Replies

Well, my response is both a blow at evolution and evidence for Intelligent Design. Go back to Shannon's theory of information. Information is not self-creating. There is no mechanism that exists to create something out of nothing. The original DNA of creatures did not know in advance what it was going to be. Information does not create itself, it must be created.

We deal with this one a lot in the computer science field. It's why a computer can't do anything outside its own programming. The only thing the computer does is run calculations on input and generate output in various formats. All it does is relieve of you having to do lots of nasty calculations and reports by hand. Basically, it's a glorified calculator that plays games. I went to college for 4 and a half years and got a BS degree to learn that. Amazing the things they tell you after they have your money :)

It's also why the Digital Life Lab is a flawed experiment. Not because the researchers had an agenda as such (maybe they did, but I don't know one way or another) but likely because they probably didn't truly understand the limitations of the system they were working on.

Hmmm, 20 years in the computer industry has taught me one thing. Sometimes computers *don't* do what you tell them to. Programs are stored in memory that is not perfect. Certain events can cause that memory to change. When that happens, usually the program dies (crashes). But sometimes, it has strange and different effects.

Just yesterday, I had one of these "hiccups" or "random mutations" occur. Suddenly one of the programs I was using (and have used hundreds of times before) would cause the entire screen to be painted with a bizarre (and somewhat interesting) pattern when I asked to switch to a particular view of the data. Now this had never happened before, and it will probably never happen again. (I've tried since.)

Now, are you claiming that the DNA in your body is any less prone to change. The Human Genome project tells us that something like 80% or more of our DNA is just "garbage" that has no meaning, and just hangs around doing nothing.

The digital life project works on the idea of random mutations eventually producing useful "offspring". Now 99.99% of the offspring might be useless, but if that 0.01% is useful, then you might get something out of it in the long term. (And in computers, that might mean days, not billions of years.)

I read a study using FPGAs where a genetic algorithm produced a tone identifier circuit that was 50 times smaller than the best human design after only 100 generations. A design which appeared so complex, no human could understand how it worked. Evolution works in a computer system, there's no reason to believe it doesn't work in the natural world.

ID is the theory of "I Don't Know". The argument goes like this:

Mr. Wizard: "Timmy, do you see this bird?"
Timmy: "Yes, Mr Wizard!"
Mr. Wizard: "Well Timmy, how do you suppose this bird got it's wing?"
Timmy: "Well, gosh Mr Wizard, wasn't it born with it?"
Mr. Wizard: "Ha, ha. Well, yes, but I mean, how do you think it evolved?"
Timmy: "Gosh Mr Wizard, I don't know. It's awfully complex."
Mr. Wizard: "Congratulations Timmy, you've just given us proof of Intelligent Design. Clearly, since we don't know how this wing could have evolved, there must have been an intelligent designer who made it all at once."
Timmy: "Holy Cow you're smart, Mr. Wizard."