Squeakland Evolution project thingy

Richard A. O'Keefe ok at atlas.otago.ac.nz
Thu May 31 01:22:39 UTC 2001


	I think I would agree here. I think I would change
	
	      ... The process of evolution created the animals, both their 
	bodies and their habits ...
	
	  to read:
	
	      ... It is likely that the process of evolution created the 
	animals, both their bodies and their habits ...
	
I'm sorry, but even that suggestions that there is one process of evolution
(false) and that it consciously acted (false).  Evolutionary processes
include selection and random drift.

I would suggest wording more like

	It is likely that both the bodies and the habits of animals are
	the outcome of evolutionary processes ...

There is a building in Melbourne, "Melbourne Central".  While it was
a-building, they had a sign on it "The Spirit of Evolution".  Doubly
funny, really, because the "spirit" of evolution is death, disease, and
disaster, and I'm sure they didn't want people thinking _that_ about their
building!

Computer "experiments" in evolution always tend to look highly contrived.

	The spider and its silk were not designed by any being.  The process 
	of evolution created the animals, both their bodies and their habits. 
	Evolution is a very powerful process.  Think of the great variety of 
	wild plants and animals on the earth.  All of them were created by 
	evolution.
	---------
	
	Note that we don't claim anything about "evolution being a designer".
	
But you DO claim that evolution is a creater.

The key idea in Darwinian evolution, as I understand it, is the "creative
power" of selection, that is, animals that don't function don't breed, so
that anything we see around us _has_ to be something that can function well
enough to make a living, or it wouldn't be here.  The main evidences for
evolution are due to its limitations, not its powers:  basically, you have
to work with what you've got, "evolution" doesn't have the power to step in
and make arbitrary patches.  It's the _panda's_ clumsy thumb, not ours, that
is persausive of evolution.  It's the lingering bugs in Squeak that prove it
wasn't written by God.  A really convincing evolution simulation should
illustrate something it _can't_ do.
	





More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list