Information and Genetics

I'm sorry to say that I was disappointed by your response dillan. You not only repeated information that you had posted previously, but did so for no reason.Perhaps I did not make my argument clear enough.I understand the thermodynamic difference between water molecules forming ice crystals (moving to a lower state), and specific bio-organic chemicals overcoming bond issues (moving to a higher state). Furthermore I understand that the chemical systems themselves--- that is those involved with self-generating cycles--- involve whole SYSTEMS moving to a higher state.[note: I notice what has conveniently never been mentioned is the natural formation of hydrophobic-hydrophilic environments by carbon based molecules. This thermodynamic and equilibrium based reality is plausibly the reason protective barriers formed isolating and allowing for complex organic combinations-recombinations, including the ultimate formation of actual porous membranes.]Certainly I made it clear I understood living beings carry around preset thermodynamic conditions necessary for sustaining life.Thus I was in agreement with everything that you had previously posted on this subject and it did not have to be repeated. Where I reiterated what you had previously posted, it was to use it to make a point...The only SCIENTIFIC question worth investigating, given thermodynamic realities, is under what nonbiotic environmental conditions could a self-generating organic system form?Only if such conditions are impossible to be met, can abiogenesis be discarded.Other than repetitively quoting finger pointing at what scientists have already acknowledged (ie, AT PRESENT there is no satisfactory answer to what the exact conditions actually were), the only counterargument you gave was incredulity from Gish. It sure is easy for abstract theorists to talk away science theories. The fact is each of these assumptions are strawmen. I don't see how any of those assumptions are necessary, unless Gish has some god-like knowledge of what primitive earth conditions existed during the process (it is not an instant) of abiogenesis.His first point alone had me scratching my head. Where on prebiotic, primitive EARTH were conditions theorized as (much less believed to be) simply interactions of raw energy and simple gases. That sounds more like the initial foundations of the cosmos or the earth itself. Yes. Why would it not be reasonable? Chiral clays have been mentioned as possible templates. Although I would caution the use of the word information; it should be in quotes. A template is simply a physical form exhibiting the property for producing set or similar chemical structures. There are countless templates (even an accidental scratch on the inside of a beaker can act as one).The eventual, incidental formation of a template that can aid organic polymerizations, specifically polymers which are likely to react with other organic compunds in a way that makes the products templates as well, is not unreasonable.Or let me put it another way. How is that any less reasonable a hypothesis than ascribing this creation of information in lifeless molecules to a supernatural template maker?This latter theory requires some evidence for:
1) the existence of a supernatural realm at all
2) its ability to interact with the natural realm
3) that information can exist in this supernatural realmOtherwise you are simply making a blank assertion. This is all mere assertion. Where is the evidence for any of these statements?As I stated, and gave some descriptive evidence for, information in its literal sense is purely an abstract reality. It is a mental construct used by minds to comprehend physical realities, and communicate them to others.It is not quantitative as are matter and energy. For example if a library burns down there is no measurably greater fuel for the fire than the matter and potential energy provided by the physical contents within.While the information content destroyed in such a fire may be considered invaluable if "measured" by one group, it could be "measured" by another group to be completely worthless. Both would be valid.For example the information content of the vatican's vast porn collection is likely to be viewed as wildly different depending on who is doing the measuring... ie, they're ability to recognize a use for the information, or that it is information at all.This is wholly different than the "information" DNA carries. DNA simply causes protein creation within the correct environment. It doesn't require that anything "understand" it. That is only a convenient metaphor. In fact, DNA may produce something else in another environment. Humans have simply said this other ability is worthless because it doesn't contribute to life. So we are selecting which is the important "information" it contains and pretend like it does nothing else (or that is what it was "created" for).The question, once again, boils down to how the original biotic environment could have formed in a previously abiotic environment, such that DNA could do what it does to continue or cause "life".I'm going to ignore the reality that DNA may not have even been the original "life" molecule anyway, to address the underlying question of how the proper abiotic hardware and "program" may have appeared such that the DNA code (which could have formed before it had a reason to stick around) could operate as it does now.The answer is location location location. Location for energy input and heat sink (this is why deep ocean vents offer prospects), location for protective interaction with other carbon chain molecules, and location for proper site bonding.You conveniently did not address--- and I wish you had--- my analogy of prebiotic systems to a library. In fact, you dodged the implications that libraries serve in order to state your final sentence above.Storage of information within some entity, results in accumulation of information, which incidentally and generally results in that entity having more and wholly separate information than the sum of the information "pieces" stored within. Again this is dependent on the mind interpreting the information, but this information REALITY both defies Dembski's 4th law and shows that volition is unnecessary to the transfer or creation of information.Like a library, organic bits of all sorts of manner would accumulate and interact within the protective barriers which FORM NATURALLY. Eventually when the correct "volumes" have entered the collection, these "organic libraries" may contain more "life" information than the sum of the bits which entered it. Such entities did not know they were accumulating the "secrets" of life. It was simply accumulating chemicals until the correct chemicals were present to form autocatalytic cycles necessary for life.Since you do not want to deal with thermodynamics, please deal with this very real problem for information theory in general. Accumulating data may result in new or greater information. This is all pure assertion, and self-serving assertion at that. Please construct a proper logical argument, with evidence where evidence is required, to make these statements.According to information theory, including the argument I quoted from you earlier, information is just as real as matter or energy and beholden to laws applicable to information.While I find this a ridiculous, if not obvious, attempt by abstract mathematicians to elevate their subjects to some form of substantial reality. And that this has the more ridiculous, if not obvious, motive of equating information with the spiritual world. This theory has necessary conclusions and logic which cannot be cast off so easily by its adherents.I have already outlined three points above you must deal with, regarding this so-called supernatural realm, which--- as it is--- remains nothing better than a fairy-tale until evidence is presented.But we also need an explanation of why supernatural entities are not susceptible to the laws of information, if indeed information is bound by laws?If laws of information do not apply to the supernatural, then why not to simply extradimensional natural phenomena. Or in any case who is to say then that it was not an accidental or incidental "natural reaction" by an abiotic, unintelligent supernatural entity (like the crash of a falling supernatural boulder) which caused the information of life to form in our natural world? If the laws of information fail at the level of the supernatural then all explanatory power regarding inormation is gone.You also dodged another important point. Let's say everything points to a supernatural information producing agency. Where can you possibly come to the conclusion it is a biblically related entity? There is little to no correlation between the universe described by information theory and the one in scripture. It appears you simply ignore the vigorous logic you claim must be applied to understanding to world, to this part of the world.Ancient egyptian mythos (particularly Ptah) reads along the lines of scientific ID beliefs in panspermia.Or what about Gaia? The whole idea is that there is an earth-mother which is basically a supernatural life force that drove natural life to begin and thrive.You can take a break, but I hope you do reply at some point. The questions certainly won't be going away. I will be very disappointed if I see you popping up to post again, without addressing these outstanding issues.------------------
holmes

Oh yeah, I forgot... This is easily refuted. Brains, when damaged physically or influenced through chemicals or intense electromagnetic waves, may have totally new information "appear" for the "user" of that brain.This requires neither transfer nor creation of information to that brain from an outside intelligent source. A high enough intensity wire can make some people see "ghosts".This is not to mention physical activity internal to the brain. Strokes, epileptic attacks, and chemical imbalances which result from improper functioning of the brain may result in new ideas, sometimes some crazy ideas, or information.Information contained in the brain is not real and separate. It is real only if it is integral.------------------
holmes

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Trying again at understanding what you're trying to claim, it would appear that you're trying to argue that information that is able to represent something else is a "code", and that such a thing cannot come into existance without design. Is this correct? (added in to make sure that I'm getting it right this time).

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Not exactly. When I refer to ‘code’, I refer to a communication system with a set of symbols that contain syntax and semantics, such as any software program such as C++, the English language, Morse code, etc. A code should be sufficient to produce a blueprint of something, like your computer, or your nose.

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If that is your belief, I think you should check out programs, starting from Tierra up through Avida

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I have checked them out. I need to write an article on this because I can’t count the number of times I’ve answered this on discussion boards. Two points on these genetic algorithms:1) Let me start by saying that genetic algorithms (GAs) like Tierra and Avida are engineering jokes! They really are. While it is no surprise they have found life in the back smoke-rooms of college laboratories (kind of like how the cult movie Rocky Horror Picture Show found a following despite being one dumb movie), in the real world of engineering they are not taken seriously by anyone I know. If an engineer was applying for a job, and mentioned either Tierra or Avida as possible engineering tools, my response would be Uh, thank you. Next applicant please! Even in a few remote cases where they produced a workable FPGA algorithm, invariably the algorithm was highly inefficient and a noise problem.
2) GAs are essentially trial&error experiments. They do not emulate evolution because they do not permit extinction, they invoke unrealistic truncation selection, and they require intelligence to stop the program if they produce anything useful.Even given these non-naturalistic conditions, programs like Tierra and Avida still could not produce a new programming language no matter how long you run them.

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Mark: all codes are the result of intelligence, DNA is a code, therefore DNA was intelligently designedThis is a fallacy of composition that renders the argument invalid.

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Me: All objects fall when dropped, a rock is an object, therefore the rock will drop.

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Mark: But you can test to see if the rock drops by dropping it.

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All you need to do is to produce one naturalistic-emulating simulation to produce a code and you falsify my truth statement. Try running the previously mentioned Avida and Tierra GAs (which isn’t even a purely naturalistic-emulating simulation) and see if you can produce a working, viable code (or language), with the necessary syntax and semantics.It is indisputable that all objects fall when dropped, and it is indisputable that all codes are the result of intelligence. If you think the later is disputable, then all you need is one example to controvert it. But the bottom line is that both premises are truth statements. It seems to me the naturalist's only recourse is to attempt to equivocate on what the word code means (as Crashfrog has ironically done in an attempt to pin it on me), or ignore the big elephant in the room and act like he isn't there! Because the premise is a truth statement, it is entirely reasonable and accurate to deduce that since DNA is a code, then DNA came from intelligence, just as it is accurate to deduce that since a rock is an object, it will fall toward earth when dropped.

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While it is no surprise they have found life in the back smoke-rooms of college laboratories (kind of like how the cult movie Rocky Horror Picture Show found a following despite being one dumb movie), in the real world of engineering they are not taken seriously by anyone I know

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Like MIT's AI lab? Which publishes the Artificial Life Journal, which includes papers on things like commercial applications which have begun using alife (for example, virus research. They've had some spectacular success in merging the two disciplines). Do you feel the same about alife's cousin, artificial evolution systems, which are employed in everything from aircraft engine design to vehicle modelling? Hell, I even employed one to determine whether strings are related in a piece of software for work Of course, this part of AE is more into the "natural selection" part and not abiogenesis, since when used in commercial applications, noone wants to wait for it to start. However, in research, abiogenesis has occurred in a number of systems.Of course, in even most commercial AE systems, more "information" is developed on its own throughout the course of the development. An aircraft engine may, for example, end up over the course of time twisting its skin in a way that it creates a new air bypass, even though the ability to just create a new bypass wasn't expected to either be needed, and wasn't expected to be done. Research-oriented projects often have even more impressive effects; I should track down the one (you can dl it and run it for yourself) that I saw a few years ago in which creatures only have the ability to create and adjust "muscles", "joints", and "bones" - and then impose different selective factors on them - and watch as the creatures develop legs, fins, tails, whatever, to jump, swim, or otherwise deal with whatever environmental challenges you give them. None of that is coded in - only the most basic structures.But, back to abiogenesis...

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Even in a few remote cases where they produced a workable FPGA algorithm, invariably the algorithm was highly inefficient and a noise problem.

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Huh? How did you get FPGAs into it? Yes, I've read about one case where an alife (actually, AE) system was used to program an FPGA, but usually alife is done in software.

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They do not emulate evolution because they do not permit extinction

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False. Utterly false. They do not *hard code* extinction - that would be front-loading. Extinction happens on its own. In *every* genetic algorithm, entire lines frequently go extinct. If the system doesn't contain enough lifeforms, the entire system can go extinct (I've had this happen in a couple ones that I've written) from parasitism, predation (if applicable), too much "energy" input into the world (i.e., stable organisms can't form or remain alive), etc.

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they invoke unrealistic truncation selection

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Which one are you describing in this way? There are dozens of types of genetic algorithms. Usually the ones designed to optimize a "product", used in commercial applictions do, but only some of the ones that are more research-oriented do. Some alife setups compete organisms head to head, some put them in a virtual "world" to do whatever they will (enabling them to interact or not), some evaluate them individually and compare results, etc. Plus, this has no effect on abiogenesis.

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and they require intelligence to stop the program if they produce anything useful.

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Actually, nothing needs to stop the program. It can keep going forever. Depending on when you look at it, you'll see different things. Of course if you want to look at what it has done, *go ahead*. But you don't have to stop it at specific times for it to keep functioning. The only thing that is "taboo" in alife (well, at least when it comes to research) is modifying what is going on after it starts. Observe all you want, but never change anything. A properly designed research alife system declares what is "given" (i.e., whether it starts with a simple organism or whether it starts with just random garbage, etc), and then lets it go and sees what happens.

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Even given these non-naturalistic conditions, programs like Tierra and Avida still could not produce a new programming language no matter how long you run them.

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First off, if you're going to define DNA in the same category as a "programming language", you have to accept that the universe itself is one. I.e., a 4 hydrogen atoms and extreme heat placed in a location leads to a helium atom and lots of energy released. It's no more of a stretch than calling DNA a programming language, where you have more of things on the "function call" level. Things like "If this gene is being activated, produce this protein". It's far more complex, but coded in the basic programming language that is our universe.Alife systems which model abiogenesis start with a world no more complex than our universe. While I am unaware of anyone that has modeled the *same* rules as our universe (that would take a ton of CPU), they're no more complex. The most common case is to model what is called a "virtual machine" - a computer inside a computer, so that you have a controlled operating environment that won't mess up the outside operating environment. The initial "primordial soup" in such simulations is random instructions. Given enough time, with environmental "input" (i.e., toggling random bits, shifting chunks of data around randomly, etc), one virtually always encounters first cascading effects, then self replicators, then competition between replicators, etc. Parasitism and predation typically also become the norm. The first step takes the longest, of course.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Fred, But neither are truth statements (depending on definition), I gave you an example of something that rose when it was dropped. And that all codes are the result of ID is an unsupported assertion if you include DNA in the subset "code".Mark------------------
"I can't prove creationism, but they can't prove evolution. It is [also] a religion, so it should not be taught....Christians took over the school board and voted in creationism. That can be done in any school district anywhere, and it ought to be done." Says Kent "consistent" Hovind in "Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution Chapter 6."

Good point Rei. I believe someone els brought a similar point as well, that is many people look at the replication of DNA as a complex chemical reaction, which it is.Taking this a little further, could we say that the orbitals of atoms carry coded information since they code for certain chemical reactions. Why not Na2Cl instead of NaCl? Because the reaction was derived from the coding in the orbitals. There we are, non biological coding system, simple atomic orbitals.It has semantics (haven't done it since college chem, but 1d and 2e seem familiar) in that the orbitals have rules and syntax that allow them to combine in precise fashion.It has been some time since college chem, but wouldn't atomic orbitals fall under the umbrella of a non-biological coding system that occurs naturally?

Yes atomic orbitals qualify as "nonbiological" etc but then I for one find they fail to sustain the burden of the generalization to this universal issue remarked in accepting the universe it self as a programming language I find that Peter Cochrane in the an essay entitled "Borg in the Mirror" precisely inverts the sense of my own, BSM, writing while he wrote as its last sentence "But the question that interests me is: Will machines understand and think as we do? Personally I hope not. We need to increase diversity, as well as the depth, of thinking and not constrain it by imposing the limited domain of biology."What I would have written was ..."not constrain biology by the ...limited domain of computer science." but the refernce to DNA in this post inverts even the INTERPRETATION of the writing of two authors. We are getting quite sophisticated in c/e speak.

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Like MIT's AI lab? Which publishes the Artificial Life Journal, which includes papers on things like commercial applications which have begun using alife (for example, virus research. They've had some spectacular success in merging the two disciplines). Do you feel the same about alife's cousin, artificial evolution systems, which are employed in everything from aircraft engine design to vehicle modelling?

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Yes, I do feel the same. This is at best an exaggeration, and at worst pure baloney. Perhaps you can tell us specifically what role a GA played in the design of an aircraft engine?Let me repeat. If an MIT graduate was applying for an engineering position at my company (I have 20+ years designing sophisticated systems for IBM, EMC, and McDATA), and he suggested GAs as an effective tool for engineering, he would either be escorted to the door, or encouraged to dismiss silly ideas and enter into the real world of engineering. I prefer the latter - first attempt to de-program the poor lad, ie undo the brainwashing he received from those colledge professors who live in la la land.As I mentioned in my prior post, GAs are really just trial&error experiments and only rarely would provide benefits based on what an intelligent source can glean from findings of the GA. That is the key point that must be understood. For GAs to serve any purpose in the real world, intelligence must be present to prune any data a trial&error experiment (such as a GA) may provide. To say that they show that random change + selection can create complex information without an intelligent agent present is pure nonsense.I’ll be waiting for you to provide solid evidence, beyond an abstract from some college professor or PhD student, that a company such as Boeing used GAs to assist in the design of their aircraft engines.

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They do not emulate evolution because they do not permit extinction

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False. Utterly false. They do not *hard code* extinction

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I did not mean to imply they hard-coded extinction. They do not permit extinction in that the simulations are often configured to retry ad infinitum. I thought evolution of our planet is limited to ~3-4 billion years?

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they invoke unrealistic truncation selection

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Which one are you describing in this way? There are dozens of types of genetic algorithms. Usually the ones designed to optimize a "product", used in commercial applictions do, but only some of the ones that are more research-oriented do. Some alife setups compete organisms head to head, some put them in a virtual "world" to do whatever they will (enabling them to interact or not), some evaluate them individually and compare results, etc. Plus, this has no effect on abiogenesis.

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You really didn’t say anything here to help your argument. Because Some alife setups compete organisms head to head does not mean they did not invoke truncation selection. In other words, this is a non sequitur.

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First off, if you're going to define DNA in the same category as a "programming language", you have to accept that the universe itself is one. I.e., a 4 hydrogen atoms and extreme heat placed in a location leads to a helium atom and lots of energy released. It's no more of a stretch than calling DNA a programming language, where you have more of things on the "function call" level. Things like "If this gene is being activated, produce this protein". It's far more complex, but coded in the basic programming language that is our universe.

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No it’s an incredible stretch. It’s called equivocation, as I predicted would be the only option available to the committed naturalist.

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Alife systems which model abiogenesis start with a world no more complex than our universe.

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If this statement doesn’t confirm that evolution is a religious belief, I don’t know what does.

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It is indisputable that all objects fall when dropped, and it is indisputable that all codes are the result of intelligence. If you think the later is disputable, then all you need is one example to controvert it. But the bottom line is that both premises are truth statements. It seems to me the naturalist's only recourse is to attempt to equivocate on what the word code means (as Crashfrog has ironically done in an attempt to pin it on me), or ignore the big elephant in the room and act like he isn't there!

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Welcome to Creationville, children, where words mean whatever I say they mean!Kids, in Creationville balloons filled with helium fall down when dropped! Here in Creationville we use deductive reasoning to prove what we already assume to be true! Thinking DNA arose naturally just because it's natural is not possible! Any questions? Yes, the large grey student with the long trunk?------------------
I would not let the chickens cross the antidote road because I was already hospitlized for trying to say this!-Brad McFall

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Welcome to Creationville, children, where words mean whatever I say they mean!

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Welcome to Evolutionville, children, where the hairsplitting semantics rule over reasonable discourse. If you can't argue the facts, why then obfuscate, equivocate, and blabberbate!(Mr Hambre, I could have written your post for you. I would have given 10 to 1 odds your expected hairsplit would appear within a few days of my post. Is that the best you have to offer?)

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It is indisputable that all objects fall when dropped, and it is indisputable that all codes are the result of intelligence. If you think the later is disputable, then all you need is one example to controvert it.

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Either I've falsified the materialistic dogma of the so-called Theory of Universal Gravitation, or else a helium-filled balloon puts your indisputable statement into dispute. As for the biomolecule of DNA, the burden is on you to show how this 'code' is evidence of intelligence rather than the code-making abilities of mindless, purposeless nature. If you could explain how it was intelligently created using examples of other intelligently-created biological structures, things would look a lot better for you. I realize that it's easier to argue facts when they only prove that computer codes are the product of intelligence, but that's not the point in question.------------------
I would not let the chickens cross the antidote road because I was already hospitlized for trying to say this!-Brad McFall

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Yes, I do feel the same. This is at best an exaggeration, and at worst pure baloney. Perhaps you can tell us specifically what role a GA played in the design of an aircraft engine?

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Let me repeat. If an MIT graduate was applying for an engineering position at my company (I have 20+ years designing sophisticated systems for IBM, EMC, and McDATA), and he suggested GAs as an effective tool for engineering, he would either be escorted to the door, or encouraged to dismiss silly ideas and enter into the real world of engineering. I prefer the latter - first attempt to de-program the poor lad, ie undo the brainwashing he received from those colledge professors who live in la la land.

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I hate to be blunt, but: Wake Up, Fred. Take a look at genetic algorithms and engineering:"genetic algorithms" engineering - Google SearchAicraft? How about Stanford's aircraft design group, vibration control in NASA, engine design in NASA, engine diagnostics in NASA, industry-funded studies at Michigan State University on engine optimization (crashworthiness, weight, and other factors (mostly for automobiles, but some parts apply to aircraft engines as well)), Virginia Polytechnic's development of arrangements for composite panels in aircraft, most wing design (based on the principles introduced by Hicks and Henne)... you know, I get the feeling that you have *no clue* how widespread these things are. Hell, where I work, there is a laboratory about 20 feet away from me where about 5 people work on studying components of the brain that are sliced out of MRI images by neural nets which optimize themselves via genetic algorithms. As I mentioned, *I* wrote a quick GA for a piece of software that I was working on for work for string comparisons. Why did I use a GA? Because *I* couldn't figure out any sort of simple algorithm to do the sort of optimization that I needed, but AE does a superb job at it. (The case is that of string comparisons between two unlike strings - for example, while it's easy to say that "ABCDEF" is one change off from "ABCDEG", and a harder, but still feasable algorithm can determine that "AB CD EF" is two changes off from "ABCDEF", how do you write an algorithm that can know how to tell that "CEEFAB" is representative of only two changes from "ABCDEF" (moving CDEF before AB, and then shifting the D up one letter)? The only answer that doesn't take a week and a dozen headaches to program is a genetic algorithm. Given two long strings, there is no way that a human would figure out the simplest difference between parts of it. But the genetic algorithm does a spectacular job.Hey, you want Boeing? Let's see if I can find a copy of that computerworld article that I read a couple years ago... here's a copy: Forbidden"General Electric Co. used genetic algorithms as part of a hybrid artificial intelligence solution to improve bottom-line performance in the design of the Boeing 777's jet engines." (they mention many other companies that have used GAs, and how they did it - Citicorp, Swiss Bank, Cemex, Deere & Co, GM, etc.)

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As I mentioned in my prior post, GAs are really just trial&error experiments and only rarely would provide benefits based on what an intelligent source can glean from findings of the GA

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Not true at all, as I just discussed. My program interrupts the GA after 1,000 runs, and takes whatever it has at that point. All commercial GA's work in some manner to the effect of this. While in GAs oriented more toward resesarch and bacteriological studies typically let them compete freely (which allows, in cases, less fit algorithms to survive, but in the general case the more fit ones survive), commercial applications rarely let less efficient algorithms survive for very long. Commercial algorithms typically operate in much more constrictive environments, akin to having a bunch of rats in cages, testing to see how fast they got through a maze, and then bred based on which ones got through the maze the fastest. As a consequence, commercial algorithms are generally immune to parasitism and predation, and seldom ever go backwards. The downside is that it can reduce effective parallelism.

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To say that they show that random change + selection can create complex information without an intelligent agent present is pure nonsense.

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Deny reality all you want. Here's a couple more research-oriented ones, since I've covered commercial pretty well:
http://www.his.atr.co.jp/~ray/pubs/fatm/node10.html
Boris FX | Sapphire and http://www.his.atr.co.jp/~ray/pubs/fatm/node9.html
http://www.his.atr.co.jp/~ray/pubs/fatm/node12.html
http://www.his.atr.co.jp/~ray/pubs/fatm/node13.htmlHmm, there's one I should track down to insert here... one where they were modelling viral and bacteriological properties in software for research on the aforementioned virii and bacteria... they used it to help them explain why certain irrelevant traits on the virii, and on certain species of bacteria (but less frequently in others) were sweeping through populations whenever there was an adaptation made that was a notable step forward in survivability to the environment that they were in. Can't remember the name of it, though.... there was also another one that I tried out before, which was like Karl Sims's block evolution, but had been done in a much larger environment and with much more complex models being able to develop. They had videos on their website, too, so I could just show you that. Really amazing stuff The key thing to remember when reading this is: These projects here (which are just a tiny handful that I quickly gathered - there are thousands of them out there) started with only incredibly simple "organisms". All of the complexity that you see *developed*. It was not programmed in - it developed completely on its own, due to the particular selective factors involved in the different programs.

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I did not mean to imply they hard-coded extinction. They do not permit extinction in that the simulations are often configured to retry ad infinitum. I thought evolution of our planet is limited to ~3-4 billion years?

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In a large population, short of an extreme catastropic event (which few AE systems do, unless they're looking to study the effect of catastrophic events on genetic diversity, etc) or starting conditions inhospitable to life, global extinction is virtually impossible. Now, individual lines go extinct all of the time, only to be replaced by other divergences from a surviving line.

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You really didn't say anything here to help your argument. Because "Some alife setups compete organisms head to head" does not mean they did not invoke truncation selection. In other words, this is a non sequitur.

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Define what you mean by truncation selection. I would define truncation selection not to be "head to head" selection, but evaluating all individual elements in the population and throwing out the weakest ones. This is common in commercial systems, but rarer in research systems - it reduces parallelism. Head to head (competing groups of two) is better, but still isn't a "free for all" like real life.

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No it's an incredible stretch. It's called equivocation, as I predicted would be the only option available to the committed naturalist

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Oh please then. Explain why the rules that define how things behave in the universe are not a "programming language", but the rules which define what proteins are made are a programming language. Vague statements of denial don't cut it.BTW, real programming languages work like this, too. If you program in BASIC, the BASIC interpreter was probably written in C. The C compiler was, originally, written in assembly. Assembly in turn obeys the rules set down in the CPU. The CPU, in turn, is dependent on the ruleset that is the natural laws of electricity.

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If this statement doesn't confirm that evolution is a religious belief, I don't know what does.

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Please explain how a world where the basic rules are set of operations such as NOP, ADD, SUB, etc are either more or less complicated than a world where the basic rules are the strong force, the electromagnetic force, the weak force, and gravity, in addition to the additional rules that quantum physics and relativity impose.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

So which program is it exactly which has run for more than 3-4 billion years? And are you expecting life on Earth to vanish imminently thereby setting a hard and fast limit to the tenable period of evolution past, present and future? I suppose on reflection that if you are a biblical literalist then you probably are, wait 2000 years for a second coming and then none come along all at once.

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I hate to be blunt, but: Wake Up, Fred. Take a look at genetic algorithms and engineering:

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No reason to avoid being blunt, it never stopped me! I will say again, GAs are very rarely used in engineering. I’d venture to guess that no more than 1 of every 1000 engineering projects employ GAs, and when they are employed they assist in a small corner of the project. When I read papers on GAs they make it sound like they are the wave of the future, and that major engineering feats are occurring because of them. The people who write this stuff are mostly the college professors or PhD students who bow to the sacred cow of evolution. They are in la la land.Fact is, trial&error programs in one shape or another have been around for a long time (trial&error itself has been around since the beginning of time), but now they are repackaged as evolutionary algorithms because of the illusionary power the name provides.GAs will remain rare because trial&error experiments have a limited usefulness. I do appreciate your link to the aircraft engine however, which confirmed you weren’t just talking smoke about this particular example. From the little information provided on ‘Engeneous’, it clearly was a trial&error program that I’m sure uses 100% pure truncation selection (it would not make sense if it didn’t). I have no problem with this type of application. It has nothing to do with evolution, despite your efforts to claim otherwise (I also noticed it was a mechanical solution, not a hardware/software solution - the GAs I’ve read about in IEEE that were used to try to improve FPGAs invariably had noise issues). Bottom line is that such programs do not emulate evolution for the reasons I previously mentioned, such as truncation selection, which does not occur in nature. I see you apparently agree truncation selection is predominant in commercial GAs. Given this, do you *still* defend commercial GAs as emulating evolution, knowing that the selection mechanisism (one of the two major tenets of evolution) is not Darwinian at all?

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As I mentioned in my prior post, GAs are really just trial&error experiments and only rarely would provide benefits based on what an intelligent source can glean from findings of the GA

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Not true at all, as I just discussed.

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So you are claiming that there was not an intelligent source poised to take advantage of the output of Engeneous?

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My program interrupts the GA after 1,000 runs, and takes whatever it has at that point. All commercial GA's work in some manner to the effect of this.

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This is frankly getting ridiculous. I don’t know what you do, but you claim you take whatever it has at that point. The cow chips are really getting deep in this thread. I’m curious as to what you do, and why you would take take whatever it has at that point. Do you think this is how commercial GAs have been used? Do engineers, take whatever it has at that point? Let’s all hope you answer no. If you answer no, then how can you possibly defend your claim that intelligence is not required to prune results produced from a GA?