Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!umcp-cs!mark From: mark@umcp-cs.UUCP Newsgroups: net.religion,net.misc Subject: Re: Faith in Evolution. Message-ID: <567@umcp-cs.UUCP> Date: Thu, 7-Jul-83 23:06:25 EDT Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.567 Posted: Thu Jul 7 23:06:25 1983 Date-Received: Fri, 8-Jul-83 05:32:04 EDT References: <245@cbscd5.UUCP> Organization: Univ. of Maryland, Computer Science Dept. Lines: 80 As far as I can see Holland's book does not even mention spontaneous generation. His book is a mathematical analysis of the adaptation process. Your original message did not mention spontaneous generation. You asked for a detailed analysis of the development of living organisms from an amino acid soup. (Aside: when I studied at Michigan with Holland we called this soup Hollandaise sauce. :-) That is exactly what holland does. He shows how the "not in a billion years (or 15) could random processes develop an eye" arguement is wrong by detailed analyses of how STABLE ADAPATATIONS speed up the adaptations. Another way to think of this is that all the way to an eye have been eye-like adaptations which were a little bit adaptive, and so stayed around. Once you get a little skew like this in the randomness (and it doesn't take much) amazing things happen. His favorite example was the "2-armed bandit problem": Imagine you are in Los Vegas playing a two armed bandit. You suspect that one arm may give you better odds in the long but don't know which one it is. So you must experiment, but at the same time you must risk your money. How should you allocate your coins so that you have the maximum expected return? Remember, the good arm could still give you a long run of bad long, so you can never cease playing both arms every once in a while... The solution, Holland shows, is to play the arm which has been better SO FAR exponentially more often than the other arm. This means evolution is fast. However, exponentially more often is not all the time. Every once in a while, play the other arm. With this play algorithm, you'll always recover from initial bad guesses about which arm is the good one. What does this have to do with evolution? The allocation of genes in a gene pool (population genetics now) corresponds to exactly this exponential allocation function. That is, the genes corresponding to more adaptive features will increase exponentially. Of course, one doesn't actually need genes. Holland has applied this to the evolution of simple strings of integers (corresponding to RNA or DNA) under random variations. It works fine there too. This is what I consider to be a detailed mechanism of evolution from the Hollandaise sauce on up. He makes applications to Biology (genetics, i.e. living systems), but these applications are based on current evolutionary assumptions. The Holland's arguments have nothing to do with current evolutionary assumptions. They are based on statistics and logic and little else. It just so happens that when he applies them to genetics he gets out evolution of biological organisms as a theorem...sorry if this bothers you. Please, when you cite a reference, at least give the page numbers and a brief description of how the reference applies. No one likes being sent on a wild goose chase. Goose chase not intended. It seems to me one must understand Holland's whole approach, that is why I cited no page. His book is not easy reading. I think you ought to consider the publication as a whole before you make such a judgement. Was not your sample representative? Why did you post it? The article I selected is only a sample to illustrate the point that belief in evolution requires a fair amount of faith, as does belief in creation. Going to bed each night hoping the sun will rise requires blind faith. When it doesn't, then I'll deal with it. When I see things created by a supreme being, then I'll deal with it. But right now, I see evolution. -- spoken: mark weiser UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!mark CSNet: mark@umcp-cs ARPA: mark.umcp-cs@UDel-Relay