One of the TAM speakers created a wee java applet that puts yet another boot to the creationist camp, in particular the tent that goes under the name of "irreducible complexity".
Check out the Irreducible Complexity Evolver. A ball drops from column four, worth some points, and the aim is to get the ball out column five. The program (which is a set of co-ordinates and letters that do things) is fit if the total points minus the number of letters is more than zero.
After a dozen programs are tested, they create offspring that are mutated in some way (letters are removed, inserted or changed, or two programs combined code), and the cycle begins. (Evolution, anyone?) This continues through generations, until eventually the programs balance against the ball points (which change as programs get better), the programs can't adapt to the changing ball points, or... a program is created such that it is fit, but if one letter is removed the score it gets falls to zero. Aka, the program is irreducibly complex...
Intelligent Design theorists claim that evolution can't create irreducibly complex systems. Wanna bet?
[END]
Saturday 18 August 2007
Before your very eyes...
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5 comments:
Hmm, the first two runs I did ended up with every genetic sequence having a fitness of 0 - extinction!
Run three seems to have stablised with everyone having a fitness of 48, with mutations unable to improve (up to generation 1200 or so). Success! A viable, mutation-resistant genome! :)
I find switching the threshold off to begin with (a predator free environment) for a while to let good programs build up, then putting threshold on, helps create IC programs.
A predator-free environmet? That's cheating! You can't start the Bible story with the lamb lying down with the lion - that's supposed to happen at the end!
Hey, before the Fall, all the animals were vegetarians, which explains how they all survived on the ark without eating each other! (Speaking of the ark, don't forget many of them were young which explains how the dinosaurs survived on the ark, they were small...)
But there are plenty of examples of animals going into new environments and flourishing before predators start developing.
Didn't the lion have a thorn in its paw which the mouse got out?
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