| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Dan Clore" |
| Date: |
26 May 2005 04:03:38 AM |
| Object: |
Unintelligent Design |
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb052505.shtml
May 25, 2005
Unintelligent Design
Science is on the side of evolution
by Ronald Bailey
Who needs to make monkeys out of the Kansas Board of
Education when its members are doing such a good job of it
themselves?
Members of the Kansas board convened hearings this month to
hear testimony from proponents of the theory of intelligent
design that the theory of evolution is bunk. How deliciously
wacky of the board to hold their kangaroo court on
evolutionary theory on the 80th anniversary of the arrest of
Tennessee high school teacher John T. Scopes for illegally
teaching biology to his students. And like the Tennessee
court back in 1925, the Kansas education officials in the
21st century have found evolutionary theory guilty again.
Intelligent design claims that life and the universe are too
complex to have happened by accident. "Evolution has been
proven false. ID (Intelligent Design) is science-based and
strong in facts," declared board member Kathy Martin before
the hearings began. And nothing Martin heard at the
proceedings evidently changed her mind, saying at their
conclusion that evolution is "an unproven, often disproven"
theory.
Based on these hearings, the Kansas Board of Education will
consider modifying the science curriculum in its public schools.
At the Scopes trial, when William Jennings Bryan was asked
what the purpose of the trial was, Bryan magisterially
replied, "The purpose is to cast ridicule on everybody who
believes in the Bible, and I am perfectly willing that the
world shall know that these gentleman have no other purpose
than ridiculing every person who believes in the Bible." In
those days that was enough to convict Scopes.
Today, opponents of evolutionary theory know that they can't
teach religion in public schools. If they're going to
smuggle religion in, they need to be sneakier. So they strip
off any part of their "intelligent design" theory that might
sound like it is religious and pose as simple scientists
asking "hard" questions of narrow-minded evolutionists.
The anti-evolutionists affect not to know who or what the
"intelligent designer" of their theory might be. He, she,
it, or they could be little green men or purple space squid
or a race of intelligent supercomputers -- or maybe, just
maybe, an omnipotent God. Who knows? We're all just
innocently asking "scientific" questions here.
But away from the glare of media attention, this pose of
scientific objectivity cracks. "ID has theological
implications. ID is not strictly Christian, but it is
theistic," admitted board member Martin. The intelligent
design proponents in Kansas ask: Why not let children in
public schools hear arguments for intelligent design in
biology classes? Schools could "teach the controversy."
Biologists retort by asking, "So it's OK then for high
schools to teach astrology, phrenology, mesmerism, tarot
card reading, crystal healing, astral projection and water
witching, too?"
Intelligent design theorists aside, the people who want
intelligent design taught in public schools hope the theory
will undercut the corrosive effects of evolutionary biology
on the religious beliefs of their children. They don't know
and couldn't care less about the scientific details of the
evolution of species or the origin of life -- they just want
Darwinism kept away from their kids.
What they don't understand, however, is that religious
belief and evolution are compatible.
In 1996 no less a religious authority than Pope John Paul II
declared, "New knowledge has led to the recognition in the
theory of evolution of more than a hypothesis."
In response to Bryan's assertions about the purpose of the
Scopes monkey trial, defense attorney Clarence Darrow
retorted, "We have the purpose of preventing bigots and
ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United
States, and you know it, and that is all." As the hearings
in Kansas showed, they are still trying.
Ronald Bailey is Reason's science correspondent. His book
Liberation Biology: The Moral and Scientific Defense of the
Biotech Rvolution will be published in June by Prometheus Books
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb052505.shtml
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1587154838/thedanclorenecro/
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
.
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| User: "MarkA" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
26 May 2005 08:38:40 AM |
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On Thu, 26 May 2005 02:03:38 -0700, Dan Clore wrote:
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb052505.shtml May 25, 2005
Unintelligent Design
Science is on the side of evolution
by Ronald Bailey
Who needs to make monkeys out of the Kansas Board of Education when its
members are doing such a good job of it themselves?
Members of the Kansas board convened hearings this month to hear testimony
from proponents of the theory of intelligent design that the theory of
evolution is bunk. How deliciously wacky of the board to hold their
kangaroo court on evolutionary theory on the 80th anniversary of the
arrest of Tennessee high school teacher John T. Scopes for illegally
teaching biology to his students. And like the Tennessee court back in
1925, the Kansas education officials in the 21st century have found
evolutionary theory guilty again.
Intelligent design claims that life and the universe are too complex to
have happened by accident. "Evolution has been proven false. ID
(Intelligent Design) is science-based and strong in facts," declared board
member Kathy Martin before the hearings began. And nothing Martin heard at
the proceedings evidently changed her mind, saying at their conclusion
that evolution is "an unproven, often disproven" theory.
Based on these hearings, the Kansas Board of Education will consider
modifying the science curriculum in its public schools.
At the Scopes trial, when William Jennings Bryan was asked what the
purpose of the trial was, Bryan magisterially replied, "The purpose is to
cast ridicule on everybody who believes in the Bible, and I am perfectly
willing that the world shall know that these gentleman have no other
purpose than ridiculing every person who believes in the Bible." In those
days that was enough to convict Scopes.
Actually, Scopes was convicted because he did, in fact, violate the law by
teaching evolution when it was illegal to do so. The conviction was later
overturned on a technicality, and the people of Tennessee were
appropriately embarrassed by all the media attention.
Unfortunately, today people are no longer embarrassed to be seen as
anti-intellectual religious fundamentalists. In fact, they are proud of
it. We can only hope that it is a fad that will pass.
Today, opponents of evolutionary theory know that they can't teach
religion in public schools. If they're going to smuggle religion in,
they need to be sneakier. So they strip off any part of their
"intelligent design" theory that might sound like it is religious and
pose as simple scientists asking "hard" questions of narrow-minded
evolutionists.
The anti-evolutionists affect not to know who or what the "intelligent
designer" of their theory might be. He, she, it, or they could be little
green men or purple space squid or a race of intelligent supercomputers
-- or maybe, just maybe, an omnipotent God. Who knows? We're all just
innocently asking "scientific" questions here.
But away from the glare of media attention, this pose of scientific
objectivity cracks. "ID has theological implications. ID is not strictly
Christian, but it is theistic," admitted board member Martin. The
intelligent design proponents in Kansas ask: Why not let children in
public schools hear arguments for intelligent design in biology classes?
Schools could "teach the controversy."
Biologists retort by asking, "So it's OK then for high schools to teach
astrology, phrenology, mesmerism, tarot card reading, crystal healing,
astral projection and water witching, too?"
Intelligent design theorists aside, the people who want intelligent
design taught in public schools hope the theory will undercut the
corrosive effects of evolutionary biology on the religious beliefs of
their children. They don't know and couldn't care less about the
scientific details of the evolution of species or the origin of life --
they just want Darwinism kept away from their kids.
What they don't understand, however, is that religious belief and
evolution are compatible.
In 1996 no less a religious authority than Pope John Paul II declared,
"New knowledge has led to the recognition in the theory of evolution of
more than a hypothesis."
In response to Bryan's assertions about the purpose of the Scopes monkey
trial, defense attorney Clarence Darrow retorted, "We have the purpose
of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of
the United States, and you know it, and that is all." As the hearings in
Kansas showed, they are still trying.
Ronald Bailey is Reason's science correspondent. His book Liberation
Biology: The Moral and Scientific Defense of the Biotech Rvolution will
be published in June by Prometheus Books
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb052505.shtml
--
MarkA
(still caught in the maze of twisty little passages, all different)
.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
26 May 2005 07:01:09 AM |
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The main argument against Evolution is the failure to produce AI.
Intelligence has proved too complex to be generated in a random way and
too complex even for us to understand.
Evolution isn't just a biological concept, it, in the shape of Genetic
Algotithms, is a mathematical and computational concept. Ee can now ask
the question as to whether Evolution could have occured randomly. My
own investigations cast doubt on whether scientists really believe in
random evolution.
An army of PhDs is working on AI. They are all working on specific
projects in weak AI. No respectable peer group believes either in
strong AI, or that the route to objectives in weak AI is through
Genetic Algorithms.
There is one other important point from the educational point of view.
Teaching evolution gives prople the impression that AI is easy and that
randomly based GAs can work magic. GAs (and I might add Neural
Networks) are used in inappropriate circumstances. Personally if I were
the Kansas board of Education
I would teach some basic Numerical Analysis.
If Intelligence is the result of random mutations it follows that
strong AI could be produced on a grid or a BOINC by an analogous
process. Who believes thiis in the sense of being prepared to put their
money where their mouth is.
Evolutionalists respond to this in a variety of ways. The say that
evolution has taken place over millions of years. True but the rate of
cross over is low, so millions of years are within the reach of
algorithms.
I also feel that by not proposing alternatives to Darwinism a dangerous
myth is created. The myth that Evolution is a mathematically efficient
process. Evolutionalists are saying that Evolution is better than what
the army of PhDs is doing. I feel that the priority should be the
teaching of good Numerical Analysis, that is if your priority is
keeping up with China and India in the scientific stakes.
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| User: "Danny Kodicek" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
26 May 2005 07:37:25 AM |
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<ianparker2@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1117108869.710819.123360@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
The main argument against Evolution is the failure to produce AI.
Intelligence has proved too complex to be generated in a random way and
too complex even for us to understand.
And somehow the fact that the errors in this nonsense have been pointed out
to you dozens of times doesn't stopping you repeating the entire drivel
verbatim once again?
Danny
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| User: "Misleart Chuff" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
26 May 2005 08:56:04 AM |
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"Danny Kodicek" <usenet@well-spring.co.uk> wrote in message
news:9qjle.55$cF4.46@newsfe4-gui.ntli.net...
:
: <ianparker2@gmail.com> wrote in message
: news:1117108869.710819.123360@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
: > The main argument against Evolution is the failure to produce AI.
: > Intelligence has proved too complex to be generated in a random
way and
: > too complex even for us to understand.
:
: And somehow the fact that the errors in this nonsense have been
pointed out
: to you dozens of times doesn't stopping you repeating the entire
drivel
: verbatim once again?
Oh, you're a quick one!
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
26 May 2005 09:55:22 AM |
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Do it! You will make billions of dollars. Translate the European
parliament minutes into all EU languages. Provide voice recognition and
with it simultaneous interperation into every EU language, including
Irish Gaelic where they all in fact understand English. You can quite
easily construct a BOINC. Pour commencer prennez Hansard Canadien.
C'est en anglais et francais. Make your fitness the match to the
official translation. Computers are now 2GHz or so, they are not like
the 60s. One talks glibly about muillions of years but the fact is that
the number of crossovers or generations is broadly comperable to GAs.
GAs also have better mechanisms for eliminating deleterious mutations.
They simply do not occur in crossovers. This in fact means that the
amount of mutation occuring is in fact considerably less than for
GAs. Mutation is confined to plausable directions.
If you can you will be as rich as Bill Gates. If you lfail you will
have underlined my basic contention. If you do not try you are
unscientific.
I have had considerable experience of writing GAs myself. I am prepared
to help you. I ask for 10 million dollars on a contingency fee. Pay
nothing if you do not make a billion. I am a mathematician I am not a
biologist. My main expertise is in Numerical Analysis and Applied
Mathematics generally.
As I have said I doubyt very much whether anything useful could be
acieved but I am prepared to put it to the test.
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| User: "Robert J. Kolker" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
26 May 2005 12:07:03 PM |
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wrote:
I have had considerable experience of writing GAs myself. I am prepared
to help you. I ask for 10 million dollars on a contingency fee. Pay
nothing if you do not make a billion. I am a mathematician I am not a
biologist. My main expertise is in Numerical Analysis and Applied
Mathematics generally.
You also know that Genetic Algorithm is a crude parody based on what is
at best an incomplete theory. Any relation between Genetic Algorithhms
and the way genes really work is almost conincidental.
For starters determinstic computer programs do not generation truly
random numbers. To do that you need a radioactive source and geiger
counter which can be interfaced with a computer without any great
difficulty.
Bob Kolker
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| User: "Danny Kodicek" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
26 May 2005 02:15:55 PM |
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"Robert J. Kolker" <nowhere@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:3fme1oF8id7aU1@individual.net...
ianparker2@gmail.com wrote:
I have had considerable experience of writing GAs myself. I am prepared
to help you. I ask for 10 million dollars on a contingency fee. Pay
nothing if you do not make a billion. I am a mathematician I am not a
biologist. My main expertise is in Numerical Analysis and Applied
Mathematics generally.
You also know that Genetic Algorithm is a crude parody based on what is
at best an incomplete theory. Any relation between Genetic Algorithhms
and the way genes really work is almost conincidental.
Well, the genetic algorithm per se isn't a crude parody, it's what you do
with it that's tricky. It has two major aspects which make it a poor model
for real-word evolution (not that it was ever intended to be such, of
course). The first is in the translation from 'genotype' to 'phenotype' -
from the genome array to the program or function it represents. Typically,
this is fairly crude, with individual elements of the genome directly
affecting numbers or attributes of the output (eg, in a genetic algorithm I
created to solve the 'eight queens' chess problem, each set of eight bits
represented the position of a single queen). Our own genetic system is a
great deal more complicated than that, with genes on the whole having far
more indirect effects on the attributes of the organism.
The second is at the next level, where individual phenotypes are evaluated
for their 'fitness' using some estimation function. This, again, is
typically a result of their aptitude at solving a particular problem,
arranged on a linear scale (or sometimes two or more linear scales). Once
again, this bears little relation to the workings of natural selection in
reality, where the 'problem' the organisms are trying to solve is simply the
one of survival - and as such has a huge number of different parameters:
attractiveness to mates, success at finding food, avoidance of predators,
resistance to environmental dangers etc. What's more, this is a moving
target, with the fittest characteristics in one generation not necessarily
being the best in the next. None of this is typically modeled by GA's.
Artificial Life is perhaps the discipline Ian may be really thinking of (not
that I'd like to suggest he's thinking at all), which *does* attempt to
model these things. Right now, our best efforts in this field are shockingly
primitive, but we're getting there - how about Tierra for starters?
http://www.his.atr.jp/~ray/tierra/
For starters determinstic computer programs do not generation truly
random numbers. To do that you need a radioactive source and geiger
counter which can be interfaced with a computer without any great
difficulty.
This is a red herring, I think. The 'random' events in our world (eg
throwing a die) aren't exactly random either, they're essentially
deterministic (except at a quantum level). Chaotic, yes, but no more
'random' than a computer's PRNG. It doesn't really affect the possibility of
computer-based evolution.
Danny
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| User: "Boikat" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
29 May 2005 10:24:27 AM |
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"stoney" <stoney@the.net> wrote in message
news:bqmj91pissuft538jgcci63igf7vrsg711@4ax.com...
On 26 May 2005 05:01:09 -0700, wrote:
The main argument against Evolution is the failure to produce AI.
Intelligence has proved too complex to be generated in a random way and
too complex even for us to understand.
(sigh) Once again the usual ignorant idiocies are raised.
[snip horse *****]
How sad.
I almost live for the day when someone posts a "The main argument against
evolution is it's failure to produce (or explain) ..XXXX...", and then
within a few days a discovery, or accomplishment based upon the ToE,
produces or explains "XXXX". But then again, this happens whenever a new
transitional species or form is discovered, and they still keep bleating
like sheep.
Boikat
--
<42><
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| User: "Sour Clayton and Chives Flavoured Pringles...POP" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
29 May 2005 05:44:53 PM |
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"Boikat" <boikat@bellsouthnospam.net> wrote in message
news:X4lme.29042$8S5.8940@bignews3.bellsouth.net...
"stoney" <stoney@the.net> wrote in message
news:bqmj91pissuft538jgcci63igf7vrsg711@4ax.com...
On 26 May 2005 05:01:09 -0700, wrote:
The main argument against Evolution is the failure to produce AI.
Intelligence has proved too complex to be generated in a random way and
too complex even for us to understand.
(sigh) Once again the usual ignorant idiocies are raised.
[snip horse *****]
How sad.
I almost live for the day when someone posts a "The main argument against
evolution is it's failure to produce (or explain) ..XXXX...", and then
within a few days a discovery, or accomplishment based upon the ToE,
produces or explains "XXXX". But then again, this happens whenever a new
transitional species or form is discovered, and they still keep bleating
like sheep.
I remember someone still siting the "scientists don't even know how bees
fly" (as if that means bees are held aloft by supernatural devine power)
more than a year after it was explained by science! Of course I've also had
a Christian university student dismiss all science with the line "Scientists
don't even know what causes rainbows!".
.
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| User: "DanielSan" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
29 May 2005 05:45:15 PM |
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Sour Clayton and Chives Flavoured Pringles...POP wrote:
"Boikat" <boikat@bellsouthnospam.net> wrote in message
news:X4lme.29042$8S5.8940@bignews3.bellsouth.net...
"stoney" <stoney@the.net> wrote in message
news:bqmj91pissuft538jgcci63igf7vrsg711@4ax.com...
On 26 May 2005 05:01:09 -0700, wrote:
The main argument against Evolution is the failure to produce AI.
Intelligence has proved too complex to be generated in a random way and
too complex even for us to understand.
(sigh) Once again the usual ignorant idiocies are raised.
[snip horse *****]
How sad.
I almost live for the day when someone posts a "The main argument against
evolution is it's failure to produce (or explain) ..XXXX...", and then
within a few days a discovery, or accomplishment based upon the ToE,
produces or explains "XXXX". But then again, this happens whenever a new
transitional species or form is discovered, and they still keep bleating
like sheep.
I remember someone still siting the "scientists don't even know how bees
fly" (as if that means bees are held aloft by supernatural devine power)
more than a year after it was explained by science! Of course I've also had
a Christian university student dismiss all science with the line "Scientists
don't even know what causes rainbows!".
Say what? They don't know what causes rainbows? I guess that poor
Christian university student didn't have any prisms in their science
department (did they have a science department?).
.
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| User: "Sour Clayton and Chives Flavoured Pringles...POP" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
29 May 2005 06:37:36 PM |
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"DanielSan" <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote in message
news:%Brme.5753$Vm4.1824@trnddc01...
Sour Clayton and Chives Flavoured Pringles...POP wrote:
"Boikat" <boikat@bellsouthnospam.net> wrote in message
news:X4lme.29042$8S5.8940@bignews3.bellsouth.net...
"stoney" <stoney@the.net> wrote in message
news:bqmj91pissuft538jgcci63igf7vrsg711@4ax.com...
On 26 May 2005 05:01:09 -0700, wrote:
The main argument against Evolution is the failure to produce AI.
Intelligence has proved too complex to be generated in a random way
and
too complex even for us to understand.
(sigh) Once again the usual ignorant idiocies are raised.
[snip horse *****]
How sad.
I almost live for the day when someone posts a "The main argument
against
evolution is it's failure to produce (or explain) ..XXXX...", and then
within a few days a discovery, or accomplishment based upon the ToE,
produces or explains "XXXX". But then again, this happens whenever a new
transitional species or form is discovered, and they still keep bleating
like sheep.
I remember someone still siting the "scientists don't even know how bees
fly" (as if that means bees are held aloft by supernatural devine power)
more than a year after it was explained by science! Of course I've also
had
a Christian university student dismiss all science with the line
"Scientists
don't even know what causes rainbows!".
Say what? They don't know what causes rainbows? I guess that poor
Christian university student didn't have any prisms in their science
department (did they have a science department?).
She was Christian...the university wasn't....how's that for scary! I saw
some program a few years ago that said over 50% of American university
students believe in creationism and not evolution. I'm just waiting for the
entire US education system to collapse any day now!
.
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
30 May 2005 08:22:47 PM |
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On Mon, 30 May 2005 09:37:36 +1000, "Sour Clayton and Chives Flavoured
Pringles...POP" <cjfat@SPAMBLOCKphonymails.com> wrote:
"DanielSan" <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote in message
news:%Brme.5753$Vm4.1824@trnddc01...
Sour Clayton and Chives Flavoured Pringles...POP wrote:
"Boikat" <boikat@bellsouthnospam.net> wrote in message
news:X4lme.29042$8S5.8940@bignews3.bellsouth.net...
"stoney" <stoney@the.net> wrote in message
news:bqmj91pissuft538jgcci63igf7vrsg711@4ax.com...
On 26 May 2005 05:01:09 -0700, wrote:
The main argument against Evolution is the failure to produce AI.
Intelligence has proved too complex to be generated in a random way
and
too complex even for us to understand.
(sigh) Once again the usual ignorant idiocies are raised.
[snip horse *****]
How sad.
I almost live for the day when someone posts a "The main argument
against
evolution is it's failure to produce (or explain) ..XXXX...", and then
within a few days a discovery, or accomplishment based upon the ToE,
produces or explains "XXXX". But then again, this happens whenever a new
transitional species or form is discovered, and they still keep bleating
like sheep.
I remember someone still siting the "scientists don't even know how bees
fly" (as if that means bees are held aloft by supernatural devine power)
more than a year after it was explained by science! Of course I've also
had
a Christian university student dismiss all science with the line
"Scientists
don't even know what causes rainbows!".
Say what? They don't know what causes rainbows? I guess that poor
Christian university student didn't have any prisms in their science
department (did they have a science department?).
She was Christian...the university wasn't....how's that for scary! I saw
some program a few years ago that said over 50% of American university
students believe in creationism and not evolution. I'm just waiting for the
entire US education system to collapse any day now!
<blink>
What US educational system?
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul
of the people. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned
by a downright moron." --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
Religion is the original war crime.
-Michelle Malkin (Feb 26, 2005)
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| User: "Robert J. Kolker" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
29 May 2005 11:36:44 AM |
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Boikat wrote:
I almost live for the day when someone posts a "The main argument against
evolution is it's failure to produce (or explain) ..XXXX...", and then
within a few days a discovery, or accomplishment based upon the ToE,
produces or explains "XXXX". But then again, this happens whenever a new
transitional species or form is discovered, and they still keep bleating
like sheep.
What is worse is the ToE is blamed for not producing things it was never
contribed to produce in the first place. For example, the origin of
living things on this planet. ToE does not speak to the first living
things that appeared on this planet from whatever causes (including
panspermia or God's creative will). The question that ToE attempts to
answer (with partial success) is now living things modified over time in
response to changes in the conditions on this planet.
Bob Kolker
.
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| User: "William Morse" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
31 May 2005 09:14:27 PM |
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wrote in news:1117108869.710819.123360
@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
The main argument against Evolution is the failure to produce AI.
Intelligence has proved too complex to be generated in a random way and
too complex even for us to understand.
Evolution isn't just a biological concept, it, in the shape of Genetic
Algotithms, is a mathematical and computational concept. Ee can now ask
the question as to whether Evolution could have occured randomly. My
own investigations cast doubt on whether scientists really believe in
random evolution.
An army of PhDs is working on AI. They are all working on specific
projects in weak AI. No respectable peer group believes either in
strong AI, or that the route to objectives in weak AI is through
Genetic Algorithms.
This is of course an argument in favor of evolution - intelligence can
obviously not be produced by design, since all these PhD's can not
produce even weak AI by design.
If Intelligence is the result of random mutations it follows that
strong AI could be produced on a grid or a BOINC by an analogous
process. Who believes thiis in the sense of being prepared to put their
money where their mouth is.
Since current computational devices are several orders of magnitude less
complex than human brains, I fail to see why one should expect them to
exhibit intelligence on a human level. I would expect them to be able to
exhibit intelligence on the level of an ant (with enough millions of
iterations) - and I think that current algorithms are roughly in this
category, albeit with little of the robustness exhibited by evolved vs.
designed systems.
I also feel that by not proposing alternatives to Darwinism a dangerous
myth is created. The myth that Evolution is a mathematically efficient
process. Evolutionalists are saying that Evolution is better than what
the army of PhDs is doing. I feel that the priority should be the
teaching of good Numerical Analysis, that is if your priority is
keeping up with China and India in the scientific stakes.
I am unaware that anyone has argued that evolution is a mathematically
efficient process. And if you want to teach good Numerical Analysis you
would be hard pressed to find a better example than Fisher.
Yours,
Bill Morse
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| User: "Robert J. Kolker" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
26 May 2005 12:02:04 PM |
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wrote:
I also feel that by not proposing alternatives to Darwinism a dangerous
myth is created. The myth that Evolution is a mathematically efficient
process.
It isn't. Evolution is an encounter between chance and determinism.
Between random variation of the genetics and the interaction with the
current environment which is governed in large scales by deterministic
laws.
If the environment does not chagne too rapidly with respect to the
variation rate of the genetic structure, a quasi stable condition
bewteen the structure of organisms and the structure of the environment
will emerge. There is no guarantee of efficiency or perfection in this
process. It is good enough to keep life going on this planet until the
sun becomes so high that life will die out. Doomsday is about two
billions years down the road. About that time the sun will be so hot as
all the oceans will boil away into space. Earth will become as dead as
Mars. So either organisms escape to other places where they may survive
and modify or it is all over.
All of which reminds me of a story: This college student attends a
lecture on astrophysics and cosmology and the professor is teaching the
class that the sun will become a red giant star in five billion years
and the earth will be vaporized. The student is very disturbed by this
and he cannot sleep at all, so his calls up the professor in the middle
of the night.
Professor: Huh, huh, what do you want, it is the middle of the night,
damn it!
Student: Doctor, how long will it be before the Sun vaporizes Earth?
Professor: Five billion years.
Student: Oh thank God!. I thought you said five million years.
Bob Kolker
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| User: "fermigas" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
05 Jun 2005 05:36:54 PM |
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The main argument against Evolution is the failure to produce AI.
Intelligence has proved too complex to be generated in a random way and
too complex even for us to understand.
Are you suggesting that the fact that because a bunch of really bright
people have attempted to produce strong AI using GA approaches and have
failed so far that they will fail forever?
Setting aside the fatuous isomorphism you posit between GAs as used to
produce AI and natural selection/random variation, are you really
pinning your rejection of evolution on the presumption that AI is
forever out of the reach of GAs? Or, stripped to its essence, that the
future will be much like the present? You'd have been a real bummer
around Edison's lab.
But let's dig in a bit to what you're saying.
How many experiments do you think evolution has made since the dawn of
life? It's not good enough to spread those experiments over time,
you've get to spread them across the globe, too. Do you have a real
sense of the numbers involved in this and how it compares to the number
of calculations made by GA researchers or are you winging it? I'd like
to see some numbers. I mean, since you know what you're talking about
and all.
Of course you've stated yourself that the army of PhDs aren't trying to
create strong AI, so I suppose we should probably factor that in when
we take away their bonus points for not yet developing something
capable of rejecting ID.
Some other hints to help as you hurriedly compile your, um, rejoinder:
1. Nature's massively parallel
2. Nature's got all kinds of kick-***** ratchets
3. Nature's reaper is a hell of a lot more sophisticated than say, all
those biblical rules, and you can throw in the cleverness of the bible
code jibber-jabbers and all the creativeness of anyone who's ever had
the warm fuzzies in just the sorts of vocations that draws one to
Sedona
4. ASICs, FPGAs, smart dust, etc.
5. Moore's law, Metcalf's law, and what the hell, Murphy's Law
And, by way of levity for your lead balloon:
"Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines
are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax."
--Lord Kelvin, 1899
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| User: "Paul J Gans" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
26 May 2005 12:48:50 PM |
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In talk.origins wrote:
The main argument against Evolution is the failure to produce AI.
Intelligence has proved too complex to be generated in a random way and
too complex even for us to understand.
Evolution isn't just a biological concept, it, in the shape of Genetic
Algotithms, is a mathematical and computational concept. Ee can now ask
the question as to whether Evolution could have occured randomly. My
own investigations cast doubt on whether scientists really believe in
random evolution.
An army of PhDs is working on AI. They are all working on specific
projects in weak AI. No respectable peer group believes either in
strong AI, or that the route to objectives in weak AI is through
Genetic Algorithms.
<snip>
I think that you'd best examine your primary assumption
about AI. Life doesn't use the sort of AI that mathematicians
study or computer science types build.
But evolution did, eventually, develop this sort of AI.
It did it by evolving humans who developed it.
---- Paul J. Gans
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| User: "raven1" |
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| Title: Re: Unintelligent Design |
26 May 2005 03:53:39 PM |
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On 26 May 2005 05:01:09 -0700, wrote:
The main argument against Evolution is the failure to produce AI.
Intelligence has proved too complex to be generated in a random way and
too complex even for us to understand.
Would monsieur like some whine with his Argument from Incredulity?
---
"This is how liberty dies: with thunderous applause"
- Padme Amidala, Episode III
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