Xref: utzoo sci.philosophy.tech:870 sci.bio:1652 bionet.molbio.evolution:40 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!nrl-cmf!ukma!mailrus!caen.engin.umich.edu!offutt From: offutt@caen.engin.umich.edu (daniel m offutt) Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.bio,bionet.molbio.evolution Subject: Re: How to debate the creationists. Summary: A new argument against creationism Message-ID: <4029b61d.ffb5@bumper.engin.umich.edu> Date: 10 Dec 88 02:33:00 GMT References: <4806@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Reply-To: offutt@caen.engin.umich.edu (daniel m offutt) Organization: The University of Michigan Lines: 28 There is an argument that you can use against creationists which has not been used before, to the best of my knowledge. There are maybe a couple of hundred people in the computer sciences and engineering today who are using a certain simulation of biological evolution as a computational function maximization method. The simulation algorithm is called a "Genetic Algorithm". There is now substantial evidence from thousands of experiments that genetic algorithms can be highly-efficient optimizers of otherwise very hard to optimize functions. One researcher saved his company $140,000 (with an expected continuing savings amounting to $1,000,000 per year) using this algorithm to evolve ever-better communication network designs. This algorithm is generating increasing interest among people with practical optimization problems to solve. A genetic algorithm simulates a population of linear chromosomes, crossover, and fitness-based differential reproduction over a period of hundreds or thousands of generations of simulated evolution. The algorithm was originally intended as a model of evolution; it is quite interesting that it just happens to also be a very efficient function optimization method. So to come to the point: If creationists are right and evolution is nonsense, then how can it be that when one implements a computer simulation of evolution (of the right type) the simulation turns out to be an algorithm that has tremendous practical value? ===================================================================== Daniel Offutt offutt@caen.engin.umich.edu