Reason

Posted by eman on October 23, 1998 at 15:04:03:

In Reply to: Yes, but... posted by Dealer on July 20, 1998 at 05:30:50:

: : Here's a fictitious example (I don't do PCB layout software design, so I don't know if this is a real application, but it's certainly possible). Consider a program that generates the trace layout for a circuit board. The program has to decide where to place and route all the little traces that connect chips together on a circuit board. A computer can judge certain output layouts as "better" than others because they use less space, or material (or whatever reasons the programmer decides). But computing The Best layout by generating every possible layout is probably too time consuming a process. An evolutionary search algorithm could be used in this case to pick the a layout that is "good enough" as follows:
: : Take the "best layout so far", and generate from this "parent" layout many slightly different "mutated children" layouts. Have the computer examine all children and parent layouts and judge which is the "best so far". Make this "best so far" layout the new "parent" layout and repeat the process until a layout is found that meets the minimum requirements for being good enough.

: : This is a practical, predictable process of "evolution by 'software' selection" on a computer. The computer acts as the environment that chooses from among randomly mutating selectors. This process can find "good enough" layouts in orders of magnitude faster time than simply generating layouts randomly and selecting the best. Also this process is incomparably faster than generating all layouts and choosing the one Best layout.

: : In computer science, evolution is not a "theory"--it's a useful, practical, repeatable algorithm that has real application.

: This is true, and a good point for evolution. However, you also have to look at the creationists view. If you have an open system and you apply more order to it, then it will get more organized. This is something that both sides will agree on. The difference is that in this case a human in adding the order (the mechanisms of testing and modifing), and in the case of the planet, nothing is currently adding order... For something to become more ordered, you have to add an outside 'ordering' force (a repairman for a machine, a programmer for a program). Without it, everything decays, machines break without maintanence, as do programs without updates. What external ordering force does the earth have? The sun? Hardly a helpful force - causing skin cancer and other mutations. Granted plants do convert this into useful energy, but not without the genetic codes that are already in place and which eventually wear them out and cause them to die. Even if that's true, what is added to the universe to make it more complex? The only thing I can imagine that would be able to do that would be some sort of a [gasp, the G word] God. If we ever do however find some sort of mechanism that defies the proven second law of thermodynamics, then I would be more than willing to consider it. It's just that we haven't yet.

Please go to www.talkorigins.org and read a little about evolution and its processes. Also log on to www2.uic.edu/~vuletic/cefec.html, for possible answers to your questions concerning evolution vs. Creationism. It is amazing to me how many people in 1998 know so very little about the origins of life and evolution. It appears that most have been gathering their misinformation from so-called "Creation Science" web sites. Where's Clarence Darrow when you need him?