Avida and Irreducible Complexity

I haven't seen much discussing on the Avida program here yet. For those that don't know it’s an a-life simulation of evolution that is demonstrating basic truths of evolution do just happen. Including seemingly irreducibly complex systems. These a-life evolutions develop through step-wise processes akin to natural evolution. The program can be downloaded and played with by anyone: No webpage found at provided URL: http://dllab.caltech.edu/avida/And it’s starting to get into the popular science press, even took the cover story on Discover magazine this month: Discover Financial ServicesI am curious what everyone thinks of this approach and its applicability. It certainly has some very pertinent things to say about the ID movement. But what about evolution in general?I recently had an argument with an individual about "bottom-up" and "top-down" processes of evolution. Mainly he was arguing the evolutionary psychology can not succeeded because it is marred by "top-down" models that are doomed to reflect poorly on what’s happening. And that the only way to truly understand evolution is through "bottom-up" models. Avida fits somewhat into this bottom up approach.Is this more applicable then the top-down theories that have been used, not just by my discipline, but by most of evolutionary biology in general?For ID and creationist, how does something like this not count towards "direct" observation of evolutionary principles? Is there something special about his program that makes it do what you think is impossible?

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

I just read that issue of discovery...it seems like ID is pretty much screwed now, the digital organisms produced an "irreducibly complex" function (EQU) that the odds against forming "by chance" was in the trillions. Brilliant!This message has been edited by AlasdairJC, 01-31-2005 15:19 AM

But there was an intelligent entity within 100 miles of the computer on which it happened, therefore the whole thing is the result of intellignet design.

You can't be serious...

He's not, but just hang on. One of the creationists will show up here and explain that, since it took intelligence to write the software, anything the software does must be the result of intelligence, not chance.

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He's not, but just hang on. One of the creationists will show up here and explain that, since it took intelligence to write the software, anything the software does must be the result of intelligence, not chance.

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And for all the same reasons, the orbit of all the planets is also designed because NASA has a computer that they use for satellite trajectories.

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But there was an intelligent entity within 100 miles of the computer on which it happened, therefore the whole thing is the result of intellignet design.

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Unfortunately, you are not terribly off from what IDist did come up with. Most of it relied on arguing that a computer simulation is not biology and the outcome was "predetermined" by the core of the program.I particularly liked when Dembski argued that there was not real biology in the model. This coming from a man who has written countless pages trying to argue against evolution with out including any actual biology.

But from what I understand after reading the article (or what bit it would let me read for free), the 'core' of the program is simply a model of what happens in biology. Is this argmument then synonymous with admitting that life is inevitible given the known laws of the universe?

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Unfortunately, you are not terribly off from what IDist did come up with. Most of it relied on arguing that a computer simulation is not biology and the outcome was "predetermined" by the core of the program.

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Unfortunately this still doesn't do ID any favours. It pretty much suggests that the Intelligent Designer (*cough* god *cough*) is a lazy programmer who wrote and compiled the universe, then buggered off and left it to run on its own.I actually quite like this scenario. From now on I will refer to it as LCP, the Lazy Cosmic Programmer hypothesis. Now, how to falsify it...*wanders off*This message has been edited by IrishRockhound, 02-01-2005 09:36 AM

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But from what I understand after reading the article (or what bit it would let me read for free), the 'core' of the program is simply a model of what happens in biology. Is this argmument then synonymous with admitting that life is inevitible given the known laws of the universe?

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I wouldn't say that life is inevitable, but biodiversity would be a given. What Dembski fails to see is that variation that passes through a selective filter will always result in diversity. The computer models are just that, models of biology. They do nothing different than what we observe in nature.

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Unfortunately this still doesn't do ID any favours. It pretty much suggests that the Intelligent Designer (*cough* god *cough*) is a lazy programmer who wrote and compiled the universe, then buggered off and left it to run on its own.

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I actually quite like this scenario. From now on I will refer to it as LCP, the Lazy Cosmic Programmer hypothesis. Now, how to falsify it...

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Actually, this is the main tenet of the Deist belief system, a system that was quite popular during the Renassaince and the founding of the United States. Many of our founding fathers were Deists.

I learn something new every day! But I don't think the founders of Ireland were Deists - they had a pagan thing going on... (Ok I know what you mean, I'm just being funny.)I still want to call it the LCP hypothesis though. It's got a nice ring to it.The Rockhound

No Creationists going to post here? I'm disappointed.

The difference is you are comparing something that does not exist (comptuer program) with somethinng that does (satalites programmED). No one addresses me about the evolutionary theory WE COULD HAVE and we have from Newton himself about "THE MOST" ( that might as well be "the best a human designer can do..etc...) GENERAL SCHOLIUM of the Principia "The most elegant system of the sun, planets, and comets could not ahve arisedn without the design of an intelligent and powerful being. And if the fixed starts are the center of similar systems they will all be constructed according to a similar design and subject to the dominion of One, especialy since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature as the light of our sun and all the systems send light...For "god" is a relative word and has reference to servants and godhood is the lordship of God, not over his own body as is supposed."As long as we are not ready to discuss FUTURE biology I am not ready to talk about Gould's sieve. If every star has its own evolution of biology in thought there would be a lot of designers to talk about before we, discussing one, reached the ultimate level Newton went on to address. If we diss Einstein with qunatum mechanics this does not resolve the number of Kantian aliens that could be genetically engineering life on other planents. Of course, dont get me wrong, I dont believe"" in little green men. It's just a debate point. Sometimes it is just silly for the creationist to respond when the back and forth cant make it beyond the slime to the hybrid. Ans as if there were MULTIPLE dominions supposed not tabled in the debate (giving an evo advantage to talk and saying Newton was bad apple falling etc etc we have Eldgredge trying to say

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"THE LAST WORD: A SIMPLE REFUTATION OF CREATIONISM There must be a single, hierarchically arranged pattern of resemblence interlinking all life if all life descended from a single common ancestor. This is evolution's grand predication and we have seen, it has been abundantly and consistently corroborated thoughout the annals of biological research.

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What do creationists offer as their explanation for the manifestly hierarchical structure of the biological world? Most creationists simpy affirm that it pleased the Creator to fashion life in the form in which we find it today. They maintain that the Creator was simply being efficient in using the same blueprint for the seperately created basic kinds, thereby "explaining," for example,.."

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but he also had said,I know where I go next, do you (Loudmouth that is not the individual "you" but meant for anyone reading this thread, I dont doubt that you dont or wouldnt have a response). I cant see that necessarily saying there is MORE than one ecosystem that man keeps leaving is the correct thing to be teaching students if they are to steal a mind and sharpen it to be able to follow all the twists and truns of the perfect argument. Besides this rasies more issues in for nonequilibria niche constructors that even an oop mutator would classify (joke, just be the monkey with a typewriter re:instead) for and we are back to debate point first instead, if. Eldredge's thought only HARDENS adaptationisms and thus solidfies rather than limbers up the debate and falsey I add if pressed. There is only a cultural adaptation here not a NEEDED biological one. Who knows which little green man knows how to get the best job? and out compete our earthly global economy?? Comparing an existing program to a supposed ancestral program teleomatics is not ACTUALLY possible for this duration of now. That's HOW but not why I wouldnt have bothered to post except I was bored and annoyed. One has to show that electrons and photons are the same but different than gravitons DURING BIOLOGICAL CHANGE, not that there is a probability of life on other planents and that IN This similarity THE MATERIAL in life (BUT DIFFERENT THAN DEATH) is operative for natural selection in nature. We all probably have a better chance of shooting the Quala Bear from the north pole than man does of figureing THAT out before we LIVE on the moon (I mean mars).---------------------------
[B]Falicy of lordship of flesh = Sagan's lord of the VOage.[\b]
Newton instead, "For we do say my God, your God, the God of Israel, the God of Gods, and the Lord of Lords, but we do not say my eternal one, your eternal one, the eternal one of Israel, the eternal one of the gods; we do not say my infinite one or my perfect one." I however wonder often if we CAN now say that infinite refers not in perfection but in mutation to the material body (quarks not vs photons etc) OF the argument above. Of course life might be lived diferently on Mars than on the Moon. who knows? I know I STILL live in my lusting flesh even AFTER creating two illlegits not against my will. Oh, Dawkins only saw he could rewrite memetically,socially, this "blueprint" without having to discuss Kant's use of final cause. The baby went and so did the bath water that Simon Levin used to discuss Marine Mollusk Competition ecologically. It is no coincidence that I am hard to read through AND a caller into my creation and evolution TV show asked me if I could "slow down" the explanation! What is after the ---- is what matters but I loose most by the time I am here. So no,it is not time to discuss the individual sieves' example.