In the Random rants thread, Taz and I got on the topic of how random or non-random evolutionary processes are.
Taz mentioned something about evolutionary simulators presumably as evidence supporting his assertion. I responded as thus:
Since I don't want to drag his topic off of course, I thought perhaps this topic would be of great interest. I have yet to see any threads on the subject, which is somewhat surprising to me.
I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on this. Do the famed simulators actually mimic biological systems or is the system designed to produce exactly what the programmer wants?
Here is one such model as a reference for those not yet acquainted with it.
Edited by Nemesis Juggernaut, : Added evolution simulator website for clarification
Edited by Admin, : Add missing "are" to title.
“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake
I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on this. Do the famed simulators actually mimic biological systems or is the system designed to produce exactly what the programmer wants?
That's a false dichotomy.
The answers to your two unrelated questions are, respectively: "no, not exactly in every detail", and "no, absolutely not".
I shall post more on this topic when I'm less sleepy, but in the meantime, as an "exercise for the reader", perhaps you could figure out why this is a false dichotomy.
If I was promoting this topic I would wonder what the purpose of it was ? To find support for the claims made in the original thread ? It is certainly odd that they are repeated.
As far as I know most evolutionary simulators do not make a major attempt to represent the complexities of biology, preferring to simplify and abstract those, in favour of focussing on the evolutionary process directly. However I see no reason to believe that they are "designed to produce exactly what the programmer wants" in terms of evolutionary success.
However, the description given simply ignores whatever is going on beneath the surface. It ignores, for instance, the role played by food and reproduction in even the simple example given in the link. And that example is almost certainly not the sort of thing Taz meant - Taz more likely meant Avida or the older Tierra.
It seems that once again we have a creationist inventing his own "facts".
Um, you are aware that we use evolutionary methods to create things, yes?
F'rinstance, the Boeing 777 wasn't designed. It was evolved.
Question: Why would Boeing spend all that money on the process of evolving the design if it already had the design to program into the computer? After all, they weren't building it for any particular airline but instead needed to prove that it was a good plane for the airlines to buy. Any extra work would impact the bottom line.
So if they already had the design, why would they then build a computer that they would pre-program with the design and have it fake "discovering" that very same design?
You're basically saying that those who are developing evolutionary models are simply trying to pull a fast one on the world.
I'm reminded of a CS project I had as an undergrad. The task was to write a program that would find a knight's tour of a chessboard. For those who don't know, that means you put a knight on a square and then, moving only as a knight, you try to land on every square exactly once...even better if the very last square is a knight's move from the first square, thus making the tour cyclic.
In analyzing the problem, I saw that first, I would have to develop a chessboard and that I would need to put limitations on the allowable moves. For example, a knight sitting on a corner square has only two possible moves...and if that wasn't the starting square, one of them is forbidden since you just came from that one. And that led me to thinking that perhaps there are better types of moves to make on any given square...and I eventually, on my own, found a cyclic knight's tour of the chessboard.
Thus, my program restricted the movements of all squares to just two...one the square you came from, the other the square you need to go to in order to complete the cyclic tour.
Now technically, this satisfied the parameters of the project (since it was primarily to teach you about arrays of arrays), but let's be honest: The program wasn't really finding a knight's tour. The tour was already programmed into the system and when you put in a square, it always spat out the exact same tour.
A more difficult method would be to simply model a chessboard, putting in the physical limitations (only two moves at a corner, for example) but let the computer randomly start moving the knight around. Keep track of your moves and if you have moved the knight such that it can't move anymore (all possible squares have already been landed on) but the tour is not complete, back up until there is an alternative path that could have been used and go in that direction. Keep repeating this investigation methodology until a knight's tour is found (and if you really want to, make sure it finds a cyclic one.)
That's the spirit of the question and that's what the evolutionary modelers do. Yes, there are pre-programmed limitations in the system. There has to be. After all, if you're going to model air flow over a jet's wing, you need to put in the physics of fluid dynamics. But there's no point in developing a program that spits out an answer you already know.
So why would biologists develop programs that model evolution just to put in the answer they already know? Just to pull a fast one on the world?
Do you really think there is a conspiracy among biologists to fake evidence of evolution?
Rrhain Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.
Here is one such model as a reference for those not yet acquainted with it.
What a neat and simple illustration of evolution! Thanks!
Can you justify this statement with regard to that evolution simulator:
Nemesis Juggernaut writes:
Those evolutionary simulators are so oversimplified that they eventually will produce the desires of the programmer, which is in no way representative of actual biological systems.
As far as I know most evolutionary simulators do not make a major attempt to represent the complexities of biology, preferring to simplify and abstract those, in favour of focussing on the evolutionary process directly. However I see no reason to believe that they are "designed to produce exactly what the programmer wants" in terms of evolutionary success.
Insomuch that because its so simplistic with very defined parameters, its bound to produce exactly what the designers want-- artificial evidence of evolution, which is supposed to translate in to biology. I think its far to oversimplified to be taken seriously. But it is fun watching my squigglies evolve. I've had my simulator on about 24 hours now. They've evolved considerably.
However, the description given simply ignores whatever is going on beneath the surface. It ignores, for instance, the role played by food and reproduction in even the simple example given in the link.
That is no more realistic to biological systems than a video game is to training actual football players.
And that example is almost certainly not the sort of thing Taz meant - Taz more likely meant Avida or the older Tierra.
I was going to post a link to Avida, but then they reminded me that you have to download it first. I wanted all posters and lurkers to be able to immediately understand what these programs entail.
It seems that once again we have a creationist inventing his own "facts".
Since I'm not a creationist, you must be talking about someone else.
“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake
Insomuch that because its so simplistic with very defined parameters, its bound to produce exactly what the designers want-- artificial evidence of evolution, which is supposed to translate in to biology.
What the designers want is a simulation of the evolutionary process. A simulation of evolution is not evidence of evolution, but an illustration of it. You get to see the process of adaptation taking place before your very eyes.
In the case of the simulation you provided, since the "biomass" of the environment is kept constant, the organisms most likely to produce offspring will be those with swimming patterns most likely to encounter food. At heart this is a competition for food, since those with the inferior swimming patterns will be beaten to the food by those with better swimming patterns, and without food to replenish its energy an organism will die, thereby failing to reproduce. Over time the simulation will become dominated by organisms with the most advantageous swimming patterns.
I think its far to oversimplified to be taken seriously.
Accurate simplifications are extremely useful, but in this case what has been simplified isn't what's important. The simulation is an illustration of the principles of mutation and natural selection. It's not intended to be a simulation of real organisms in a real-world environment. As an accurate simulation of evolutionary principles it can be taken very seriously.
I think a number of things deserve mention about this topic.
I think first of all the more important thing to realize is that I don't think any of these simulations are being done to prove evolution. The untility in them is that smart people realized that the paradigm of 'Genetic Algorithms' was a very useful way to generate novel solutions that are often better than what human engineers can produce by design.
A genetic algorithm is just a description of the mechanism for changing and transmitting aquired characteristics. It is a very high level generalization for which both biological life and these algorithms share. You have to have duplication with heredity, mutation, selection, and repetition.
What genetic algorithms DO refute is the notion that biological life cannot evolve IC or specified complexity. There are examples of using gentics algorithms where the selected pressured walk of random changes have done just that in direct opposition to any enterprising IDers that claim forcefully that such processes cannot.
So they don't prove anything about evolution necessarily. But they do REFUTE core criticism from the ID camp quite nicely.
Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
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Insomuch that because its so simplistic with very defined parameters, its bound to produce exactly what the designers want-- artificial evidence of evolution, which is supposed to translate in to biology. I think its far to oversimplified to be taken seriously.
Actually it shows that evolutionary mechanisms work in principle.
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That is no more realistic to biological systems than a video game is to training actual football players.
YOUR description was like a video game. The simulator you link to includes food and reproduction and so is far better. I have to wonder why you linked to it instead of one that actually did fit your description of "most" evolutionary simulators.
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I was going to post a link to Avida, but then they reminded me that you have to download it first. I wanted all posters and lurkers to be able to immediately understand what these programs entail.
Judging from your description in the OP I think you mean that you wanted them to look at what they saw on the screen and not to think about what the program was actually doing. Linking to the Avida documentation would be far more effective in terms of understanding what the programs really do.
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Since I'm not a creationist, you must be talking about someone else.
Odd that you seemed to have problems believing that Behe WASN'T a creationist, then. If you accept common descent but reject Behe's idea of God-as-genetic-engineer what exactly DO you beleive ?
Perhaps so but perhaps also many laypersons regard them as much more than what was intended.
If they do so then that is the fault of the layperson not the researcher. Do you disagree?
That being said, when has anyone here ever misrepresented these as proof of evolution? I cannot recall a single time when anyone used these as anything other than an example that the principle of a genetic algorithm can produce IC in response to blather about ID.
Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)
I think first of all the more important thing to realize is that I don't think any of these simulations are being done to prove evolution.
Perhaps so but perhaps also many laypersons regard them as much more than what was intended.
I doubt many laypeople have even heard of evolution simulations. Given that most people aren't familiar with software and don't know what software simulation entails, and aren't familiar with the principles of evolution and what they entail, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if most laypeople encountering the term would misunderstand it some very fundamental ways.
Second, the way NJ phrased the thread's title with its question, "How accurate are they," reveals that he doesn't understand the purpose of these programs. These programs are not written to simulate the evolution of actual organisms, certainly not anything like the way weather simulations attempt to simulate actual weather. Evolution simulation programs are written to simulate the principles of evolution, and in this they are highly accurate in adhering to these principles.
Also, while perhaps in some circles these programs are called evolution simulators, the term I usually see is artificial life.
Pharyngula posted a video today that seems to address the "front-loaded results" issue, with an example of evolving clocks:
The fact that someone can design an evolution-like simulation to produce a construct with desired behavior neither undermines the instructiveness of these simulations to biology nor does it prove that living things on Earth simply reflect the intelligent desire of some divine genetic programmer.
The prediction of evolution is that environment inflects changes on organisms; sets obstacles in front of species that they must either adapt to conquer or be extinguished. In that sense environment is what is determining the results of evolution.
In the case of nature, environment is determined by the laws of physics and chemistry, natural laws and processes that are constantly at work. In the case of genetic programming, the programmer is determining the environment; he's not determining the outcome except by our scientific realization that, given evolving organisms and an environment that selects for certain abilities, an arbitrary number of different mechanisms for those abilities will emerge.
I've had my simulator on about 24 hours now. They've evolved considerably.
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