Isn’t the totality of a living system available to random alteration? If so, wouldn’t subjecting the totality of a system purporting to simulate evolutionary process be a more accurate representation of the real system as it exists in the real world???

*Sigh* Okay, let’s try this again:

Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight runs computer simulations to try to predict the outcome of elections. There’s nothing magical about his program: it doesn’t do anything that he couldn’t, in principle, do with paper and pencil. It’s just a lot faster and easier. But for the sake of argument, let’s say that he decides to run his simulation by hand, with paper and pencil.

An awful lot of factors can affect the outcome of an election: how many people are registered to vote, how many registered voters are Republicans, how popular the incumbents are, even whether it rains on election day.

So let’s say that Nate has painstakingly done the math and figured out that the incumbent has a 58% chance of winning reelection. And now he starts all over, with the same formulas, the same poll data, the same everything. But this time, we pour water on him as he’s doing it (because rain can affect elections).

Question: will this affect the outcome of Nate’s calculation? If yes, then basically you’re saying that 2+2=4 in ordinary cases but 2+2≠4 if someone’s spraying water on the person doing the calculation.

Dodgen probably has a point.

True, but if he combs over it, maybe nobody’ll notice.

I don’t think the author’s comment concerning NOAA’s computer system is applicable (it would be if the programming was subjected to random errors, ones left to be corrected to addtional code “arising” from the same random proceesses.) The bit about “Orcs” is just silly….

Dodgen probably has a point.

‘arensb’, thanks a lot for your reply!

So, instead of invoking ID, creationism, or other nihilistic theories, that lack any concrete evidence, I just prefer to say, “we don’t know how the universe got here”. We should let more evidence accumulate and may be one day we *might* know how the universe got here.

Of course, they all know that by “designer”, they mean God. And asking tough questions about God leads to some uncomfortable answers.

I don’t understand what you guys are reveling about? You are happy that the first set of questions are answered and don’t care about the next series of questions that it throws up. You can as well take life and physical laws for granted and carry on… instead of invoking the ghosts and sundry…

Wow, you don’t realize that the underlying machinery implicitly becomes part of the simulation in genetic algorithms?… There is a high degree of intelligence in the underlying machinery that is swept under the carpet by those who wish to overstate the similarities between computer based computer algorithms and Darwinian evolution.

So what you’re saying is that if I run my GA on a computer running Windows on top of an Intel i7 processor, then rerun the same GA with the same parameters on a computer running Solaris 10 on top of an Ultrasparc III processor I will see different results that can only be attributed to some undefined “intelligence” in the hardware, OS, choice of implementation language, compiler(s), or entropy source?

Since all of the above factors can be accounted for and controlled there should be a way to define the qualities of this “intelligence” and provide a description of it. Let me know how that investigation works out for you.

Wow, you don’t realize that the underlying machinery implicitly becomes part of the simulation in genetic algorithms?

So you’re saying that if I were to pour a bucket of water on one of Blizzard’s servers, it would rain in World of Warcraft?

This wouldn’t be such a problem if it weren’t for the fact that some people use the (albeit limited) success of computer based genetic algorithms as proof that the creative ability of mutations and natural selection in evolution is practically limitless. There is a high degree of intelligence in the underlying machinery that is swept under the carpet by those who wish to overstate the similarities between computer based computer algorithms and Darwinian evolution.

Holy crap, facepalm, World of War Craft….. Great intellectual arguments gentlemen.

Because sometimes the stupid is so obvious one can simply leave the brain in neutral. Have anything else to offer, troll?