Saturday, October 27, 2007
The watchmaker is blind, and the cretinist emperor is naked.
This is a fascinating video which shows that, Paley's hoary old argument notwithstanding, a fully functioning watch could evolve - if there were a population of watches subject to mutation and natural selection.
Obviously it's just a thought experiment, but it convincingly demolishes the cretinist dogma that complexity is prima facie proof that goddidit. If you don't see the video widget, click here.
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This article is now closed to trackback pings.Here's an interesting thought and modeling experiment: how to evolve a watch, literally. As an example, it's nice, but there are also real biological examples of organisms evolving clocks — evolution of the period gene, for instance, which also..
Just watch the video. Popularity: unranked [?]...
Here is an interesting video that demonstrates a thought and modeling experiment on how to evolve a watch. This is a fascinating video which shows that, Paley's hoary old argument notwithstanding, a fully functioning watch could evolve - if there were a
Comments
RSS feed for comments | salient wrote 10/28 11:53am in reply to Original article: Thanks. Great video -- not that IDers will be watching it, alas. (Reply) |
masklinn wrote 10/29 3:52am in reply to Original article: Nice video, but would it be possible that you post the actual code? (Reply) | |
 | No More Mr. Nice Guy! wrote 10/29 9:03am in reply to masklinn: It's not my video or code, but there is a link to the code on the youtube page. (Reply) |
 | Krishn B wrote 10/31 7:20am in reply to Original article: Nicely done simulation :) Then can still argue about how the rules came into existence. I assume this was an evolutionary algorithm where you set up the fitness function, but can the fitness function come into existence all by itself? Reading about 'self modifying codes', I can see even the case switches needs to be coded... so can the RULES come into existence all by itself? I know if we say it is setup by somethings, then this leads to infinite regression as Richard Dawkins mentions in God Delusion... So I am confused now. (Reply) |
