Artificial Life Experiments Show How Complex Functions Can Evolve

NSF ^ | May 8, 2003 | Staff

[jwalsh07]

So to be clear, your view is that moral absolutes such as murder are not absolutes at all but murder, like a choice between the Mets and Yankees, is relative to who murders whom?

If that is correct your views are antithetical to theism which necessarilly makes you an anti-theist. No?

[f.Christian]

Science has't changed since it existed -- was created ...

people thanks to evolution like you ---

are getting dumber --- WHACKIER !

[djf]

I guess nobody on the thread wants to talk about Thermus Aquaticus and polymerase chain reaction...

[PatrickHenry]

"AmericanAge" reminds me a great deal of "No-Kin-To-Monkeys." Could he be a cyber-reincarnation?

[Lurking Libertarian]

In your world obviously. When is it right to murder in a relativist world? In a world of moral absolutes, it is always wrong. The two are mutually exclusive.

Yes, but every society defines "murder" a little definitely. Shooting someone who is stealing your car from your driveway is murder in New York and legal in Texas.

[jwalsh07]

You draw the line in this instance at murder, killing unlawfully with malice aforethought

Here is the definition of murder I'm working with, it was included in my post above.

[CobaltBlue]

I agree with you that different cultures define murder differently - but I think they probably all have versions of murder. I mean, I don't know of any culture that doesn't proscribe "murder" in some way, even though they may all define it differently.

Not 100% sure of that.

Would need to spend some time in the Human Relations Area Files or somesuch.

The fact that in some cultures you can buy your way out of a murder, and in others you don't get in trouble for your first murder, kind of undercut the argument that all cultures think murder is wrong.

"Wrong" I think of as a moral offense.

If you can buy your way out of something, seems to me to be a different kind of "wrong." More like destroying something of economic value.

[jwalsh07]

The fact that in some cultures you can buy your way out of a murder, and in others you don't get in trouble for your first murder, kind of undercut the argument that all cultures think murder is wrong.

I never mentioned culture, I was talking about theism.

But while we're on culture, there are cultures that still enslave others. Is slavery absolutely wrong morally.

[AndrewC]

"Evolutionary design," says Pennock, "can often solve problems better than we can using our own intelligence."

Absurd! Even leaving out the often does not make the statement much more believable.

[Raymond Hendrix]

The Blind Atheist

[IowaHawk]

Age is all in the head. Since I drool a lot and can't control my bowels, I figure I'm about 18 months.

Did somebody say "Hudson Terraplane?" A fine automobile, yes, but no match for the manificent 1941 Bulgemobile Flamefire

[f.Christian]

"What ails modern civilization? Fundamentally, our society's affliction is the decay of religious belief If a culture is to survive and flourish, it must ... not be severed --- from the religious vision out of which it arose. The high necessity of reflective men and women, then, is to labor for the restoration of religious teachings as a credible body of doctrine."

[Old Professer]

Somebody should have built one of those.

Glad to see you around here tonight, seems like the "save-the-worlders" and the professional worriers have co-opted this site the past few months, nice to see an old face; g'nite.

[plusone]

The problem with this program is that there are no predators to come along and eat up the evolving life forms. The ALife has been left alone to change on its own without worrying about becoming someone else's dinner. So if you have some partial adaptation, for example, a proto eye that confers no real advantage to you, you may not live the 100,000 generations is supposedly takes for a real eye to evolve and become useful. This is an interesting thought experiment that they have developed, but it is probably nothing else.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

LOL!

[AndrewC]

I thought that was Uranus!

That is probably due to the fact that you do not know the difference between Uranus and a hole in the ground.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Just remember, koalas need an entire forest. Single plants are not sufficient.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Something's wrong when a couple of "evil-lutionists" know the Bible better than a real bible-thumpin' creationist.

Experience suggests that this is the norm.

[f.Christian]

"This year's series of Heritage Lectures is concerned with the somewhat pressing question of whether our American culture will survive the tribulations (( evolution activated -- powered )) * * of our age. In the two previous lectures, I have discussed the ideology called "multiculturalism" as a menace; and whether a civilization that lacks belief in a religion can endure. In my final lecture, in December, I mean to talk about means for combating cultural decay (( entropy // evolution )) * * . Today I have chosen for my subject the degradation of the democratic dogma."

"I take my title from the writings of Henry and Brooks Adams. They found American democracy in process of degradation more than a century ago. The decay of the American Presidency from George Washington to Ulysses S. Grant, Henry Adams remarked, refuted altogether Darwin's theory of evolution * * * . To a similar thesis I shall return presently."

"But first, indulge me in some observations concerning the present condition of what is called "democracy" near the close of the 20th century. We are informed by certain voices that soon all the world will be democratic. But whether or not, the American mode of democratic government prevails, the abstract ideology called democratism that any government which has obtained a majority of votes be received as "democratic." Enthusiasts for unrestricted democracy presumably forget that Adolph Hitler, too, was democratically elected and sustained by popular plebiscites. Alexis de Tocqueville warned his contemporaries against ... "democratic despotism," --- 20th century writers discuss "totalist democracy."

... * * ... my additions !

... * * * ... evolutionists are always saying things are getting better when they're actually getting worse !

[Doctor Stochastic]

I made that suggestion back in 199. Unfortunately AA does act like (too) many of my students did. Perhaps he also dislikes complex numbers as much as he does statistics.