Evolutionary Simulators: How accurate are they?

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.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

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.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Percy gave a good explanation but I'll give my own 2 cents.The reason we know they refute IC is because we can create logical equivalencies between a biological entity and a computer program. That is what genetic algorithms are. In particular computer programs and biological entities can contain parts that are by definition IC.1. So we start with a program that can mutate, reproduce, and be selected for or against based on its fitness.2. We observe that in the beginning no IC systems exist in the program.3. We subject the program to a genetic algorithm, allowing it to reproduce imperfectly culling out the failures and promoting the successes.4. We observe that after time, IC systems exist in the program.Since what these are doing is, like Percy explained, mimicing the principles of evolution, all we have to do is note that those principles exist in biology as well to refute IC.Does it prove biological evolution? No
Does it prove that biological evolution DOES produce IC? No
Does it refute the notion that biological evolution cannot produce IC? A resounding yes!!It is also a pretty good indicator of the general superficial quality of Behe's argument. Many people get caught up in all the bio-geek and complex language of the IC debate and fail to notice that what Behe is claiming, other than the fact that simple computers can disprove it, lives at a level of abstraction so high as to not be capable of proving anything concrete.Behe himself admits this at the Dover trial and even subtly in his written work. He states very clearly that the strength of his argument depends on his audiences degree of belief in God. He also states that his IC argument is a plausability argument rather than a possibility argument. Many people who run around whoring Behe's work tend to try to make it a issue of possibility. In other words, they go around claiming that evolution CANNOT produce IC when in fact all Behe is saying is that he thinks it is unlikely and that a factor in that decision is the strength of belief in a higher power.Not a very good argument when you expose it.Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)