Information and Genetics

Natural selection selects for fitness for the environment, not for better or bigger or fancier or more complex. That's why an evolutionist will always tell you that evolution doesn't require that things move "uphill", as you describe it.But quite clearly the history of evolution is one of increasing complexity, and this is because genomes are accumulative. Much of the genetic history of an organism remains as a storehouse of knowledge upon which to draw. Depending upon the type of mutation, new mutations add to old, and the genomes can grow ever more complex with time.And it is also because of increasing competition and the changing environment. Sometime increased complexity isn't called for, as when moths change color (back and forth, apparently) to take advantage of the predominate background shade. Sometimes increased complexity *is* called for, such as when a faster predator moves into an area thereby causing selection pressures for greater quickness or evasiveness among prey species, which often requires innovation which in turn often requires increased complexity. I don't believe either Rei or myself are implying that GAs emulate biological evolution. The GA's we've been describing are being employed as design tools that are based upon the principles of evolution, and they are designed to encourage as much improvement as possible because the goal is to achieve the best design in as short a time as possible.Evolutionary biologists would, of course, have different goals than design engineers. They wouldn't be employing GA's as a means to design commercial products, but would instead be attempting to model evolution in nature as accurately as possible. It you're looking for accurate modeling of evolution in nature then you would do best to look to the field of biology, not to design engineering where GA's are but a design tool.It's important not to lose the original point, that GA's are an excellent example of how the application of the principles behind evolution can provide unique and original solutions to complex problems. And the result has always been that you've been unable to support this point. If there was any legitimacy to this point then you'd be able to look at a GA program and point to where the information for the designs it produces are stored. Why don't you look at my C++ GA program (Ring Counter Evolution) and point to where the information for all the ring counter designs it produces are represented?You also contradict yourself later when you claim that GA's are nothing more than trial and error programs, which you seem to understand do not already contain the answers they produce. You can't have it both ways. If GA's already contain preconceived solutions then they aren't trial and error programs. Of course, at a coarse level of detail you can view GA's as trial and error programs if that helps you understand them, but be sure to realize that there's also the mutation and selection algorithms.--Percy

Good theories explain the *available* evidence, and evolution explains the *available* evidence. Evolution is most certainly falsifiable because there is all kinds of evidence that could potentially pop up that would falsify evolution, like mammals in Cambrian layers. If you have a complaint it is with nature for not providing you the evidence that would falsify evolution.This particular objection of yours raises a couple of concerns in my mind that perhaps you could help me set to rest. I thought the pattern of debate that emerges in discussions with you was a result of your lack of time, and that the way you returned to arguments that had been rebutted during your last visit was perfectly understandable because you had probably missed them when you had to leave, and that we need only repeat the rebuttal to get the discussion back on course. But I've seen some of the same rebutted arguments, such as you make here, from you many times now, and this explanation is becoming less credible to me, and it makes me wonder if perhaps you aren't taking advantage of your intermittent participation to ignore rebuttals so you can repeat the arguments in a manner and context that makes them appear as if no challenges had ever been made.Now I'm sure there's really no truth to these suspicions, but one must concede that the appearance *is* there, and so I wonder if perhaps we might resolve at least this among your favorite non-sequiturs (so it appears to me) one way or the other. In other words, I wonder if it might be possible for you to stick around long enough to get to the bottom of this one so that in future discussions either we no longer object to it because we know it's true, or you no longer bring it up because you know it's false. This is called progress. Rei has made it quite clear in his rebuttal to this very statement that you're wrong: The GA's we've been discussing are design tools that apply the same evolutionary principles that a research biologist would employ to simulate biological evolution in nature. Is that really "precisely what [you] have been saying?!" This reply simply repeats your premise. In order to actually address the issue you have to explain how GA's do not employ the principles of evolution. You have to show that they do not accurately model, in principle, reproduction, mutation and selection, which are all the components of descent with modification through natural selection. The task is actually so mundane that both Rei (http://www.daughtersoftiresias.org/progs/ev.c) and I (Ring Counter Evolution) have done this. Rei's model isn't even based on information, his genes are merely numerical indicators of fitness, and they change randomly. In my model the nodes of a PLA hold information, and they also change randomly. The people who wrote the software are not the source of change, a random number generator is.Recapitulating, evolution is understood to be an innovative process that can produce novel solutions. You dispute that a random process like mutation can produce anything new, and so evolutionists provide the example of GA's as illustration of just how easily the evolutionary process can innovate. You dispute that GA's are an accurate model of the evolutionary process, but have so far been unable to show in what way GA's fail to do this.--Percy

If we restricted ourselves to discussing only that which had never been discussed before then most activity here would cease. I perhaps hold a higher opinion of the participants on both sides of the debate, but that's neither here nor there. The relevant point is that this is a discussion site, not Fred's Essay Site, and not Percy's Annex to Fred's Evolution Fairy Tale Site. Participants here stake out their positions and defend those parts that are challenged. If there are parts of your position you think pointless to discuss then you must stop repeating them, because ignoring rebuttals isn't permitted here. The frustration caused when someone continues blithely on repeating controversial points while ignoring rebuttals is so dangerous to productive discussion that it is even covered in the Forum Guidelines:

2. Debate in good faith by addressing rebuttals through the introduction of new information or by providing additional argument. Do not merely keep repeating the same points without elaboration.

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4. Bare assertions on controversial points should be avoided by providing supporting evidence or argument. Once challenged, support for any assertion should be provided.

These rules of course apply to the rebuttals and to the counter-rebuttals and so forth. That's how productive discussion works. The only exception is related issues that are off-topic, which should be moved to another thread if, in the opinion of the participants, they're likely to generate a long discussion.--Percy

Hi, Fred! What a surprise!Perhaps you'll return more ready to discuss than declare. If evolution is wrong it will be shown wrong through evidence and reason, not through extended personal incredulity.Have a great time away!--Percy

I hope those answers about truncation selection were okay. The more important point is that the type of selection is irrelevant to this thread's topic. It won't be possible to tell why Fred rejects this until he responds to the rebutals. So far he's only been repeating his initial assertion (while casting ad hominems at Rei), which doesn't tell us much.--Percy

Hi Fred!I don't have time to reply right now, but about this comment: I won't speculate on how you might have reached such a bizarre interpretation of what was nothing more than then the nth attempt to explain something to you, but you might ponder whether being so far off the mark could indicate that there's some merit behind the recent complaints that you don't understand what you're criticizing.--Percy

Rei and I are two different people, and you will rarely find two different people explaining things the same way. Even so, our views and terminology are nonetheless pretty similar, and the difficulty we're having making things clear to you is puzzling. I'll commit to trying to be more clear, but would ask in return that when you draw more than one response that you try to push past the superficial differences to reach the actual meaning of what is being said.You use the term "biological evolution" and "evolution" in the same context, and I think this may point to a possible source of your confusion. GA's are implementations of the principles of evolution, ie, descent with modification through natural selection. They are not emulations of biological evolution, ie, cells, DNA, metabolism, self-replication, direct competition, resources, environment, etc. But both research and commercial GA's (a terminological distinction I don't myself feel comfortable with, but I'll defer to Rei who actually works in this field) apply the exact same princples of evolution.The method of selection is not a fixed principle of evolution and can be anything. Objections that GA's are not illustrative of evolution on the basis of the selection mechanism are red herrings. It's as silly as Syamsu's objection that simulations are invalid if they're based on pseudo-randomness rather than actual randomness.--Percy

Hi, Fred!I wanted to reply more fully to this post now that I have time, but I guess I'm satisified with my previous brief reply pointing out that it is the principles of evolution that are important in GA's, that whether they emulate biological evolution as realized by life on this planet is not the relevant issue.The only remaining part I wanted to comment on was this: You're as entertaining as ever (your "everyone would laugh at you" type of lines are now so much a part of your MO that everyone uses something like it when imitating you, eg, Message 8 of the Fred Williams' Mutation Rate Article Obsolete thread and Message 32 of the Impersonations thread), but I wonder if the possibility ever occurred to you that the ridiculous caricature you present here means only that you still haven't quite grasped what Rei was explaining to you.If this were a central issue then perhaps it would be worth the abuse endured while trying to explain the actual point to you ten more times, but it's a side issue. If you want to make a serious effort to understand the point, fine, we'll be glad to work with you to reach a common understanding. But otherwise just lay off the circus antics and the abusive tactics and return to the main topic.--Percy

Hi Fred,I at first didn't pay this message any attention, but then I read a couple of the replies, and that influenced me to go back and read it, and it leads me to wonder why you believe you've said anything of relevance to the discussion. For example: This was addressed to Mammuthus, but I, too, am anonymous, so I'll reply as if it were addressed to me. That you use your real name on the Internet is a credit to your courage, but not necessarily your wisdom. The Internet *does* have a few crazies out there, and I'm not willing to expose myself to them. Here are some threats I can think of to which I might expose myself were I to use my real name, in order of increasing threat and probably decreasing probability:

• Spam to my personal email.
• Spam to my work email.
• Spam email about me to my employer.
• Crank phone calls to my home.
• Crank phone calls to my place of work.
• Crank phone calls about me to my place of work.
• Junk snail-mail.
• Threatening snail-mail.
• Stalking (following me, my car, staking out my house)
• Home invasion.
• Physical violence.
• Murder.

Add to this one more, the concern about possible confusion of my professional reputation with my hobby reputation. If you do a Google of my real name you get several pages of links about my professional work and involvements, and none about evolution and Creationism. I would like it to stay that way. When you do a Google of "Fred Williams" you don't come up with anything professional beyond mention of your degree (Electrical Engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla), position (Advisory Engineer) and place of work (McData). Everything else is Creation/Evolution. I don't want this to happen to my name.But whether or not someone has legitimate concerns leading them to choose anonymity, the important issue here is that anonymity is irrelevant to validity. Arguments stand or fall on their merits, not on the basis of the name under which they're promoted. To believe otherwise is to fall prey to the fallacy of appeal to authority, the belief that association of a name with an argument lends it validity. You're continually reminded of this fallacy, and yet you remain one of the biggest name droppers on the net I've ever met. Comments like this say far more about you than about anyone else. This is an assertion with no support. Lacking such support, it would appear the only person doing a hack job here is you! Instead of supporting your assertion you follow it with your favorite type of fallacy, appeal to authority: You not only appeal to authority, you appeal to anonymous authority. And you appeal to anonymous authority after just having excoriated Mammuthus for remaining anonymous! Oh, the irony!Please understand I'm not complaining that they're anonymous. I actually think they're being pretty smart, for all the reasons I enumerated above. The complaint is with your use of the fallacy of appeal to authority, and to your gross inconsistency and bias in believing that only Creationists can have legitimate justification for desiring anonymity. Yet more fallacious appeal to authority. No where in this is there any description of the particular reasons and rationale leading him to his position. In other words, you've included nothing of relevance to this discussion. Ah, yes, the old favorite, expressed in many different ways, but harkening back to this: More and more scientists are abandoning the bankrupt theory of evolution as they realize that life could only have come from a divine Creator. As someone else commented in replying to your post, if so many evolutionists are actually closet Creationists, just where is the support for evolution coming from? Your appear to have a cadre of oppositionists who are for the most part ethereal. This is another of your favorite activities, saying something true of yourself rather than your opponents. I know you're big into football, so I guess you just figure the best defense is a good offense, and that whatever your greatest weakness is you should just accuse the other side of the same thing whether it is true or not.The theory of evolution that we accept is supported by evidence, while the religion in which you have faith is not. That's why Creationists spend all their time challenging the evidence for evolution instead of presenting evidence supporting Creationism, because there isn't any. Actually, the final irony is that it is *you* who is the Internet hack with an agenda, to promote religion at the expense of science.And this brings me to comment on perhaps your greatest gift, the ability to divert attention away from the relevant issues. I've written this rather long and critical post to point out to you, quite unsuccessfully I'm sure, the pointlessness of posts like yours and this one. Perhaps we could get back to the thread's topic?--Percy

Sfs was responding to Message 48 where Wounded King wrote: So when you say, "That's not the issue,", perhaps you are right, but in that case your argument is not with Sfs nor even with Wounded King, but rather with the author of the christian courier article.--Percy