Yep.

Cheers,

Alan

---

At 8:31 PM +0200 5/30/01, Henrik Gedenryd wrote:
>Alan Kay wrote:
>
>>  We realize all this.
>
>
>Alan,
>
>Since this first happened, there has come about a new reason that will force
>everyone to become more careful. Creationism has been supplanted by a
>position that pits evolution against "intelligent design". Apparently this
>is a more credible position from an academic point of view (well how hard
>can that be), and with more academic proponents.
>
>Exhibit A:
>http://theory-of-evolution.org/default.htm
>
>There was also a good article in NYT on April 8 (I picked it up from there).
>Sorry, it's not on-line any more.
>
>Dawkins and the rest of us have fallen back on the design metaphor because
>it is very convenient, it gets everything right, except it gets everything
>wrong if you see what I mean. Now, in what resembles an arms race, the
>opponents have sharpened their weapons and this will force the
>fish-with-legs guys to refine our position as well.
>
>So let's. Now, from my point of view, the weakness of the "intelligent
>design" position is that it rests on a lay/"naive" notion of design. This is
>the idea that design consists in deriving a product from a pre-conceived
>specification or idea (the word "plan", in the AI sense, derives from
>architects' use of drawings in the 16th cent. or so).
>
>(Am. Heritage:)
>plan (pl^n) n. 1. A scheme, program, or method worked out beforehand ...
>[ French alteration (influenced by plan flat surface); ground plan, map]
>
>The planning paradigm and eg. the waterfall all share this layman's notion
>of design (and they are both wrong too). You will probably not be surprised
>that I found the origin of this idea dates back even to Aristotle's
>writings.
>
>The problem is that design IRL actually closely parallels evolution.
>Strictly, they both are negative feedback processes. This is true even when
>a single designer is doing the designing. So the lay view is patently
>mistaken, as we developers know by the way.
>
>In other words, evolution (in the biological sense) is the best available
>metaphor for how design actually works! (And in some parts of the Squeak
>image this is painfully obvious!)
>
>
>But the bottom line is that these god-as-designer people will force the rest
>of us to refine our language, or we unwillingly lend them credibility. In a
>sense we should be grateful to them for refining our own position.
>
>Henrik