Posted on 09/03/2002 11:50:02 AM PDT by VadeRetro
Exclusive from New Scientist
A self-organising electronic circuit has stunned engineers by turning itself into a radio receiver.
What should have been an oscillator became a radio
This accidental reinvention of the radio followed an experiment to see if an automated design process, that uses an evolutionary computer program, could be used to "breed" an electronic circuit called an oscillator. An oscillator produces a repetitive electronic signal, usually in the form of a sine wave.
Paul Layzell and Jon Bird at the University of Sussex in Brighton applied the program to a simple arrangement of transistors and found that an oscillating output did indeed evolve.
But when they looked more closely they found that, despite producing an oscillating signal, the circuit itself was not actually an oscillator. Instead, it was behaving more like a radio receiver, picking up a signal from a nearby computer and delivering it as an output.
In essence, the evolving circuit had cheated, relaying oscillations generated elsewhere, rather than generating its own.
Gene mixing
Layzell and Bird were using the software to control the connections between 10 transistors plugged into a circuit board that was fitted with programmable switches. The switches made it possible to connect the transistors differently.
Treating each switch as analogous to a gene allowed new circuits to evolve. Those that oscillated best were allowed to survive to a next generation. These "fittest" candidates were then mated by mixing their genes together, or mutated by making random changes to them.
After several thousand generations you end up with a clear winner, says Layzell. But precisely why the winner was a radio still mystifies them.
To pick up a radio signal you need other elements such as an antenna. After exhaustive testing they found that a long track in the circuit board had functioned as the antenna. But how the circuit "figured out" that this would work is not known.
"There's probably one sudden key mutation that enabled radio frequencies to be picked up," says Bird.
Duncan Graham-Rowe
About par as the lunatic ravings of a final stage syphilitic go.
You just described, in your semi-Koan way, just about every organized religion in the history of mankind. Quite a few governments as well.
Once again, this has what to do with the thread? They are using a rather novel approach that could have far reaching consequences for most of industrialized society. Just because it mirrors the theories of biological evolutionists, you suddenly decide it is the tool of some communist/liberal ideology bent on destroying God.
You figured out how to turn a computer on, so we can assume you aren't a complete Luddite. What, exactly and without all your usual ->$%%%>>>, is your deal?
My [deity] sir, do you realize what you have DONE?
You have re-invented Scientology!
evolution will be a footnote in history/psychology---SHAME!
Shouldn't that be:
As *Univ is my witness, I saw the title of this thread and KNEW that f.christian would be here.
Usually you can put the really heavy stuff somewhere(hell) to give them an idea to know where to go privately!
You say you have a need to pee on the floor? And you're into the heavy stuff? And you need your privacy?
Um, okay, you may enter the medved zone now.
If that is so, then how about letting peer review and new advancements in science relegate the biological theory of evolution to the dust bin of history. If it's faulty, it will fall apart under repeat experimentation. It has been revised several times as new data came up, but it is far away from being a verified "fact". What use worrying about it 'till then.
All of which really has very little to do with the topic of this post. Knock it off or take it elsewhere.
If that is so, then how about letting peer review and new advancements in science relegate the biological theory of evolution to the dust bin of history.
Two reasons. One, evolutionists are insisting on having their ideological doctrine masquerading as science taught as a fact in public schools at public expense and taught to the legal exclusion of other origins theories and two, the peer review process in academia is not the honest broker which it might appear to be on first blush.
A normal person wishing to understand what has become of academia in recent years, has several starting points, including of course DeSouza's "Illiberal Education", Bloom's "Closing of the American Mind", and a far more intense and all-encompassing book in the Quirck/Bridwell book "Abandoned: The Betrayal of the American Middle Class Since WW-II".
Martin Anderson's "Imposters in the Temple" is another item to add to that little list.
The basic job of colleges and universities should be teaching. There still are schools at which that holds true, but they are an exception at present. Anderson describes the trivial pursuits which have replaced teaching as the major objective of many if not most professors, in many if not most schools:
"For most professors, the surest route to scholarly fame (and some fortune) is to publish in the distinguished academic journals of their field. Not books, or treatises, for these are rare indeed, but short, densely packed articles of a dozen pages or so.Anderson, of course, is describing a sort of a ritualized and formalized version of what college frats sometimes refer to as a "circle jerk"."The successful professor's resume will be littered with citations of short, scholarly articles, their value rising with the prestige of the journal. These studious articles are the coin of the realm in the academic world. They are the professor's ticker to promotion, higher salary, generous research grants, lower teaching loads, and even more opulent office space.
"...These are supposed to be scholarly pieces, at the cutting edge of new knowledge.
"But now I must confess something. Many years ago when I read these articles regularly as part of my academic training and during my early years as a professor, I was bothered by the fact that I often failed to find the point of these articles, even after wading through the web of jargon, mathematical equations, and turgid English. Perhaps when I get older and wiser I will appreciate them more, I thought. Well, I am now fifty-five years old, and the significance of most academic writing continues to elude me."
"In recent years, I have conducted an informal survey. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, I ask scholars about their academic journal reading habits. For example, I recently asked a colleague, a man with a solid reputation as a scholar, what he considered to be the most important academic journal in his field of study. An economist, he immediately replied "The American Economic Review".
"Let me ask you a question", I said. "Take, say, all of the issues of the last five years. What is your favorite article?"
"...Sure enough, he answered like all the rest. There was a silence of a few seconds, and then he cleared his throat a bit and, looking somewhat guilty and embarassed, said "Well, I haven't been reading it much lately." When pressed, he admitted that he could not name a single article which he had read during the last five years which he found memorable. In fact, he probably had not read any articles, but was loath to admit it.
"...There are exceptions of course, a handful of men and women in every field who do read these articles and try to comprehend any glimmers of meaning or significance they might contain. But, as a general rule, nobody reads the articles in academic journals anymore.
"...There is a mystery here. For while these academic publications pile up, largely unread, on the shelves of university libraries, their importance to a professor's career continues unabated. Scarcely anyone questions these proofs of erudition on a resume.
"...One reason why these research articles are automatically accepted as significant and important is that they have survived the criticism of "peer review" before being published.
"...Some of the manuscript reviews are done 'blind', with the author's name stripped off, while others are not and the reviwer knows exactly whom he or she is evaluating. Given what is at stake in peer reviewing... it would not be unreasonable to worry a little about corruption sneaking in.
"But these questions are not explored. The fact that some fields of study are small enough that the intellectuals involved in them are all known to eachother, or that friends review friends, or that reviewers repay those who reviewed their own writings favorably in the past -- all these potential problems are ignored...
Is that a threat---censorship---TRYANNY?
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