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To: Theophilus
Evolution is baloney, and I am a programmer who knows it.

Heh. There is some irony here in that the hard drive in your computer was very likely "designed" by sifting random data with evolutionary algorithms. While some types of engineering are not efficiently done this way, other types have become sufficiently complex that it is more cost effective to let a supercomputer sift garbage with evolutionary algorithms in the hopes that it will "discover" a better design than to let engineers actually design it. Evolution may be "baloney", but it still randomly "designs" better components than humans can, and more technology is being designed like this every day.

I don't want to be critical, but as a programmer you should know that "evolution" is in fact a common and valid mathematical model of system dynamics that is actually used quite a bit in some applications of computer science, particularly in engineering applications.

440 posted on 05/04/2003 12:23:05 AM PDT by tortoise
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To: tortoise
Evolution may be "baloney", but it still randomly "designs" better components than humans can, and more technology is being designed like this every day.

I think a better assessment of your perspective would be:

Man can have more success in engineering complex systems the more he reverse engineers God's handiwork. God has a better engineering degree than "nature" + "time".

455 posted on 05/04/2003 12:49:13 AM PDT by bondserv
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To: tortoise; Theophilus; bondserv; metacognative; Dimensio
A good point to start from if one is interested in genetic algorithms and evolutionary computation: http://www.aic.nrl.navy.mil/galist.
There are also many links to other G.A. sites.

One of my favorites is a classic: the two-phase nozzle optimized by H. P. Schwefel.

512 posted on 05/04/2003 8:49:21 AM PDT by BMCDA (The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going. Proverbs 14:15)
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