To: jnaujok
You choose to selectively view the Universe in such a way that you think you can disclude the effect at either end of the scale because it doesn't fit your world view. From the eighteen words I posted criticizing your breathtakingly irrelevant analogy between errors in a computer simulation and the natural process of evolution, you have discerned how I view the Universe?
Step away from the keyboard, take a deep breath and go lie down. You either can't read or don't comprehend.
To: BlueYonder
From the eighteen words I posted criticizing your breathtakingly irrelevant analogy between errors in a computer simulation and the natural process of evolution, you have discerned how I view the Universe?
Those weren't the words you picked out. You picked out the words that followed my explanation of an experiment using genetic algorithms and an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) starting from a useless program and using random chance and "natural selection" of the best fit to arrive at (in about 100 generations) an algorithm that was not only fit to perform the function, but so fit to perform the function that the human beings who ran the test were unable to explain the method by which it was created or how it worked.
That is the main tenet of ID is it not? Are you saying that God now interferes with computer lab experiments?
I was initially responding to someone who said that it took four years of college to learn that computers do what they are told. If I were him, I would have picked up a book, because in 1978, when I first read a computer programming book, that's what they started with. I then went on to tell how, just like in a natural organism's DNA, sometimes the program goes wrong.
I then went on to give an example, admittedly a trivial one. That "random mutation", however, was pruned from existence when I hit "exit". My point was that, even in computers, random mutations occur.
I then went on to explain that if we use those random mutations to actually produce new programs using a mechanism similar to those found in nature (reproduction of the most fit plus small random mutations, or recombining best programs and picking bits from each one), those programs can display unbelievable complexity and fitness for the solution very rapidly.
You made clear in your response that you either A) didn't read past the first paragraph, or B) chose to read it and then claim that I was, I believe you chose the term "stupid", to claim that it related to reality in any way.
A computer was used to model a process that occurs in nature (Genetic Algorithms). That process produced an "evolved" program that exceeded the human capability to understand or explain. My statement that this result bears grave consequences for our view of the natural world, where literally trillions of generations have occurred since the first bacteria are found in the fossil record, was labeled by you as "stupid". To me that established a mindset and a world view that you espouse. Yes, it is an assumption on my part, but one based on evidence you've provided.
I haven't checked, but something tells me that you labeled the word "dumb" in the article as an ad hominem attack, and then you proceeded to engage in the same type of ad hominem attack against me.
173 posted on
11/17/2005 3:55:52 PM PST by
jnaujok
(Charter member of the vast, right-wing conspiracy.)
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson