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Uncommon Descent Contest Question 10: Provide the Code for Dawkins’ WEASEL Program

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Special invitation for Richard Dawkins – but any civil person is entitled to enter.

There’s been some discussion here and elsewhere whether the the recent IEEE article by Dembski and Marks correctly characterizes Richard Dawkins’ famous METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL program.

Does the program ratchet correct letters or does it let them vary? One is a partitioned or stair-step search, the other a more realistic evolutionary search. From The Blind Watchmaker, where Dawkins describes the program, its performance suggests that it could be either of these options (though he doesn’t say).

On the other hand, from a (video-run of the program , go to 6:15), it seems to be the latter.

It’s easy enough to settle this question: Make the code for the program public. Perhaps Richard Dawkins himself or his friends at RichardDawkins.net can finally provide this code (apparently a program written in BASIC).

The prize is a copy of either Stephen Meyer’s new Signature in the Cell or Richard Dawkins’ soon-to-be-out The Greatest Show on Earth.

Should the winner choose the latter, I will ask Dawkins’s publicist to mail the copy. Given that at his site, he calls himself “the most formidable intellect in public discourse,” I would assume that if he signs the copy, it will be worth millions.

But wait. Let’s see that code first.

Comments
Onlookers: I: It seems I have to first deal with yet another bit of unfortunately distractive objection. (On the ad hominem aspect: FYI above, I have and have had a life separate from wee- hours- of- the- morning engagements online, and out-of-context samples from my work in curriculum development -- that's where anything on Mechatronics comes up [I championed it as a paradigm for renewal of engineering education in the Caribbean, because of its fusion of electronics, mechanisms, and ICT's with the control mindset; BTW, the modern heavily micro-controlled car is informed by this frame of thought] -- or sustainable development, or energy and development, used to try to pretend and project that I have not worn a lab coat myself (quite literally) are simply a "no true scotsman" ad hominem in disguise. And, besides the probative force of an argument comes from its weight on the merits of fact and logic, not who makes it, and what clothes s/he happens to wear [a shirtjac at the time as I recall], or when s/he said it – the just linked was a backup brief presentation for a public ethics lecture -- what circle approves or disapproves.) On topic: the objectors above to my remarks on materialist philosophers and would-be neo-magisterium in lab coats rather than ecclesiastical robes -- forgive me on this, Catholics, I have to make a point in a way that will go home to a Golden Compass, anti- C S Lewisian thinking mentality -- would do well to ponder the implications of the already linked remarks on US National Academy of Sciences member Richard Lewontin's infamous 1997 review, and the statements from the said academy in its interventions in Kansas, but moreso the following from their 2008 version of their official pamphlet on "Science" vs "Creationism" -- as was also linked -- which let us note, they do not directly address on the merits, choosing instead to resort to an ad hominem. So, let us go now to Science, Evolution and Creationism, p. 10, for the contextualised NAS definition of science and associated commentary: ______________ >> DEFN (in a text box): The use of evidence to construct testable explanations and predictions of natural phenomena, as well as the knowledge generated through this process. [US NAS, 2008, p.10] COMMENTARY (in the just preceding paragraph): In science, explanations must be based on naturally occurring phenomena. Natural causes are, in principle, reproducible and therefore can be checked independently by others. If explanations are based on purported forces that are outside of nature, scientists have no way of either confirming or disproving those explanations. Any scientific explanation has to be testable — there must be possible observational consequences that could support the idea but also ones that could refute it. Unless a proposed explanation is framed in a way that some observational evidence could potentially count against it, that explanation cannot be subjected to scientific testing. >> _______________ Now, Mr Lewontin in his 1997 NYRB review of Sagan's Demon Haunted World (as he is a little more explicit on what is really going on there): _______________ >>. . . to put a correct view of the universe into people's heads we must first get an incorrect view out . . . the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth . . . . To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists, it is self-evident that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality, and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test . . . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen. >> ________________ On points: 1 --> The claim that science is "the only begetter of truth," and/or that it is the fountainhead of "knowledge" is (inadvertently) a claim in EPISTEMOLOGY -- i.e. philosophy -- not science. [BTW, that is part of why the earlier usage was Natural Philosophy, which then delivered "knowledge" -- "Science" is a version on the Latin for "knowledge" [which in turn is a version on the Greek!]-- as its findings were confirmed as reliable and credibly -- as opposed to absolutely -- true. Modern usage, emphasising the "knowledge" part, too often forgets that there is an epistemological foundation for the technical work, and one with limitations as well as strengths. For instance, empirical support for an explanatory claim cannot be beyond reasonable dispute or correction in light of further findings or analysis. And in Origins sciences, explanations on the remote and unobservable past bear as well constraints that apply to any fundamentally reconstructive historical exercise; and one for which we do not have generally accepted eyewitness documents.] 2 --> As a direct consequence, Lewontin's remarks self-destruct spectacularly. (He makes an inadvertent philosophical claim of "self-evidence" to ground the idea that only scientific knowledge claims that pass the muster of "all but a few . . . scientists" [oops: appeal to the "consensus" view of the neo-magisterium -- and a magisterium in lab coats is but little better at resisting the temptations of error and abuse of authority than one in ecclesiastical robes . . . pardon the shock effect] provide the surest method for putting us in touch with "reality." Consequently, his argument cuts its own throat as it "fail[s]" a decisive "reasonable test" -- logical coherence.) 3 --> Moreover, he explicitly acknowledges both a priori materialism AND ill-informed, dismissive prejudice against the idea of God, as a presumed irrational and chaotic injection into the world of thought and experiment. (But in fact, a world in which miracles are to stand out as signs pointing beyond "nature" -- that which traces to chance and necessity spontaneously at work without specific "local" intelligent direction -- is one in which there has to be a generally prevailing -- but not watertight -- orderly pattern of intelligible laws. And, historically that was precisely the mindset of the founders of modern science, with Newton as chief exemplar.) 4 --> The NAS statement of 11 years later is subtler but makes the same core point, and falls into the same core error. 5 --> The US NAS definition, taken in another context, would be unexceptionable. After all, I have long championed the ideal that science "at its best" is "the unfettered (but intellectually and ethically responsible) progressive pursuit of the truth about our world, based on observation, experiment, reasoned [including mathematical] analysis and discussion of results among the informed." 5 --> Unfortunately, there is in fact an improperly constraining, Lewontinian a priori materialism-loaded context; as may be seen from the loaded language:
Natural causes are, in principle, reproducible and therefore can be checked independently by others. If explanations are based on purported forces that are outside of nature, scientists have no way of either confirming or disproving those explanations.
6 --> By "nature" the NAS plainly means things traceable to forces and factors of ultimately undirected chance and mechanical necessity. (That is why it force-fits the strawmannish contrast: natural vs supernatural, in the teeth of the suppressed alternative that Intelligent Design scientists and thinkers have put forward in recent years: natural vs ART-ificial, i.e intelligent.) 7 --> Now, the very paragraph of commentary we just extracted from constitutes an empirically observable deposit in the world of our experience; comprising 666 [believe it or not!] ASCII text characters, i.e a configuration space of ~ 2.52 *10^1,403 possible states of 128 characters. Of these, but a tiny fraction will constitute valid English language text making commentary on the NAS definition of Science. 8 --> So, on observing certain aspects of the sequence of glyphs in front of us, we see it is: (i) readily and reproducibly observable in the empirical world, (ii) highly contingent, (iii) not readily explicable on chance and blind undirected mechanical forces, (iv) a case of functionally specific complex information. So, the ID explanatory filter points to intelligence acting through ART as the best causal explanation of the NAS paragraph, in a world where we know that intelligent agency is possible and indeed actual. 9 --> Now, too, we have no good reason for a priori deciding that humans exhaust the set of possible or actual intelligences [Cf UD glossary on intelligence], but we may infer from the familiar case to the less familiar one. 10 --> And, it is highly evident from such a case, that for such cases of FSCI and the like, [n]atural [INTELLIGENT] causes are, in principle, reproducible and therefore can be checked independently by others.” 11 --> Next, it helps to observe another use of language: digital, information bearing computer code, especially algorithm-expressing instructions and associated data structures. (Again, it is quite evident that sufficiently long programs that work – i.e are physically instantiated successfully on some hardware or other -- are not easily explicable in terms of undirected chance + necessity; i.e. nature acting spontaneously. That is, these are empirically observable and leave reliable, reproducible traces, but are decidedly objects of ART [techne] rather than “naturally occurring phenomena.”) 12 --> This brings us right to a relevant case: DNA in the cells of our bodies and those of other life-forms. Here, we see digitally expressed code involving instructions, data structures and regulatory circuits, all within entities that predate human intelligence, indeed are foundational to its existence. 13 --> So, we have here a credible case where what would otherwise be easily recognised as an ART-ifact of intelligence, is per a priori materialism in the guise of science, force-fitted into a materialistic explanation under the false colours of science, “no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated”; indeed “in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs . . . in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories . . . ” 14 --> And, Mr Lewontin immediately explains just why: “. . . because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.” 15 --> Nor will it suffice to say but science is only one aspect of the world of intellectual discourse . For, one of the key points is materialistic domination of the field of credibility and knowledge through captivating science to the materialistic agenda, and yes, wearing the culturally and institutionally prestigious lab coat – thus, BYW, the attempts above to defrock, read out and dismiss me. Again, Lewontin is painfully frank:
. . to put a correct view of the universe into people's heads we must first get an incorrect view out . . . the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations [notice the conspicuous absence of reference to the issue of nature vs art, which was first seriously raised by Plato in Bk X of the Laws, c 360 BC], and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth . . . .
16 --> Which of course brings us full circle to the reductio ad absurdum implied by making an epistemological declaration to lock in the idea that only science is a proper ground for warranting knowledge. In sum, we easily see the imposition of a priori materialism on science, the operation of a lab-coat wearing materialist neo-magisterium, and its pernicious effects. [ . . . ]kairosfocus
September 12, 2009
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CannuckianYankee: You have to keep in mind what is going on 'under the hood' not just the observed output. At each step of WEASEL there are lots of 'offspring' produced, each has letters that are copied from the parent with a small chance of mutating (being randomly changed). Only one of these offspring is selected to be the parent for the next generation and the rest are discarded. This parent phrase is selected based on the number of correct letters - you only get to see this parent, you never see the population it comes from. When you have a population size and mutation rate in the right range the chances are that at least one of these offspring will have the same correct letters as the parent, possibly more, which will usually make it the 'fittest' and so it gets selected. This is how the appearance of latching happens, even though there is nothing in the code that prevents the letters from reverting - it is the effect of mutation, population and selection, and of only viewing the fittest member of each generation. If you could watch all the members of each generation, not just the fittest, you would see individual correct letters reverting all the time. If you increase the mutation rate and decrease the population you increase the probability of the fittest offspring having correct letters reverted. When it is running and it approaches the target phrase the rate at which letters appear to revert will drop. This is because the number of correct letters is going up but the probability of them changing back stays the same. It would really help if Atom added way of viewing all the members of the population, not just the fittest, because if becomes obvious what is going on when you can peek under the hood.BillB
September 12, 2009
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laughable, I tried Atom's "Proximity Reward Search" for the phrase "ME THINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL" several times, and each time a correct letter was attained, that letter stayed latched. Not so for Dawkins' video demonstration of the "weasel" program. So I don't think it's the same or a similar program. Am I wrong? However, what I did notice about Dawkins' 1987 video, is that once a proximation of a word like "weasel" was attained, the mutations for particular letters seemed to slow down. This indicates to me that there might be some sort of latching going on. It may not be complete latching, as is evident in Atom's program, but it appears that in Dawkin's program (assuming that the video demonstration is the same program as depicted in TBW), there is some indication given that the program is nearing (or approximating) the target word, causing the mutations for a particular letter in the approximated word to slow. I can't explain it, so it really means nothing to me, but it does seem to warrant that we know a little more about Dawkins' program, and what is really going on. Did anyody else notice this? Has there been an explanation? I'm really a novice at this, so if I missed something, I apologize in advance. :)CannuckianYankee
September 11, 2009
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"I promise to forego the benefits and work product of people who teach evangelism, if you promise to forgo the benefits and work product of people who develop pharmaceutical products." DNA, Do you work for big pharma? You were talking about science and then mentioned big pharma. Doesn't make sense.lamarck
September 11, 2009
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Clive, When you said
Advancement is not limited to lab coat wearers, it is only limited to human ingenuity, and on this score kairosfocus can speak as well as anyone, indeed better than someone who wears a lab coat.
I am assuming you meant that there is at least one lab coat wearer who has advanced humanity less that kairosfocus. I think we can happily concede that point. For a moment there, however, I thought you meant that kairosfocus can speak to human ingenuity better than anyone who wears a lab coat. Nearly fell off my chair.
Surely you’re not willing to say that labcoats gives a mind a special monopoly on ingenuity and rationality?
A monopoly? That would be silly. There is however a rather impressive selection in favor of those traits, but that brings me perilously close to being on-topic, which would scarcely honor kairosfocus.
without folks like kairosfocus, lab coats would be a self aggrandizing group, with no accountability and no special training in actual broad thinking.
Now, I've met and worked with a lot of lab-coat guys, and I'll admit that there are some pretty impressive egos amongst them, but, as a whole, I have yet to meet a less self-aggrandizing group. Philosophers, on the other hand, take the cake. I am a little puzzled as to which of kf's contributions to humanity you are touting here. His contributions to Mechatronics seem rather lame to me - he has made much bigger name for himself in apologetics and evangelism, so this is what I am assuming you are referring to Clive. So here's my offer to you Clive: I promise to forego the benefits and work product of people who teach evangelism, if you promise to forgo the benefits and work product of people who develop pharmaceutical products. Do we have a deal?DNA_Jock
September 11, 2009
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--kf due to moderation, #329 popped up in the middle of the thread. Could you answer to it? Thanks...DiEb
September 11, 2009
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This kairosfocus seems to be an interesting fellow. I’ve followed his valiant fight here as a lurker for sometime, but haven’t run across him outside Uncommon Descent. I’d love to know more about what he does IRL. He spends a lot of time pontificating about herrings, oil, straw, and men. Perhaps he manufactures fish oil, pressed from herrings by men wearing straw hats? Then again, judging from the length of his comments, he may sell bandwidth. I can't imagine any other reason for using so much of it. Now that I think about it, if we go by the content of his posts, I'd say he's cornered the market on vitriol. That's a kind of fish oil, isn't it?Learned Hand
September 11, 2009
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Advancement is not limited to lab coat wearers, it is only limited to human ingenuity, and on this score kairosfocus can speak as well as anyone, indeed better than someone who wears a lab coat.
This kairosfocus seems to be an interesting fellow. I've followed his valiant fight here as a lurker for sometime, but haven't run across him outside Uncommon Descent. I'd love to know more about what he does IRL. Thanks!quaggy
September 11, 2009
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FrogBox,
Just to note that if it wasn’t for the likes of me and the hundreds of thousands of colleauges throughout the world who are proud lab coat wearers, the planet would be in a very much worse way than it is now. kairosfocus’ anti-science rhetoric shows him in a very bad light indeed, as one of those who would indeed take society back to the Dark Ages if they had the opportunity.
Advancement is not limited to lab coat wearers, it is only limited to human ingenuity, and on this score kairosfocus can speak as well as anyone, indeed better than someone who wears a lab coat. Lab coats don't come with the art of ingenuity built-in, and without folks like kairosfocus, lab coats would be a self aggrandizing group, with no accountability and no special training in actual broad thinking. Surely you're not willing to say that labcoats gives a mind a special monopoly on ingenuity and rationality? If you are, that is called scientism, which is a philosophy, which other reasonable men can critique and which has no special place in the world of thinking men. Who would take us back to the Dark Ages are those who think that the only thing that matters is whatever folks who wear lab coats think, for they will impose whatever they want on the rest of humanity, which will be the opposite of the Enlightenment, and indeed, may be called the next age of Endarkenment. "Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil." C.S. LewisClive Hayden
September 11, 2009
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DNA_Jock: I have asked kf more or less the same question over 10 times now, for example in post 194 here. He will continue to avoid answering it. Maybe the reason is that it is so obvious that these two searches, called "Partitioned" and "Proximity Reward", are completely different.Indium
September 11, 2009
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Just to note that if it wasn't for the likes of me and the hundreds of thousands of colleauges throughout the world who are proud lab coat wearers, the planet would be in a very much worse way than it is now. kairosfocus' anti-science rhetoric shows him in a very bad light indeed, as one of those who would indeed take society back to the Dark Ages if they had the opportunity.FrogBox
September 11, 2009
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That sounds like a "Yes". So can we stipulate that TBW Weasel corresponds to Atom’s Proximity Reward Search at EIL? "Yes" or "No"?DNA_Jock
September 11, 2009
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DNA-J: Your last is a refreshing contrast, especially given the just above. From April 9, the day it was announced, I have consistently used Atom's Adjustable Weasel as a good example of the sort of Weasel algorithm that can show implicit latching, under certain conditions. Remember, as the Weasel 86 excerpted runs are showcased and demonstrate apparent latching in a context where from Elsberry et al, it is believed Dawkins did not explicitly latch, the question of implicit latching is relevant. It is demonstrably achievable in SOME cases. (NB: Some of the runs I put up on getting the new toy, are of quasi-latching and the like. Notice how I also showcased substitutions where we see reversion in which another letter advances to compensate. I also think I gave a case that ran on and on and on before finally hitting target with a lot of reversions etc. One run had a long lock on to substitutions on the last letter before finally hitting home.) The point is, that Weasels on proximity reward are capable of complex, widely varying behavour. Not even the probabilities of letters advancing in the generation champions are constant across a run, especially as it gets close to home! Of these many behaviours, some will show implicit lastching of genration champions, and if that is what looks like a good showcaser, you may weell put that in your book and magazine articles. (Milikan's oil drop experiment lab notebook is a notorious case of showcasing in Physics by the way: "Beaut, Publish!" says he in the margin . . . onlooking historians and philosophers of science cringe. But, his results are what gave us our first "good" look at the charge of the electron.] I trust that helps. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
September 11, 2009
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Onlookers: More distortions from BillB. And, even more sadly, blatant falsehoods declared confidently. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
September 11, 2009
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Aha! I think I see your point, kf. Reading post 312, you use Atom's Proximity Reward Search to showcase the latching behavior of Weasel. Run B of April 9th 2009 shows behavior just like the runs in TBW. In fact, you demonstrated this result with six runs of Atom's Proximity Reward Search from EIL. And as you so rightly pointed out in April:
More importantly, SO SOON AS IT WAS REPORTED THAT MR ELSBERRY HAS PASSED ON TESTIMONY THAT MR DAWKINS DID NOT EXPLICITLY LATCH WEASEL 1986, I AND OTHERS HAVE ACCEPTED THAT; AND WE HAVE INFERRED THAT WEASEL 1986?S O/P IS THEN BEST EXPLAINED ON IMPLICIT LATCHING. (The credibility of this explanation has been now abundantly and directly confirmed; thanks to Atom’s public spirited effort.)
[Emphasis DNAJ's] So can we stipulate that TBW Weasel corresponds to Atom's Proximity Reward Search at EIL? A simple 'yes' or 'no' will do. An answer that lacked the words latching, ratcheting, ad hominem, oil-soaked, red herring, and strawman would be nice, too.DNA_Jock
September 11, 2009
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KF: You have consistently failed to address matters cogently on the merits, step by step you have avoided the real issues, again and again, in painstaking irrelevance. If you want to engage in civil discourse then be my guest, it would make a welcome change from your constant distractions and ad hominems. Instead you seem to prefer to sling mud from the gutter. You insistently use the tactics of sleazy attorneys in courtrooms, who set out to discredit opponents and distract attention from the facts on the merits. You are not the victim, you are the perpetrator.BillB
September 11, 2009
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Onlookers: BillB -- who long since slipped over into the land of the uncivil -- is simply playing at turnabout accusatory rhetoric. You will easily see that above in the posts he would impugn and in many others above thence the onward or always linked, I have addressed matters cogently on the merits, step by step, again and again, in painstaking details. Just, the details on the merits -- and truth is "that which says of what is that it is and of what is not that it is not," not the expulsion-enforced pseudo-consensus view of today's neo-magisterium with their a priori Lewontinian materialism, whether openly metaphysical or implicitly so [aka methodological naturalism] -- happen not to be convenient to BillB; who still has not apologised for twisting my corrective words on the rhetorical tactics he is again using into a blatantly false accusation of trying to push him into the same boat as presumably guilty rape accused. (BillB: If you insistently use the tactics of sleazy attorneys in courtrooms, who set out to discredit the victims to distract attention from the facts on the merits; that is bad enough for me.) G'day again. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
September 11, 2009
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Cabal: Did you credibly download Weasel as composed by Mr Dawkins in BASIC or Pascal, c 1986, apparently on an Apple II? Failing that -- and if you did so and have credible 1986 Dawkins code, you are the prize winner -- then all we have to go on is the description and excerpted runs from that time. Which are capable of two main interpretations: implicit and explicit latching and ratcheting as the generational champions ran to target. (Cf my notes and excerpts here in APP 7 the always linked. It would have been helpful if you would have read this first before commenting adversely. [You will understand that your remarks, in the tone delivered and in the teeth of easily accessible corrective information, frankly, come across as unhelpful or worse. Please, do better next time.]) Subsequently Mr Dawkins has indicated that the original code is not forthcoming, but that there are many legitimate replications on the web. EIL's collection reproduces the range of legitimate interpretations of Weasel; and with source code available in a Zip. Under certain circumstances [big enough pop size low enough mut rate per letter for no-change and one-step changes to dominate, particular filter . . . cf the latched runs as demonstrated] , the "proximity reward" case will latch implicitly in at least some cases, and since Weasel 1986 is a matter of showcasing, that is good enough. Also, insofar as Mr Dawkins claims that his Weasel 1986 did not latch what has been called "generational champions" above and elsewhere EXPLICITLY, it seems implicit latching and associated ratcheting is the best explanation of his results as at that time. (In 1987, he showcased runs on BBC that appear to either be the individual members of the generational pops, or else a run sufficiently detuned that it does not latch.) In short, your between the lines insinuation above that the claim that certain interpretations of weasel can implicitly latch [cf demonstrations from here on, April 9th 2009 in earlier discussions at UD] is illegitimate is at best ill-informed. Now, too you go on to say something that is even more misleading:
as far as I can see, the purpose of Weasel is just to demonstrate the effect of selection on fitness. For evolution to be true; selection for fitness must be present. Fit or perish; in IBM lingo Think or Thwim.
There is a world of difference, Cabal, between artificial and targetted selection of non-functional "mutant nonsense phrases" on mere increment in proximity to target, and what natural selection is supposed to do: summarise the effect of superior functional fitness in an environment over time whereby the functionally fitter sub-population survives at the expense of the less fit. But the problem is that the threshold of function in question for life forms is complex and specific, based on an abundance of algorithmic information. That is, it comes in islands in large configuration spaces and you have to get to the shore before you can hill-climb by RV + NS. But to get to the shores of such an island within the accessible resources of the observed cosmos is then a major challenge as has ever so often been pointed out and justified in this blog. In short RV + NS might be able to account for some varieties of micro-evolution, but it cannot account credibly for he origin of body plans [10's - 100's of mega bits of functional info] or the first body plan [100's of k bits of functional info]. For, just 1 k bit of functional info stipulates a config space of 1.07 * 10^301 possibilities, where the number of states of the observed universe across its thermodynamically credible lifespan -- ~ 50 mn times its age to date on the usual big bang timeline from 13.7 BYA -- is less than 1 in 10^150 of this, i.e. not statistically different from zero. In short, Weasel, from 1986 on, created a misleading impression of a "solved" problem, while not actually addressing the real issue. And, unlike easily confirmed and validated computational fluid dynamics simulations, Weasel is not a good match to nature -- which Dawkins himself admitted in the text of BW as I and others have excerpted and discussed -- and it is trying to replicate a claimed process that being in the remote and ancestral past would be in-principle unobservable. In short PT as usual is misleading. And Cabal, you can do better than that, man. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
September 11, 2009
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Where - and how - do you introduce µ (the mutation rate per letter) into eq. 22? Could you please calculate q(Q) for S = 500, µ=.05? Just some numerical values? Thanks!DiEb
September 11, 2009
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Cabal: I believe KF would respond by claiming that studying fluid dynamics is a strawman soaked with oil of ad hominem attacks that distract from the issue of the origin of fluids, that the fluids in simulation only behave that way because they have been intelligently designed to do so, and if you disagree with him about any of this then you are spreading half truths, misrepresentations and outright falsehoods in service to ad hominem attacks and snide dismissals. KF: I notice you have devoted almost half of you last post to making personal attacks against scientists who study nature and commentators who disagree with your unorthodox interpretation of the facts. I will repeat Learned Hands offer to send you a thesaurus - I could send you a bible as well as there are some important life lessons in there about humility, tolerance and the concept of 'turning the other cheek'. The people arguing with you here are not trying to distract, poison or dismiss, they are directly addressing the facts. And before you come back with a comment about turnabout accusations lets remember that you are always the one to cast the first stone - Perhaps you misunderstood that lesson in the bible?BillB
September 11, 2009
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I downloaded Weasel from http://home.earthlink.net/~matthewjheaney/ and as far as I could see, it was not latching. Furthermore, as far as I can see, the purpose of Weasel is just to demonstrate the effect of selection on fitness. For evolution to be true; selection for fitness must be present. Fit or perish; in IBM lingo Think or Thwim. I don’t know if a comment that I found at PT is relevant with respect to this debate, but I found it interesting:
In the case of numerical simulations of hydrodynamics, for example, the simulations use the laws of physics, like the Navier-Stokes equations which govern the flow of fluids. That is all. If we knew what we going to get, we wouldn’t bother with such simulations. We do these simulations because in most cases the problems under study are not possible to do experimentally or too costly. Numerical simulations of fluid flow have practically eliminated the need for wind tunnel testing in aircraft design. Why? because they are accurate representations of what nature does.
Cabal
September 11, 2009
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BTW, if you take Q=G*S, you assume that within each generation, the correct letters are latched. But this isn't true, as there is no (to borrow your terminology) explicit latching.DiEb
September 11, 2009
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And, whatever algorithms are consistent with the Dawkisn description just cited, plainly work off — non-functional — increments in proximity to target, i.e. a case of warmer-colder signals.
Here, we agree, I think: Algorithms consistent with Dawkins's description do work with warmer-colder signals. The algorithm described by Marks and Dembski (or stated as an tutorial example, or whatever) does not.DiEb
September 11, 2009
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KF, this is what happens to people after four years of liberal arts. Get out the torches and pitchforks! We have a lot of hay to burn!IRQ Conflict
September 11, 2009
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Onlookers: The above dismissive and misdirecting arguments inadvertently underscore just how far this thread has brought to light the distractive, distorting, demonising [or at best belittling] and dismissive tactics used by ever so many Darwinist debaters here at UD. 1] Dieb, 321: there is the Dembski-Marks algorithm as described in their paper, and there is the Dawkins algorithm as described in his book. Dembski and Marks -- as has long since been shown, but is being brazenly brushed aside to push an agenda of talking points -- do not describe a realistic algorithm; and on their web site EIL gives a relevant context that shows they are aware that Weasel algorithms producing results and meeting the Dawkins description a la 1986 come in many flavours. The EXPLICIT purpose of the illustrative example they provide o p. 1055 of the EIL paper is to show the effect of partitioning: latching of successful letters -- i.e. prevention of slip-backs by a mechanism in the program [which can be either explicit or implicit]. And their mathematical analysis pivots off such latching. (And in the case of G generations of size S, the number of queries to date, Q, is best understood as Q = G*S.) All of this has long since been shown. Just, willfully ignored and snowed under by wave after wave of demonstrably false and at minimum irresponsible declarations to the contrary. (But, repetition of such Darwinist false declarations does not transform such into truth. And this is all too redolent of the string of falsehoods and willfully untruthful -- neglect of the duties of care of truthfulness and fairness is sufficient to make the falsehoods willful and slanderous -- misrepresentations directed at the Intelligent Design movement in general, and even the old Creationists! [Cf the Weak Argument Correctives above].) Similarly, one root of the exchanges over the past several months is that Dawkins' language and showcased examples of 1986 are NOT sufficient to establish the algorithm in use c 1986. Indeed, that is the very reason why this contest thread asks for credible code. As to the onward claim -- notice the telling absence of a specific link, citation or reference [a warning sign that something is being twisted out of context or worse . . . ] -- that Dembski "confesses," in fact the demonstrable and DEMONSTRATED (cf 302 above) point of the M & D analysis in the IEEE paper p. 1055, is that once an algorithm shows latching effects in the runs of generational champions -- which DEMONSTRABLY can be achieved explicitly or implicitly [and Dawkins' remarks c 1986 are insufficient to determine which of these applies; it is on later remarks that implicit latching is to be preferred as best explanation] -- then the following math applies. As was shown by me at 302 above; days ago now. 2] Oracles not necessarily broadcast warmer-colder signals. Whoever said that oracles -- i.e. in general -- only broadcast warmer-colder signals? Certainly, not he undersigned. (In other words words are here being twisted to make up a strawman to pummel.) I spoke to THESE cases, in the specific context of Weasel c 1986. And in that context, here are Mr Dawkins' words in BW, as are cited several times above and in other recent threads, as well as being instantly accessible in App 7, the always linked:
It [Weasel c 1986] . . . begins by choosing a random sequence of 28 letters ... it duplicates it repeatedly, but with a certain chance of random error – 'mutation' – in the copying. The computer examines the mutant nonsense phrases, the 'progeny' of the original phrase, and chooses the one which, however slightly, most resembles the target phrase, METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL . . . . What matters is the difference between the time taken by cumulative selection, and the time which the same computer, working flat out at the same rate, would take to reach the target phrase if it were forced to use the other procedure of single-step selection: about a million million million million million years. This is more than a million million million times as long as the universe has so far existed . . . . Although the monkey/Shakespeare model is useful for explaining the distinction between single-step selection and cumulative selection, it is misleading in important ways. One of these is that, in each generation of selective 'breeding', the mutant 'progeny' phrases were judged according to the criterion of resemblance to a distant ideal target . . .
The warmer-colder proximity to target metric that rewards "mutant nonsense phrases" -- the very opposite of survival of the fittest [thus functional] -- could not be clearer. 3] The algorithm described by Marks and Dembski in their paper and claimed by Dembski here at Uncommon Descent to be Dawkins’s algorithm of The Blind Watchmaker doesn’t work with warmer-colder signals This is of course mere drumbeat repetition of a demonstrably false statement, to create the impression that it is the truth. Again, until you and your ilk cogently address the FACT that M & D in their EIL site sponsor a cluster of Weasel algorithms, for the explicit purpose of showing how the various interpretations thereof work, and the gaps between such and the credible need of complex function to emerge first before it can be improved on differential success, this is a deceptive agit-prop tactic. And, whatever algorithms are consistent with the Dawkisn description just cited, plainly work off -- non-functional -- increments in proximity to target, i.e. a case of warmer-colder signals. 4] The fitness of a string OTOH can be represented by the Hamming distance . . . And of course this plays off an ambiguity in the term "fitness." I repeat, Weasel c 1986 works off active information injected through targetting and rewarding mere -- and explicitly acknowledged as non-functional -- proximity. No amount of rhetoric to the contrary can change the force of that acknowledged fact. 5] LH, 322: I would be quite happy to send you a thesaurus. This, in response to my underscoring that I have again seen the abusive rhetorical tactic of distractions [red herrings] led away to distortions [strawmen] and used to demonise and/or belittle [soaked in ad hominems and ignited], thence confusing, clouding, poisoning and polarising the atmosphere in which discussions would have to take place. LH, sadly, has now added his own contribution to today's increment another case of the same tactics. _____________ We would do well to learn the pattern, and learn its -- historically warranted (says the ghost of Socrates) -- consequences if it is allowed to grow unchecked: destruction of civility, enabling and leading to the rise of oppression, spreading injustice and tyranny. In particular, we should note the habitual, willful insistence -- in the teeth of easily accessible corrective information -- on half truths, misrepresentations and outright falsehoods in service to ad hominem attacks and snide dismissals, on the part of darwinists. If such cannot be counrted on to have regard for basic directly accessible facts and respect for persons on a relatively level playinfg fields, they can have no credibility on matters of the reote past tha tiws unobserfgvable. And, they plainly cnnot be trusted to be fair-minded or just. that's a sad bottomline to have to draw. but it is unfortunately well-warranted by evidence. Now, the issue is whether, being forewarned, we will be forearmed and determined to stop the rising tide of darwinist incivility before it is too late. Onlookers, after this, we need to simply look sot see if there are signs of compunctions on the part of Darwinists, and of recognition of corrections leading to amending of ways. Absent such, this thread will have achieved something else, which is perhaps even more important if we care about science and our civlisation: it demonstrates the utter willful untruthfulness and unfairness of typical darwinist approaches to origins science issues and to those who challenge the holy rulings of the a priori materialism neo-magisterium wearing the holy vestments of scientists' lab coats. G'day. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
September 10, 2009
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I of course refuse to go off on his latest red herring headed off to as strawman soaked in ad hominems. If you post your mailing address, I would be quite happy to send you a thesaurus.Learned Hand
September 10, 2009
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--kf at least, there is the Dembski-Marks algorithm as described in their paper, and there is the Dawkins algorithm as described in his book. But the real problem with your answer:
A common factor for most of these is that oracles broadcast warmer-colder signals to successive generations of guesses, until they hit the target. that is, warmer-colder signals are a feature of targetted searches.
Oracles not necessarily broadcast warmer-colder signals. To quote David H. Wolpert and William G. Macready in their paper No Free Lunch Theorems for Optimization:
It is common in the optimization community to adopt an oracle-based view of computation.
But as you spoke about warmer-colder signals:The algorithm described by Marks and Dembski in their paper and claimed by Dembski here at Uncommon Descent to be Dawkins's algorithm of The Blind Watchmaker doesn't work with warmer-colder signals, while the algorithm in the description of Dawkins's book would.... The answer of the oracle in the D&M case is the position of the correct letters, which can be represented by L bits. The fitness of a string OTOH can be represented by the Hamming distance (Dembski and Marks, p. 1056), a number between 0 and L, i.e., ~ log(L) bits...DiEb
September 10, 2009
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PS: I of course refuse to go off on his latest red herring headed off to as strawman soaked in ad hominems. Dieb knows that there are many possible distance to target metrics usable in Weasel type programs as a component of the closest-to-date filter.kairosfocus
September 10, 2009
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Onlookers: I have been busy surrounding an election cycle here. I note that Dieb just above somehow manages to ask about oracles while missing the elephant in the middle of the room: there is plainly no one Marks-Dembski algorithm for Weasel type programmes, but several approaches. A common factor for most of these is that oracles broadcast warmer-colder signals to successive generations of guesses, until they hit the target. that is, warmer-colder signals are a feature of targetted searches. And, of course, the didactic example given to illustrate the effect of latching in a ratcheting search (a physical ratchet "dogs" progress to date using a spring-loaded pawl mechanism that served as a check that prevents reversal: one way progress . . . ), is not any THE M-D algorithm, and to set it up as though it is THE opposite to a THE Dawkins algorithm (that here is any one THE Dawkins algorithm is an open quesiton, strictly speaking - the focus for the prize offer) is a strawman fallacy. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
September 10, 2009
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--kf another thought: on the Evolutionary Informatics Labs website, the evaluation of the fitness function is compared with questioning an oracle: you give a string to the oracle, and it gives you an answer for its fitness. Most implementations I've seen use as the fitness of a string in a weasel algorithm the number of correct letters, i.e., a number between 0 and 28. That is, taking the string SCITAMROFN*IYRANOITULOVE*SAM to the oracle, it would answer 2. Now, look at the description of the algorithm in the paper of Dembski and Marks. Could you give me the answer of the oracle for their fitness function for the string above? Is it 2, too? Another number? Something else?DiEb
September 9, 2009
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