Tom English challenged me with this:
I say categorically, as someone who has worked in evolutionary computation for 15 years, that Gil does not understand what he is talking about. This is not to say that he is trying to mislead anyone. It is simply clear that he has never grasped the nature of a simulation model. His comments reflect the sort of concrete thinking I have tried to help many students grow beyond, often without success.
The reason for Tom’s lack of success is that he, and Darwinists in general, try to explain everything with an overly — indeed catastrophically — simplistic model. Here’s what’s involved in a real-world computer simulation:
My mathematical, computational, and engineering specialty is guided-airdrop technology. The results of my computer simulations, and their integration into the mechanics of smart parachutes, are now being used to resupply U.S. forces in Afghanistan. C-130 and C-17 aircraft can now drop payloads from up to 25,000 feet MSL, out of range of enemy small-arms, shoulder-launched missile, and RPG fire, and the payloads autonomously guide themselves to their targets within a CEP (circular error probable) of approximately 26 meters. Did I do all of this highly sophisticated mathematical and software simulation without ever having “grasped the nature of a simulation model”?
One small part of developing this technology involves mathematically and computationally simulating the descent rate of a parachute and its payload at various altitudes. This includes the following: the drag coefficient of the parachute, the chute reference area, the density of the air at various altitudes (not only determined by altitude but lapse rate — the rate at which air temperature changes with altitude), and other subtle considerations, such as the flow-field effects of the payload which changes the drag characteristics of the parachute.
If any mathematical, computational, or real-world assumptions about any of these factors are wrong, or if any unforeseen factors are left out (and what I described above represents a small percentage of what’s involved), the simulation breaks down. We do our best, but we never know for sure until we throw the thing out of an airplane, see where it lands, and tediously analyze the telemetry data recorded by the in-flight computer.
Based on these observations and computer simulations that can be tested in the real world, what confidence can anyone have that biological evolutionary computer simulations have anything to do with reality?
The answer is: none. It’s all fantasy and speculation, masquerading as science.