I also note that Coulter’s “No one has the faintest idea how to make one”, above, is directly contradicted by Troublesome Frog’s quotation of Nilsson: he isn’t saying he wouldn’t know how to write a simulation, he’s saying he hasn’t bothered because it would be trivial.

A few questions, here. Have you read River Out of Eden? Have you looked at the study that it references? I did a few minutes if digging based on the information Fez pulled up and found this:

Mr. Berlinski is right on one point only: the paper I wrote with Pelger has been incorrectly cited as containing a computer simulation of eye evolution. I have not considered this to be a very serious problem, because a simulation would be a mere automation of the logic in our paper. A complete simulation is thus of moderate scientific interest, although it would be useful from an educational point of view.

The larger response was Dan Nilsson generally smacking Berlinski around for errors in his assessment of Nillson’s paper. I’m actually a little bit surprised to find this on Discovery’s site, given their participants’ nasty tendency toward making criticism disappear. Anyway, it sounds to me like in this case, the problem is the difference between “computer simulation” and “algorithm that could be run as a simulation but whose performance was analyzed mathematically instead.”

As much as I hate doing other peoples’ homework for them, it looks like the paper in question is referenced here. I don’t see a full text version anywhere, so I can’t comment on the contents. It does, however, look like this discussion is not a new one. It also looks like “explicitly rejected” is a bit strong, at least in its connotation.

So now all that PCDR has to do is to follow the chain of references from Godless to TPIGtS to the original quotation by Nilsson and post it here in full. Oh, and don’t forget to look up the original paper as well. Then we’ll all be able to see who’s right and who’s pulling stuff out of who’s ass.

In The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, Tom Bethell quotes Berlinksi’s summary of the evidence:

This notion that there is somewhere a computer model of the evolutionary development of the eye is an urban myth. Such a model does not exist. There is no such model anywhere in any laboratory. No one has the faintest idea how to make one. The whole story was fabricated out of thin air by Richard Dawkins. The senior author if the study on which Dawkins based his claim — Dan E. Nilsson — has explicitly rejected the idea that his laboratory has ever produced a computer simulation of the eye’s development.

In other words, River Out of Eden is the Darwiniacs’ version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

From Godless: The Church of Liberalism By Ann Coulter. Almost verbatim. Without attribution.

Minus one point for academic dishonesty.

Richard Dawkins, well-known evolutionist, claimed in his book River Out of Eden that computer models exist that can simulate or recreate the evolution of the eye.
However, the senior author of the study on which Dawkins based his claim, Dan E. Nilsson, has explicitly rejected the idea that his laboratory has ever produced a computer simulation of the eye’s development.

Ok, let’s get the checklist out:

Troublesome Frog said:

1) Which simulation(s)?

PCDR: Richard Dawkins, well-known evolutionist, claimed in his book River Out of Eden that computer models exist that can simulate or recreate the evolution of the eye.

Score: I’ll give you a half-point. You were relevant, but you have not identified the models themselves, you appear to just be copy-pasta using someone else’s words.

2) How did they work?

PCDR: [blank stare]

3) What was wrong with them?

PCDR: [blank stare]

4) What causes you to conclude that they’re “lies” rather than flawed experiments?

PCDR: However, the senior author of the study on which Dawkins based his claim, Dan E. Nilsson, has explicitly rejected the idea that his laboratory has ever produced a computer simulation of the eye’s development.

Score: I’ll allow the point. You answered the question with, “because someone else said they were wrong” but that is a syntactically correct answer.

Overall rating: Poor showing. Shows no original thought, no comprehension of the subject matter, responses could have just as easily been assembled via keyword search and a little Perl.

Richard Dawkins, well-known evolutionist, claimed in his book River Out of Eden that computer models exist that can simulate or recreate the evolution of the eye.

As an academic, Dawkins almost certainly included references to support his assertion. Could you please give us those references? They should be in the footnotes, endnotes, or bibliography. If the paper’s on the web, could you include a link to that as well?

However, the senior author of the study on which Dawkins based his claim, Dan E. Nilsson, has explicitly rejected the idea that his laboratory has ever produced a computer simulation of the eye’s development.

Do you have a reference for this, or are we expected to take your word for it?