placemarker
Posted on 05/08/2003 10:11:06 AM PDT by Nebullis
Arlington, Va.—If the evolution of complex organisms were a road trip, then the simple country drives are what get you there. And sometimes even potholes along the way are important.
An interdisciplinary team of scientists at Michigan State University and the California Institute of Technology, with the help of powerful computers, has used a kind of artificial life, or ALife, to create a road map detailing the evolution of complex organisms, an old problem in biology.
In an article in the May 8 issue of the international journal Nature, Richard Lenski, Charles Ofria, Robert Pennock, and Christoph Adami report that the path to complex organisms is paved with a long series of simple functions, each unremarkable if viewed in isolation. "This project addresses a fundamental criticism of the theory of evolution, how complex functions arise from mutation and natural selection," said Sam Scheiner, program director in the division of environmental biology at the National Science Foundation (NSF), which funded the research through its Biocomplexity in the Environment initiative. "These simulations will help direct research on living systems and will provide understanding of the origins of biocomplexity."
Some mutations that cause damage in the short term ultimately become a positive force in the genetic pedigree of a complex organism. "The little things, they definitely count," said Lenski of Michigan State, the paper's lead author. "Our work allowed us to see how the most complex functions are built up from simpler and simpler functions. We also saw that some mutations looked like bad events when they happened, but turned out to be really important for the evolution of the population over a long period of time."
In the key phrase, "a long period of time," lies the magic of ALife. Lenski teamed up with Adami, a scientist at Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Ofria, a Michigan State computer scientist, to further explore ALife.
Pennock, a Michigan State philosopher, joined the team to study an artificial world inside a computer, a world in which computer programs take the place of living organisms. These computer programs go forth and multiply, they mutate and they adapt by natural selection.
The program, called Avida, is an artificial petri dish in which organisms not only reproduce, but also perform mathematical calculations to obtain rewards. Their reward is more computer time that they can use for making copies of themselves. Avida randomly adds mutations to the copies, thus spurring natural selection and evolution. The research team watched how these "bugs" adapted and evolved in different environments inside their artificial world.
Avida is the biologist's race car - a really souped up one. To watch the evolution of most living organisms would require thousands of years – without blinking. The digital bugs evolve at lightening speed, and they leave tracks for scientists to study.
"The cool thing is that we can trace the line of descent," Lenski said. "Out of a big population of organisms you can work back to see the pivotal mutations that really mattered during the evolutionary history of the population. The human mind can't sort through so much data, but we developed a tool to find these pivotal events."
There are no missing links with this technology.
Evolutionary theory sometimes struggles to explain the most complex features of organisms. Lenski uses the human eye as an example. It's obviously used for seeing, and it has all sorts of parts - like a lens that can be focused at different distances - that make it well suited for that use. But how did something so complicated as the eye come to be?
Since Charles Darwin, biologists have concluded that such features must have arisen through lots of intermediates and, moreover, that these intermediate structures may once have served different functions from what we see today. The crystalline proteins that make up the lens of the eye, for example, are related to those that serve enzymatic functions unrelated to vision. So, the theory goes, evolution borrowed an existing protein and used it for a new function.
"Over time," Lenski said, "an old structure could be tweaked here and there to improve it for its new function, and that's a lot easier than inventing something entirely new."
That's where ALife sheds light.
"Darwinian evolution is a process that doesn't specify exactly how the evolving information is coded," says Adami, who leads the Digital Life Laboratory at Caltech. "It affects DNA and computer code in much the same way, which allows us to study evolution in this electronic medium."
Many computer scientists and engineers are now using processes based on principles of genetics and evolution to solve complex problems, design working robots, and more. Ofria says that "we can then apply these concepts when trying to decide how best to solve computational problems."
"Evolutionary design," says Pennock, "can often solve problems better than we can using our own intelligence."
VR ...
It isn't the stupid mistakes. It's the way Holy Warriors--locked as they are in the never-ending struggle against a vast conspiracy of evil, dumb people-- never, never, never eat the crow when it's warm. They never eat it at all. They ignore, or they imagine that they escape under a barrage of distraction. The inability to concede the painfully obvious is the joke, and it's a great one. It's a guy dancing around naked pretending he's got the greatest set of new clothes ever. The whole public pathology has fascinated me for years, but it's starting to get old.
mr ...
There is a sub-set of lunatic loons who appear to wish the ... end of American society (( link )) --- as we (( once -- 1st )) know it. Like the Nazis and the communists in Weimar Germany, they have a great deal in common as potential destroyers of the social fabric.
I have engaged in several debates in the last few days, and I admire FreeRepublic as a forum for the free expression of ideas, but the overwhelming presence of this bunch of loons is very off-putting.
Lenin is supposed to have said that capitalists would sell him the rope by which they were to be hung. The “anarcho-loons” on this forum would not bother to sell the rope but provide it as a public service.
401 posted on 05/06/2003 5:54 PM PDT by moneyrunner (I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed to its idolatries a patient knee.)
fC ...
“anarcho-loons” on this forum ... we have statist loons (( same thing )) too!
placemarker
When asked to back up your statements you just repeat the slime. There are numerous posts here by me, not a single one of which have been refuted. All we see is slimes and excuses. Since you refuse to backup your statements and continue the sliming the only reasonable conclusion to be gathered from your statement and those of your fellow thugs of evolution is that you are LYING. So backup your statements, show the refutations or be proven to be a sliming liar.
More slimes at opponents. That is all you do on these threads. What a pitiful life you lead.
Behold the hypocrite who starts a food fight and then says 'who me?'. My post was in response to your attack and I will say it again - my statements were (and still are) absolutely true and your conduct on this thread verifies it. You have yet to make a single post which is not insulting or just plain spam.
The entire exchange:
With you evos, the proof is always somewhere else where no one can see it. All you slimers can do is lie about people you can never discuss the facts. Let's see you show an 'out of context quote' from me. I do not cut anything off from the quotes and I almost always post a link to the whole article. You are just a sliming liar. You cannot refute my evidence so all you can do is attack the messenger.
You want proof? Fine. For all the world to see:
283 posted on 4/5/02 12:06 PM Eastern by Junior:
The basic problems of Saturnism include a short list of things sufficient to demolish any normal theory, i.e. any theory which was not being held for irrational reasons. Such things include the current, nearly circular orbits of the planets, the improbability of rocky planetary formation in any system where a gas giant is as close to the Sun as the proposed proto-Saturn, the fact that the proposed proto-Saturn would exist outside the habitable zone of the Sun and would be (and still is) a major radiation source, thus rendering a nascent Earth an irradiated snowball.
472 posted on 4/6/02 1:26 AM Eastern by gore3000:
Where did you go to school? The orbits of the planets are wildly elliptical. Some of the planets that we think of as nearer to the sun are at times further out than those we consider farther from the sun. You clearly do not know beans about astronomy.
[This was followed by a list of corrections, orbit data, expanations of the relationship of circles to ellipses, and so on, by a slew of different posters, the specifics of which are available by clicking on the "472" link above and following the thread. It eventually culminated with this "retraction."]
531 posted on 4/6/02 11:39 AM Eastern by gore3000:
All the orbits are elliptical as radio astronomer's post shows. As to how "wild" they are is pure semantics, sort of like the meaning of 'alone' (in a room, in a building, in a city, in a country, on earth, in the universe). I will not waste my time with such hair-splitting.
[However, it was not too long before the following was posted.]671 posted on 7/10/02 8:30 AM Eastern by gore3000:
Actually the wildly elliptical comment is a true example of the total dishonesty of the evolutionists on these threads. [Junior], totally moronically, said that the paths of the planets were all circular. I pointed out that they were all elliptical and some were wildly elliptical. Of course all the morons of evolution came out to "prove" through some one hundred posts that an ellipse is a circle. Some of the morons of evolution even stated that a square is a circle. So much for the utter dishonesty and sophistry of the morons of evolution.
At your request, these are the facts. For all the world to see. Based on these facts one is led to the seemingly obvious conlusion that you are engaging in mischaracterization, misquoting, and dishonesty bordering on pathological. This is your opportunity to discuss the facts, and offer an alternate theory, additional information, or some other rational explanation for your behavior. You have the floor.
424 posted on 10/21/2002 11:38 AM CDT by Condorman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 416 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
What a pitiful life you lead.Once more, I am an innocent victim of the thread-destroying blue stalker.
1,948 posted on 05/26/2003 11:53 AM EDT by gore3000
.
Well, then what about the "visitors" orbit?
Well, if he was answering me he should have directed it to me. No wonder I missed his cowardly response (it seems he is not man enough to ever respond directly to questions).
Well let's see Patrick's tremendous contributions to this thread: Post# 1045 a link to Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ - not a discussion but a link-o-lies from TalkOrigins. Pure garbage which he is ashamed to post anything from in here.
Posts# 1120, 1123, and 1137 are all about the advantage or disadvantage of being green, in which he contradicts himself 2-3 times.
More important though, it has been more than 700 posts in this thread since he said anything which was not a placemarker or an insult. As I have said, he is not here to discuss anything. He is here to insult.
Who is this party for? Why it’s for Patrick – it fits Patrick.
It’s not for anyone else but Patrick!
It’s just a PLACEMARKER… My hypocrisy only goes so far… But Patrick’s – Man! He’s a mutant!
It must be a mutant gene – just like the religion mutant gene…
The difference is – Patrick actually has all the answers!
Isn’t it amazing that one man has figured out all the answers for mankind and is reluctant too share this revelation with us all… He knows that science cannot hold all the answers.
The answers must come from Patrick because upon who else could he base this great wisdom.
Patrick isn’t God is he?
Placemarker!
LOL!
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