[Southack]

"Not very intelligently. Every possible change occured. Using this strategy, there is no chance of failing to find the answer."

That's generally the case when you inject intelligence, such as insuring that only 1 card is discarded/replaced...knowing that your desired result will be found after enough single events.

But that does **NOT** mean that "Every possible change occured."

For your poker hand of 5 cards, each with one of 4 different suits, you would have 5^4 possible changes/combinations. Intelligently, you could limit such changes to 5*3 (or less - perhaps down to 4), but an unthinking, unbiased, random system would have no such option.

[js1138]

You are still stuck on permutations and combinations. The original statement was that every possible point mutation occurred. That means one change per variation. Demanding that every permutation of a long string be tested is absurd. That does not model the actual process.

Evolution is about the accumulation of small changes; not winning Lotto.