stevestory
Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005
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Remember all that really dumb stuff Gil said? Now he says he was just kidding.
| Quote | 53. GilDodgen // Oct 1st 2006 at 8:08 pm
In my original post about mutating the CPU instruction set, the OS, etc., I was being somewhat sarcastic. Obviously, this would be silly, and I wouldn’t expect anyone to take such an experiment seriously. My point was that if mutations are genuinely random, we should expect that in a biological system (e.g., a cell) they would interfere with or modify all aspects of a cell’s basic functioning, which would affect the ability of the cell to survive and reproduce. If random mutations killed off a significantly large percentage of cells or made them sterile before they had a chance to reproduce, pass on their genetic information, and for natural selection to work its magic, the rest of the simulation would be rendered invalid.
My point was just that simple, but apparently I didn’t make it clear.
My point was also not that genetic algorithms and evolutionary computing are not useful and powerful tools in a wide variety of problem-solving domains.
I should probably also have been more explicit about the bottom line of my contention: Ridiculously exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims have been made for the real-world relevance of computer simulations of biological evolution. For example, Avida was touted in a premier international science journal as having refuted Michael Behe’s irreducible-complexity challenge to random mutation and natural selection as a viable mechanism to explain away obvious difficulties.
Avida did nothing of the sort, but the claims made on its behalf were soaked up uncritically.
Comment by GilDodgen — October 1, 2006 @ 8:08 pm
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