into it. the issue is of course to get To those sequences, without smuggling in active information. On that, issues of probabilistic resources constraining realistic search are very relevant, as Mr Dawkins himself admitted in 1986. And as was explicitly noted. Repeat: Weasel ducks the real challenge -- getting TO shores of function, not hill climbing to more or less optimal function. 8] Hazel, 76: mutation happens independent of selection for fitness. By Mr Dawkins' own admission, onlookers, Weasel selected "nonsense phrases" -- i.e non-functional ones -- for PROXIMITY to "target," not for fitness. Weasel begs the question of first having to get to shores of function before differential section based on degree of performance, and properly be taken into account. And, by his own admission, that was to get away from the inconvenient fact that even in a toy example, a realistic functionality threshold would have been beyond the probabilistic search resources in the computer. And dismissive references to "propaganda" and attempts to put up "neo-Weasel Mark 156, 157, . ." do not change that basic, sadly abject failure on the merits. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{March 29, 2009
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Onlookers: There is actually very little point in onward extension of the issues over minutae of Weasel and/or the latest neo-Weasel, the real matters on the merits having long since been settled. Namely, out of Mr Dawkins' own mouth, Weasel is utterly unconnected to the real issues and begs the question of origin of complex, functional bio-information. Weasel has no legitimate illustrative or didactic role and only serves to distract from the Hoylean challenge to get TO shores of bio-function on molecular noise in pre-biotic environments, and/or to get to major body plans that require huge increments of functionally integrated information. Plainly, for 150 years now, Darwinism has had no real answer to this question. And, it is the key question. Darwinism, once we move beyond minor micro-changes to already functioning organisms, is an empirical failure, a massive one; now increasingly sustained by the powers of an orthodoxy, complete with its own magisterium. However, a few points will be remarked on, for the further record, no 72 being particularly revealing: 1] Madsen, 66:In the weasel program, assuming “implicit latching”, do you believe that a correct letter has a different probability of mutating than an incorrect letter? Observe -- as I have already explicitly stated (and summarised above) -- Madsen, that the Weasel, from 1986, explicitly rewards increments to the target, without reference to function. Under reasonably accessible co-tuning of program mutation rates, population sizes and this filter, we will see that once a letter goes correct, form genration to gneration, the champions will preserve the correct letters due to that co-tuning. So, under that co-tuning, per population member in a generation, letters may see the same odds of mutation, i.e your question is mid-directed. For, because of the non-functionality, proximity filter acting with the rates and pop size, once a letter goes correct, it will pass down in the champions line of succession with much higher probability than letters that are not correct. In certain cases, the latching of the letters is practically all but certain. This is what on preponderance of evidence happened in 1986 in ch 3 of TBW, and in the NS run. Indeed, there we can see that of 300+ positions that could change, 200+ show that letters, once correct stay that way, and none are seen to revert. Such a large sample provided by the man who in the same context exults in how progress is "cumulative," is clearly representative. 2] DK, 69:your comment helps me understand what you mean by “implicit latching.” You mean “non-latching.” Stubborn insistence on corrected error, in the teeth of explanation of the correction. Latching is an o/p observation based on the actual runs, Mr Kellogg. The issue is mechanism to get there. For the record, I have already long since pointed out that such o/p letter latching as samples published in 1986 show beyond reasonable doubt, can be implicitly achieved, not just explicitly so. In the explicit case, a per letter distance metric specifically locks the letter once it hits the target. In the implicit case, the use of a mere proximity metric co-tuned to population size and mutation rates sets up that there are some zero-mutations members of the population, and so only members that have at least that many correct letters will advance. Since it is hard to get to a double that substitutes a new letter for an old that has reverted, on probabilistic grounds, the correct letters will overwhelmingly latch in such cases. Under other cases, as the pop size and mutation rates make multiple letter mutations more and more likely, letter substitutions and multiple new correct letter champions will emerge and begin to dominate the runs. This, because the filter that selects the champions rewards mere proximity without reference to function; as Mr Dawkins so explicitly stated. So, to put up a de-tuned case as if it were the sort of co-tuned latching case as we see in the 1986 runs, is a strawman fallacy. One that has been used in recent weeks over and over again. I note: the 1987 o/p is materially different from the 1986 one,a nd we have two viable mechanisms to explain the difference. On preponderance of evidence -- specifically given Mr Dawkins' reported claim that he did not explicitly latch the 1986 runs as published, implicit latching is the best explanation forf r the 1986 patterns. likewise de-tuning leading to letter reversions is the best explanation for the 1987 run as videotaped. All of this has been pointed out, and the meaning of "implicit latching" has long since been explained across three threads and hundreds of posts now in recent weeks. There are utterly no grounds -- and there is no excuse -- for this latest objection. 3] JT, 72: there would be some complete set of determinsitic factors that came together at some point in time to cause that volcano to erupt. That set of factors would equate to a program causing volcanic eruption. Some aspects of that program came into existence by chance, presumably, I’m not denying that. I of course live with an erupting volcano as a near neighbour. I can assure you, regrettably, there is no observed algorithm, that is coded in any observed computer language, stored in any observed storage medium and run on any observed hardware that can be hacked to shut it down. The volcano is a dynamical situation in the real world, not a computer simulation. The two are utterly distinct and should not be confused or equated. Moreover, the essence of program is linguistically coded algorithm, which implements a process through purposefully decided, step by step sequences of actions and choices, usually involving loops of iterations and data structures, instantiated on hardware. Programs are not mechanical forces acting on materials and structures in nature. they are artifacts of design, exhibiting both functionally specific complex information and irreducible complexity. Dynamical situations in nature -- and a volcano is a nonlinear, complex, sensitively dependent physical entity -- exhibit mechanical forces and chance circumstances, not signs of design; directed contingency. [ . . . ]kairosfocus_{March 29, 2009
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