simulations
lhaarsma@opal.tufts.edu
Wed, 08 Nov 1995 20:44:10 -0500 (EST)> No one has shown that "unguided evolutionary processes" are
> "probable". Indeed, the very opposite. The famous 1966 symposium at
> the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology in the University of
> Pennsylvania entitled 'Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian
> Interpretation of Evolution', examined this question. Murrary Eden,
> Professor of Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
> said concluded "an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await
> the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws - physical,
> physico-chemical and biological'." Marcel P. Schutzenberger, a
> computer scientist from the University of Paris, agreed that
> "spontaneous improvement and enlargement of the code through mutations
> and natural selection was 'not conceivable'" and that "if we try to
> simulate such a situation by making changes randomly at the
> typographic level (by letter or by blocks, the size of the unit does
> not really matter) on computer programmes, we find that we have no
> chance (that is, less than one chance in 10^10,000) even to see what
> the modified programme would compute: it just jams." (Hitching F.,
> "The Neck of the Giraffe", Ticknor & Fields: New York, 1982, pp82-83)
Ahem.
I seem to recall, several months ago, quite a few voices on this group
claiming that computer simulations of macroevolution (e.g. increasing
complexity via stochastic processes; infrequent, rapid morphological
change from "point mutations") were essentially irrelevant as to whether
or not biological macroevolution was true.
Sauce for the goose.... :-)
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In theory, there is no difference between | Loren Haarsma
theory and practice, but in practice | lhaarsma@opal.tufts.edu
there is a great deal of difference. |