We realize all this. Read the essay more carefully (and maybe we 
should have written it more carefully). Before going further, I 
should reveal that I have a degree in Molecular Biology ....
     The active essay in question was developed as a paraphrase (plus 
active examples) of a chapter in Richard Dawkins' book "The Blind 
Watchmaker" (and ours was written for the Junior High School age 
range). The various metaphors were adapted from Dawkins. His book is 
quite to your early points. If evolution is a process, then a process 
can certainly shape -- whether that is a subpart of "design" is moot 
to me. It's just a metaphor. Is it going too far to have a "designer" 
be heat plus stickyness?
      We are not giving evolution credit for intelligence and 
creativity.  In fact, the chapter in question in Dawkins' book is not 
about evolution per se, but about how a small amount of memory can 
vastly improve almost random processes. Why is it not about 
evolution? Because the environment contains an actual goal and the 
fitness test is how close are the evolvees to the goal. Maybe we 
should have made that clearer in the essay.
      As to the last part of your criticism, I think you have a good 
point. What Ted and I were trying to show (again following Dawkins) 
was that some of the arguments against the improbablity of evolution 
should be seen in the context of "ratcheted systems" whose shaping to 
an environement is incredibly efficient compared to random processes. 
We shouldn't have convolved that point with points about evolution 
itself.

Cheers,

Alan

------

At 6:17 PM +0100 5/29/01, Keith Hodges wrote:
>Dear Alan Kay,
>I am writing to express my disappointment at your evolution thingy 
>as the centre piece of the exhibit on squeakland.org
>
>Your first page of the active essay is tremendously enthusiastic 
>about how complex the world is and how well things have been, and I 
>try and paraphrase (because I cant look at it on solaris at the 
>moment) , "DESIGNED BY EVOLUTION".
>
>I appreciate that you are trying to communicate the concept of "wow! 
>how clever is evolution", but I put to you that giving intelligence 
>to a dumb process is somewhat misleading and overstating the case.
>
>Here you are saying that the incredible complexity of life is being 
>DESIGNED, and therefore your use of the word design and the 
>enthusiasm and the words that you use actually in what you say 
>points to the need for there to be a DESIGNER. A concept that 
>evolution advocates vehemently deny.
>
>In normal understanding and use of such language we tend to make 
>statements like, "Squeak that's a cool complex software tool.... who 
>thought of that? Who programmed it who designed it?". It is the 
>complexity and amount of structured information that leads us to 
>make a simply cognitive association between complexity and design 
>and therefore intelligence. If I was to say "Squeak that's a cool 
>programming tool, isn't my cat clever to have made this" then you 
>would automatically suspect something is wrong. Can I be blamed for 
>questioning your presentation on the basis that I suspect that 
>something is wrong in a similar manner.
>
>You are giving evolution the credit for having intelligence and 
>creativity, which by definition it being a random process it does it 
>does not have. Given that you invest so much enthusiasm into what is 
>obviously a false statement, given the known relationship between 
>design, designers and intelligence/motive. The built in mismatch 
>here that should lead us to question the principles and the 
>assumptions behind the statements, rather than to present them as 
>indisputable facts.
>
>There is an old saying... If it walks like a duck, quacks like a 
>duck and swims like a duck, it is likely to be a duck!
>Occams razor (or the XP equivalent, use the simplest thing that 
>could possibly explain that!) indicates that if you found DESIGN 
>then the best and simplest explanation for that is that there is a 
>DESIGNER! Evolution is actually quite a complex theory and it is 
>quite difficult to get it to actually work in practice. It flies in 
>the face of Mr Occam since it is not the most obvious conclusion to 
>state as a fact after wondering at the complexity of the natural 
>world around us.
>
>In contemporary science as people have investigated it further 
>especially at the molecular level inside cells. The more that 
>complexity, or to be more specific "irreducible complexity" is used 
>as an argument against the viability of evolution as an agent of 
>design. I am amazed that you are able to state clearly the opposite 
>to this. I.E. The logical thing to say as a scientist is  "wow isn't 
>this complex, how on earth did that evolve." You are saying, "wow 
>isn't this complex isn't evolution cool." It is on this basis that I 
>am questioning your "scientific credibility", your approach to 
>science in this case appears to be based upon assumptions, rather 
>than on genuine scientific method. I am not trying to start a debate 
>here but I am appealing to you to do good science!
>
>Let me give you a complete picture of how I believe that science 
>works and hopefully you will get what I am saying. You observe 
>something, hypothesize and test. Given an event that is observed 
>there are four possibilities that can be considered.
>
>1. Law
>2. Chance
>3.  Some agency (intelligent or otherwise)
>4. Highly Improbable event.
>
>For example a Forensic scientist may look at a crime scene seeing a 
>plant pot scattered on to the floor. He would consider.
>
>1 law.  If the window is wide open and the wind is blowing at 90 mph 
>the laws of physics give an explanation as to why the pot is on the 
>floor.
>
>2. chance. If the window is flapping and the weather is gust then 
>there is a chance that an accidental gust of wind blew and then the 
>pot fell.
>
>3. If the window is shut but there is a foot print in the earth and 
>finger prints on the vase The vase falling incident has resulted in 
>an increase in "information" and thus this points to an intelligent 
>agency.
>
>4. If none of the others is a suitable explanation then this is the 
>last one, unlikely but remote.
>
>---
>
>The key thing to note about number 3 is that it is possible to 
>measure, based upon "measuring information content"  whether there 
>has been an intelligent agency involved.  There are many techniques 
>(information flows, convergence of paths etc.) that can be employed 
>that make testing "Item 3" hypotheses viable!
>
>---
>
>The problem with evolution is that those who propose it have 
>accepted by faith a "naturalistic materialistic" philosophy, this 
>philosophy makes an assumption. (Science is supposed to question, or 
>at least be suspicious of assumptions!) The assumption is that 
>"there is no intelligent agency involved." This means that by 
>definition there is no Option 3 in the naturalistic philosophy of 
>science as applied to the question of origins. If you wear a red 
>filter on your glasses then you will mot be able to see certain 
>colours, asserting that those colours do not exist is not valid 
>given that they can be measured via other means!
>
>There are currently scientists that seriously propose theories of 
>origins using both options 1  (Denton) and 3 (Behe).
>Defining a philosophy of science without option 3, means that the 
>only possibility left is that chance (2) is the "designer", as 
>directed by "law" (2). Such a philosophy of science is incomplete, 
>and basically irresponsible.
>
>
>---
>
>I would like to finish on a positive note, here is another chance 
>for you for go WOW.
>
>Here is a model of a car engine!
> 
><http://www.phoenix-model.com/images/Minicraft/MIN11201.jpg>http://www.phoenix-model.com/images/Minicraft/MIN11201.jpg
>
>Here is an animation of a molecular engine! WOW!
>  <http://www.arn.org/mm/mm.htm>http://www.arn.org/mm/mm.htm
>
><http://www.arn.org/docs/mm/atpmechanism.htm>http://www.arn.org/docs/mm/atpmechanism.htm
>
>finally as a direct challenge to the content of your active essay 
>perhaps you could look at. 
><http://www.theory-of-evolution.org>http://www.theory-of-evolution.org 
>on this site there is an almost identical presentation using the 
>"methinks it is a weasel" example. as a java applet.
>
>thanks for your time, "methinks there is a cat among the ducks"
>
>respectfully
>
>Keith
>
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