tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post1421168954154767358..comments2024-01-23T02:32:28.567-08:00Comments on Darwin's God: The Web WeaversUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger408125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-75481877521962827352010-08-11T07:45:07.076-07:002010-08-11T07:45:07.076-07:00Doublee said...
Ilion:
You ought to be im...<i>Doublee said...<br /><br /> Ilion:<br /> You ought to be impressed by the mental gymnastics that a DarwinDefender will engage in so as to believe that every output of Avida is not fully determined.<br /><br /> Thanks for your support. As I have argued against the legitimacy of evolutionary algorithms, I started thinking about whether in principle a true evolutionary emulation can be written. My intitial intuition is that such an emulation cannot be written because of the very unpredictability of evolution.<br /><br /> A program whose output is fully determined cannot by definition be a program that emulates a process in which the output in undetermined.</i><br /><br />The Avida program is not deterministic. You'd know that if you bothered to read anything at all from the MSU Digital Lab website.<br /><br /><i>My sense is that a program could be written that would "work", that is produce output. But that would require making assumptions about what nature would do under certain conditions, and not what nature actually did. "Survival of the fittest" is a concept, not a specification.</i><br /><br />You still don't understand the difference between how the process works and the variable input parameters used for specific runs. "Survival of the fittest" is an <b>observed result</b> of the process, not a programmed-in goal.<br /><br /><i>His statement suggests that Darwinian algorithms have been written, but I have not run across any discussions of those algorithms.<br /><br />It would be interesting to know the nature of those algorithms and whether they confirm my intuition. </i><br /><br />There is a huge amount of readily available discussion on Avida, including the numerous papers with the results published in mainstream scientific journals. A simple Google search will turn up hundreds of pages. But first you have to want to learn. I'm sad to say you haven't shown much desire to educate yourself on this topic despite being given multiple avenues to pursue.Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-70739046890237791692010-08-11T07:34:47.985-07:002010-08-11T07:34:47.985-07:00Doublee:
"As I have argued against the legit...Doublee:<br /><br />"As I have argued against the legitimacy of evolutionary algorithms, I started thinking about whether in principle a true evolutionary emulation can be written. My intitial intuition is that such an emulation cannot be written because of the very unpredictability of evolution."<br /><br />You didn't think very hard apparently. Have you really never heard of stochastic models, Monte Carlo models? What do they teach EE's these days?<br /><br />It's very easy to build stochastic effects into models. You use random numbers to simulate random distributions of events. Used a lot in individual based or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent-based_model" rel="nofollow">agent-based</a> evolutionary models.troyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05136662027396943138noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-2014040928843175992010-08-11T07:20:52.666-07:002010-08-11T07:20:52.666-07:00Ilion:
You ought to be impressed by the mental gym...<b>Ilion:</b><br /><i>You ought to be impressed by the mental gymnastics that a DarwinDefender will engage in so as to believe that every output of Avida is not fully determined.</i><br /><br />Thanks for your support. As I have argued against the legitimacy of evolutionary algorithms, I started thinking about whether in principle a true evolutionary emulation can be written. My intitial intuition is that such an emulation cannot be written because of the very unpredictability of evolution.<br /><br />A program whose output is fully determined cannot by definition be a program that emulates a process in which the output in undetermined.<br /><br />My sense is that a program could be written that would "work", that is produce output. But that would require making assumptions about what nature would do under certain conditions, and not what nature actually did. "Survival of the fittest" is a concept, not a specification.<br /><br />I recall David Berlinski's assertion that evolutionary algorithms that work are not Darwinian, and those that are Darwinian do not work.<br /><br />His statement suggests that Darwinian algorithms have been written, but I have not run across any discussions of those algorithms.<br /><br />It would be interesting to know the nature of those algorithms and whether they confirm my intuition.Doubleehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09894977171356099262noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-55680922953768299502010-08-10T12:20:24.817-07:002010-08-10T12:20:24.817-07:00Ilíon said...
Many people, including I, have ...<i>Ilíon said...<br /><br /> Many people, including I, have shown that Avida not only does not, but logically cannot, do what its authors like to imply, or even claim, that it does. But, logic does not matter to you people. Nor does truth. </i><br /><br />Talk is cheap Ilíon, and right now you don't have a cent to your name. <br /><br /> Show us this wonderful evidence that Avida <b>cannot</b> realistically emulate actual evolutionay processes. Be specific.Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-33530910207399045032010-08-10T12:16:17.853-07:002010-08-10T12:16:17.853-07:00Ilíon said...
Doublee,
You ought to be im...<i>Ilíon said...<br /><br /> Doublee,<br /> You ought to be impressed by the mental gymnastics that a DarwinDefender will engage in so as to believe that every output of Avida is not fully determined. </i><br /><br />Wrong again. Avida outputs are not deterministic. Due to the random mutations in the makeup of the digital organisms, changes which emulate the random nature of genetic changes in living creatures, starting with the identical parameters will not yield identical results. <br /><br />Just as in real evolution, some runs will converge on the same optimal solution given the environment, but the paths to get there are totally different.Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-14927790244475584752010-08-10T12:05:23.604-07:002010-08-10T12:05:23.604-07:00Ilíon, who mocks self-delusion for kicks: "Av...<b>Ilíon, who mocks self-delusion for kicks:</b> "<i>Avida?<br /><br />LOL You poor, poor, deluded things! To have to hang your hats on that.</i>"<br /><br /><b>Thornton, who is intellectually dishonest -- and, apparently, believes that assertion-of-claimed-authority is logic:</b> "<i>Maybe you could explain to everyone why Avida is so bad, seeing how the Avida researchers alone have published more scientific research in each of the last ten years that the sum total of the entire IDC movement in its history. Included in that list are papers in Nature, Science, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, PLoS Biology, PNAS, Journal of Theoretical Biology, among others. </i>"<br /><br />Many people, including I, have shown that <i>Avida</i> not only does not, but logically cannot, do what its authors like to imply, or even claim, that it does. But, logic does not matter to you people. Nor does truth.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-91824213530232719122010-08-10T11:58:24.481-07:002010-08-10T11:58:24.481-07:00Doublee,
You ought to be impressed by the mental g...Doublee,<br />You ought to be impressed by the mental gymnastics that a DarwinDefender will engage in so as to believe that every output of <i>Avida</i> is not fully determined.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-64444282338785969012010-08-10T11:48:52.906-07:002010-08-10T11:48:52.906-07:00Doublee said...
Thorton:
Me: Is it possib...<i>Doublee said...<br /><br /> Thorton:<br /> Me: Is it possible to write a program without a goal?<br /><br /> You: The Avida digital evolution research program<br /><br /> Are you telling me that selecting for more complex digital circuits was not a goal of the program? And are you telling me that the code that selects for the more complex digital circuits is not an intelligent selection factor?</i><br /><br />That's exactly what I'm telling you. The "goal" of the program was to maximize its survival/reproductive potential, <b>period.</b> How it did this was totally unspecified. "Complex" was not selected for. "Better evolutionary fitness" was selected for. It just so happened that for some environments the more complex organisms performed better. In some environmental scenarios <b>less</b> complex organisms did better.<br /><br /><br /><i>Is not the outcome of a true evolutionary process unpredictable in the broadest sense of the term? Can you take the precursor to the whale -- assuming you could be there to observe it -- and predict that it would eventually become a whale? Come to think of it, could you even really know what animal to choose without knowing the contemporary whale evoluton story?<br /><br />So how does one write a truly representative evolutionary emulation without knowing the starting point, and without being able to predict the ending point assuming the starting point could be determined?</i><br /><br />The program emulates the <b>process</b> of evolution, not specific starting and ending points for a particular lineage.<br /><br /><i>The Avida program is designed to create a certain kind of "organism." The exact nature of the organism is not predictable, but the class of organisms is: logic circuits. And a certain amount of programming intelligence (selection factor) has to be added to the program to guide the program in the proper direction. Furthermore it is nowhere near as complex as life really is.</i><br /><br />It'a a <b>model</b>. Of course it's nowhere near as complex as the thing it's modeling. But it emulates the <b>process</b> well enough to produce valuable scientific results.<br /><br />You keep confusing the parameters entered for the model with the working of the feedback process itself. In the real world the environment supplies the parameters - what morphologies work best and thrive, which are less efficient and are selected against. <b>But the process is exactly the same</b>.<br /><br /><i>To claim that any kind of guided evolutionary algorithm with intelligent selection factors represents an unguided process with no intelligent selection factors is an obvious contradiction.</i><br /><br />More confusing of the parameters with the process. The mental gymnastics you are going through to not understand this basic concept are amazing.<br /><br /><i>You: Behe’s original opinion was published. Magazine publishers are under no obligation to continue and publish Behe’s follow on opinion pieces and give him a platform to spout his fact-free nonsense.<br /><br />Yet you (the generic you) castigate intelligent design advocates for not publishing in peer reviewed journals. </i><br /><br />No. We (the scientific community) castigate IDC advocates for <b>not even attempting to submit their work</b> to peer reviewed journals. It's just like your engineer who refuses to let his design undergo a design review. I'm not talking about opinion pieces like Behe is crying over. I'm talking <b>actual scientific research.</b> The IDC folks have none, which is why they only publish popular press books written to convince uneducated laymen.Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-69441074784096002742010-08-10T10:45:26.363-07:002010-08-10T10:45:26.363-07:00Thorton:
Me:
Is it possible to write a program wit...<b>Thorton:</b><br />Me:<br />Is it possible to write a program without a goal?<br /><br />You:<br /><i>The Avida digital evolution research program</i><br /><br />Are you telling me that selecting for more complex digital circuits was not a goal of the program? And are you telling me that the code that selects for the more complex digital circuits is not an intelligent selection factor?<br /><br />Is not the outcome of a true evolutionary process unpredictable in the broadest sense of the term? Can you take the precursor to the whale -- assuming you could be there to observe it -- and predict that it would eventually become a whale? Come to think of it, could you even really know what animal to choose without knowing the contemporary whale evoluton story?<br /><br />So how does one write a truly representative evolutionary emulation without knowing the starting point, and without being able to predict the ending point assuming the starting point could be determined?<br /><br />The Avida program is designed to create a certain kind of "organism." The exact nature of the organism is not predictable, but the class of organisms is: logic circuits. And a certain amount of programming intelligence (selection factor) has to be added to the program to guide the program in the proper direction. Furthermore it is nowhere near as complex as life really is.<br /><br />To claim that any kind of guided evolutionary algorithm with intelligent selection factors represents an unguided process with no intelligent selection factors is an obvious contradiction.<br /><br />You:<br /><i>Behe’s original opinion was published. Magazine publishers are under no obligation to continue and publish Behe’s follow on opinion pieces and give him a platform to spout his fact-free nonsense.</i><br /><br />Yet you (the generic you) castigate intelligent design advocates for not publishing in peer reviewed journals.Doubleehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09894977171356099262noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-83934631108658948352010-08-10T05:58:59.375-07:002010-08-10T05:58:59.375-07:00Thornton, "projecting": "WTF???
I ...<b>Thornton, "projecting":</b> "<i>WTF???<br /><br />I just had a long post show up for a few minutes, and then it just vanished.<br /><br />Unacceptable.</i>"<br /><br />*eye roll*<br /><br />Yeah, and when that happens to my own posts on my own blog, it's clear that "someone is out to silence me."Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-87651314448219154592010-08-09T21:23:51.168-07:002010-08-09T21:23:51.168-07:00Ilíon said...
Avida?
LOL You poor, poor,...<i>Ilíon said...<br /><br /> Avida?<br /><br /> LOL You poor, poor, deluded things! To have to hang your hats on that.</i><br /><br />Maybe you could explain to everyone why Avida is so bad, seeing how the Avida researchers alone have published more scientific research in each of the last ten years that the sum total of the entire IDC movement in its history. Included in that list are papers in <i>Nature, Science, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, PLoS Biology, PNAS, Journal of Theoretical Biology,</i> among others.Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-39010530461607358392010-08-09T20:14:27.490-07:002010-08-09T20:14:27.490-07:00Avida?
LOL You poor, poor, deluded things! To h...<i>Avida?</i><br /><br />LOL You poor, poor, deluded things! To have to hang your hats on that.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-63511805823352155512010-08-09T20:12:34.320-07:002010-08-09T20:12:34.320-07:00Thanks for saving and posting that CH. I apprecia...Thanks for saving and posting that CH. I appreciate it.Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-24785912297391526872010-08-09T20:10:35.092-07:002010-08-09T20:10:35.092-07:00Thorton wrote:
========================
OK, I ...Thorton wrote:<br /><br />========================<br /><br /><br /><br />OK, I just had another long post disappear.<br /><br />This time I'm going to try it without the embedded links. <br /><br /><br />Doublee said... <br /><br />Thorton: I asked how would you personally view someone who refused to let their work be peer reviewed by experts. Would you trust them?<br /><br />Personally, I would not trust them.<br /><br />They why are you surprised that scientists don’t trust the IDC charlatans who do exactly the same thing?<br /><br />I have read articles about evolutionary algorithms and undestand in broad terms how they work.<br /><br />They are great for optimizing designs, such as the high frequency antenna I read about. These design optimization algorithms certainly don't mimic Darwinian processes for at least two reasons. 1)They have a goal. 2)The randomly generated design parameters are intelligently selected to optimize the particular design under consideration.<br /><br />By your words I see you still don’t understand them at all. The process uses the same evolutionary feedback mechanisms as found in nature. Even NASA on their ESG page says so:<br /><br />“ Coevolutionary Algorithms: Cooperation and competition between populations of organisms in nature has inspired researchers to incorporate coevolutionary dynamics into genetic algorithms. The common element in these approaches is the inclusion of one or more additional populations. A growing body of research explores coevolutionary approaches that capitalize on this dynamic quality.”<br /><br />Just because the EA is being used to search for a specific optimum instead of any optimum doesn’t negate the validity of the process. If someone were to demonstrate gravity by dropping a water balloon from a rooftop onto your head, would the demo of gravity be invalid because the balloon was aimed at a target?<br /><br />Those algorithms specifically written to demonstrate Darwinian evolution suffer from the same problem, and therefore really end up showing the opposite of what they are intended to show -- that intelligent selection is required for them to work at all.<br /><br />Please Doublee, that reasoning makes me embarrassed for you. Do you think that since NOAA uses computer models to predict the formation of hurricanes, that makes hurricanes intelligently designed too?<br /><br />I have often wondered if it is even possible to write a program that truly emulates evolution.<br /><br />Is it possible to write a program without a goal?<br /><br />The Avida digital evolution research program <br /><br /><br />http://devolab.msu.edu/<br /><br /><br />at the MSU Digital Evolution Laboratory has been running for over 10 years now. In that time some amazing emergent evolutionary phenomena have been observed. Most recently have been the evolution of memory and a rudimentary intelligence:<br /><br /><br />http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727723.700-artificial-life-forms-evolve-basic-intelligence.html<br /><br /><br />By the way, do you think it is O.K. for magazine publishers to refuse to print articles rebutting aritcles that are critical of say, Behe's work?<br /><br />Absolutely. Behe’s original opinion was published. Magazine publishers are under no obligation to continue and publish Behe’s follow on opinion pieces and give him a platform to spout his fact-free nonsense. Why do you think Behe is entitled to have a privately owned publishing house give him free publishing space? The situation is a far cry from a professional science journal refusing to publish verified scientific work because it disagrees with the editor’s beliefs.Cornelius Hunterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12283098537456505707noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-3177213861161137572010-08-09T20:08:45.564-07:002010-08-09T20:08:45.564-07:00Try 2 just vanished too, this time in under a minu...Try 2 just vanished too, this time in under a minute.<br /><br />Looks like the board SW is FUBAR.Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-60676309592324879072010-08-09T20:08:35.268-07:002010-08-09T20:08:35.268-07:00"Unacceptable"
Yes indeed, but not a ju..."Unacceptable"<br /><br />Yes indeed, but not a justification for language.Cornelius Hunterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12283098537456505707noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-64015346133469779462010-08-09T17:20:20.456-07:002010-08-09T17:20:20.456-07:00Thorton:
I asked how would you personally view som...<b>Thorton:</b><br /><i>I asked how would you personally view someone who refused to let their work be peer reviewed by experts. Would you trust them?</i><br /><br />Personally, I would not trust them.<br /><br /><i>Did you get a chance to read up on evolutionary algorithms yet? Do you understand how they work?</i><br /><br />I have read articles about evolutionary algorithms and undestand in broad terms how they work.<br /><br />They are great for optimizing designs, such as the high frequency antenna I read about. These design optimization algorithms certainly don't mimic Darwinian processes for at least two reasons. 1)They have a goal. 2)The randomly generated design parameters are intelligently selected to optimize the particular design under consideration.<br /><br />Those algorithms specifically written to demonstrate Darwinian evolution suffer from the same problem, and therefore really end up showing the opposite of what they are intended to show -- that intelligent selection is required for them to work at all.<br /><br />I have often wondered if it is even possible to write a program that truly emulates evolution.<br /><br />I am thinking of something akin to the computer emulations that are used to verify microchip designs. Such emulations have representaions of the logic functions, capacitances and inductances. All aspects of a chip's operation can be tested and verified in a computer before the design is committed to fabrication.<br /><br />Is it possible to write a program without a goal?<br /><br />By the way, do you think it is O.K. for magazine publishers to refuse to print articles rebutting aritcles that are critical of say, Behe's work?<br /><br />Behe has been refused a number of times.Doubleehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09894977171356099262noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-73628102322976950152010-08-08T20:38:30.206-07:002010-08-08T20:38:30.206-07:00Doublee said...
Thorton:
You still haven&...<i>Doublee said...<br /><br /> Thorton:<br /> You still haven't told me what you'd think of an engineer who refused to submit his designs for critical design review like the IDCers continually refuse. Is there a reason you're avoiding the question?<br /><br /> The reason I have avoided the question is that I wasn't sure what you meant by IDers' refusing to submit to design reveiws.</i><br /><br />I'm talking about ID "scientists" like Behe and Dembski publishing their *supposed* evidence of intelligent design" work only in popular press books instead of submitting them to mainstream scientific journals for critical peer review by qualified science professionals. <br /><br /><i> If an engineer refuses to submit to a design review, his management would have little choice but to fire him.</i><br /><br />OK, but I didn't ask what the company should do. I asked how would you <i>personally</i> view someone who refused to let their work be peer reviewed by experts. Would you trust them?<br /><br />Did you get a chance to read up on evolutionary algorithms yet? Do you understand how they work?Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-89823676257298808242010-08-08T20:17:26.590-07:002010-08-08T20:17:26.590-07:00Thorton:
You still haven't told me what you...<b>Thorton:</b><br /><i>You still haven't told me what you'd think of an engineer who refused to submit his designs for critical design review like the IDCers continually refuse. Is there a reason you're avoiding the question?</i><br /><br />The reason I have avoided the question is that I wasn't sure what you meant by IDers' refusing to submit to design reveiws.<br /><br />If an engineer refuses to submit to a design review, his management would have little choice but to fire him.Doubleehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09894977171356099262noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-63371045142214700672010-08-08T08:50:06.746-07:002010-08-08T08:50:06.746-07:00Doublee: All the reporter needs to do is to descri...<b>Doublee</b>: <i>All the reporter needs to do is to describe in general terms what took place according to what the theory requires, because he knows that the theory is true. He need not let his mind be burdened with the thought that the theory is not true. </i><br /><br />Let's follow this through. We know the history of life as a divergence from common ancestors. In order to determine the mechanisms involved, we try to look at specific transitions. When we do, we find that many such transitions, even those that may seem phenomenal on their surface, are due to incremental and selectable adaptations. <br /><br />Consider the mammalian middle ear, which is comprised of three very delicate and precisely aligned bones; complex and irreducible. Embryonic studies of the early twentieth century showed that two of these bones derive from the same structures that form the reptilian jaw. From Commmon Descent, it was hypothesized that there were intermediate structures in the lineage leading to modern mammals, but the intermediates seemed implausible. It wasn't until half-a-century and more later that fossils were found that showed how this transition occurred. Furthermore, modern data from genetics shows how small changes in development can lead to exactly the sorts of changes (paedomorphic retention) required to explain the transition. <br /><br />Q Ji et al., <i>Evolutionary Development of the Middle Ear in Mesozoic Therian Mammals</i>, Science 2009.Zachrielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11268229653808829377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-19753290780394705172010-08-08T08:33:36.114-07:002010-08-08T08:33:36.114-07:00Eocene: "... Their word for miracle is "...<i>Eocene: "... Their word for miracle is "emergence"."<br /><br />Ilion: I think it's closer to the truth to understand that "emergence" is their word for "magic,"</i><br /><br />Or maybe it means exactly the same thing it does in all the other natural sciences.<br />There's nothing about a carbon atom that screams transparency, fiery luster, extreme hardness, and hefty price tag.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08653724994545850549noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-8368318599846862722010-08-08T07:57:20.369-07:002010-08-08T07:57:20.369-07:00I see Eocene is still blithering away but still ha...I see Eocene is still blithering away but still hasn't come up with an explanation for that <b>magic genetic barrier that somehow prevents macroevolution from occurring.</b><br /><br />What a surprise.Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-49774590452820992542010-08-08T07:24:36.177-07:002010-08-08T07:24:36.177-07:00Doublee said...
The problem as I see it is that t...<i>Doublee said...<br /><br />The problem as I see it is that the stories are written from the viewpoint of a reporter who takes the sequence at face value. All the reporter needs to do is to describe in general terms what took place according to what the theory requires, because he knows that the theory is true. He need not let his mind be burdened with the thought that the theory is not true. Therefore all the mutations that were required obviously did occur in the time required and in the correct sequence. There were no problems that evolution was unable to solve, because obviously the fossil record is there to attest to the fact that indeed they were solved.</i><br /><br />The examples we are giving here are <b>extremely</b> simplified general ones shown in the hope you could grasp the concepts involved. If you want the specific technical details you'll have to educate yourself with college level courses and read extensively from the primary scientific literature. Do you think you could explain everything there is to know about EE in a paragraph or two?<br /><br /><i>To us skeptics, this seems all too easy and convenient. My engineering mind will not allow me to get past the seemingly miraculous feats of coordination and sequencing that random, undirected genetic changes are asserted to perform.</i><br /><br />Sigh again...for the umpteenth time, it's not *just* random, undirected genetic changes, it's the feedback action of <b>genetic variation filtered by selection</b> that does the work.<br /><br />Since you don't seem to understand feedback loops, as an EE have you ever heard or read about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm" rel="nofollow"> evolutionary algorithms</a>? <br /><br />"In artificial intelligence, an evolutionary algorithm (EA) is a subset of evolutionary computation, a generic population-based metaheuristic optimization algorithm. <b>An EA uses some mechanisms inspired by biological evolution: reproduction, mutation, recombination, and selection.</b> Candidate solutions to the optimization problem play the role of individuals in a population, and the fitness function determines the environment within which the solutions "live" (see also cost function). Evolution of the population then takes place after the repeated application of the above operators."<br /><br />They are used all the time in dozens of engineering applications to create unique functional designs. NASA has its own <a href="http://ti.arc.nasa.gov/projects/esg/" rel="nofollow">Evolvable Systems Group</a> and uses EAs to evolve things like complex RF antennas. EAs work. They are based on the observed processes of biological evolution. <b>Please</b> read up on them and understand that they are using the exact same feedback process of random variation filtered by selection.<br /><br />The ARN nonsense is just more "what good is half an eye" Creationist personal incredulity. Things like eyes, elephant trunks, etc. developed all the required parts in parallel with each stage being fully functional but having less capability that what we observe now. An eye with 1% capability is better than no eye, and a 1% proto-trunk evolving from a mobile upper lip in a proto-elephant is better than no trunk. The brain, nerves, etc. are just modification to things already in place.<br /><br /><a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_10_106/ai_53479052/" rel="nofollow">elephant trunk evolution</a><br /><br />You still haven't told me what you'd think of an engineer who refused to submit his designs for critical design review like the IDCers continually refuse. Is there a reason you're avoiding the question?Ghostriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04686873801972423841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-6142229602504753302010-08-08T06:12:35.270-07:002010-08-08T06:12:35.270-07:00Hey, it's the science-illiterate Illion again,...Hey, it's the science-illiterate Illion again, on a little drive-by shouting. Will you now defend your claims for a change, or will you flee cowardly as always? I'm betting on the latter.<br /><br />When you wrote<br /><br />"The fuller truth is this: the only source ... and the only repository ... of *any* information is the minds of intelligent beings."<br /><br />What did you mean by "information"?troyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05136662027396943138noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3855268335402896473.post-10535824096176465952010-08-08T05:16:12.986-07:002010-08-08T05:16:12.986-07:00Eicene: "... Their word for miracle is "...<b>Eicene:</b> "<i>... Their word for miracle is "emergence".</i>"<br /><br />I think it's closer to the truth to understand that "emergence" is their word for "magic," that is, for something logically impossible (or, at any rate, logically impossible given their axioms) but that they nonetheless need to assert or believe happened/happens.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.com