Thursday 19 July 2007

Methinks it is like a carefully constructed lie

Richard Dawkins used a program that deliberately aimed at a simple sentence to prove that evolution by random mutations and natural selection could work. Using longer genomes, higher mutation rates, fewer offspring or longer lifespans (ie realistic values) shows just how wrong he was, as seen in this program.

I had always figured that Dawkins' reasoning was fundamentally flawed, but I had not suspected that it was quite as bad as this. I guessed that if you (an intelligent programmer) write a program that aims to produce a pre-defined sentence and it succeeds, you have only shown that you are a programmer. I had no idea that Dawkins' program could be used to debunk its own claims.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm only spreading the word about this flawed argument.
PPS - Feel free to maintain your own beliefs.

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