Nemesis Juggernaut writes:
I'm not seeing how genetic algorithms refute IC, since all the necessary information is already extant...
If by "necessary information" you mean the design that the genetic algorithm generates, then no, this information is not "extant". If it was then the programmers of the genetic algorithm would not have to actually run the program in order to create the design. In fact, if they really already had the design, why would they ever bother writing the program?
Or if by "necessary information" you are referring to, for example, the way transistors and resistors and capacitors behave when you need to design an electrical circuit, then this is the same "necessary information" that any designer of electrical circuits employs. The genetic algorithm has no more of this "necessary information" than a human designer.
What evolution simulators and genetic algorithms illustrate is that information (novel designs) can be created by applying the evolutionary principles of mutation and natural selection, neatly disproving the ID claim that only humans can create information, though this is obvious anyway to anyone who understands information theory. The ID terms "irreducible complexity" and "specified complexity" do not have any quantitative or even clear definition, and so these imprecise ideas cannot be be rationally addressed, but the solutions and designs of these programs can become arbitrarily complex, limited only by computational resources and the ingenuity of the programmers.
--Percy