We cannot live by scepticism alone

_{Mario Lopez

March 5, 2009

Science}

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Scientists have been too dogmatic about scientific truth and sociologists have fostered too much scepticism — social scientists must now elect to put science back at the core of society, says Harry Collins.

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3 --> And once we are already in an environment of bait and switch, we can then obnserve that plainly have motive, means and opportunity for further agenda-serving bait and switch tactics. Sorry, Mr Dawkins -- on observed track record in this context and in wider situations -- is NOT a credible spokesman or witness. He has impeached himself, long since. 4 -> Furthermore, a glance at the screen run in the 1987 weasel program, will show something ELSE "interesting." 5 --> Indeed, letters occasionally flick back and forth from a "correct state" [which BTW, Apollos has shown is ALSO consistent with explicit latching once there is a flick-back patch] 6 --> But, yet something else is quickly evident: the generations are piling up rather quickly, and just the time that the run is on screen strongly suggests that the runs to the target phrase here are now well beyond 100 generations. (And unless you knew that the 1986 published, sampled runs did the deed in 40+ and 60+ generations, you might not be alert to see that . . . ) 7 --> More importantly, a contrast with the sample-point behaviour in the 1986 runs shows something else: the flick-backs are just a bit too frequent and widespread to be consistent with the sample data of a few months to a year or so before. 8 --> That is, when several dozen sample points that should not be correlated with the algorithm's progress circa 1986 show NO observed flickbacks, and circa 1987 there is frequent flickback every few moments in multiple sites, something is cleasrly very different at work here. 9 --> In short, on easily observed evidence the 1987 algorithm shown on screen on a BBC horizon programme is not reasonably to be equated with the 1/2 hr or so BASIC run 1986 algorithms, or the 11-second Pascal runs claimed. 10 --> And, as of Apollos' code published above, we know that explicit latching is compatible with flickbacks, and that the game has decisively changed: only CREDIBLE code will tell decisively against letter-latching in the 1986 algorithm now. 11 --> So, after hundreds of comments here and one wonders how much rummaging back and forth elsewhere, it is STILL plain that Dawkins' Weasel is evidence not of the efficacy of the alleged BLIND watchmaker, but of something very different: foresighted, intelligent design that uses some carefully injected and controlled random elements in heuristics that do a job. ________________ BOTTOMLINE: we are looking at a case where the material point -- targetted, hot/cold search that rewards non-functional configs for th slightest possible increment in approach to target -- is long since settled from Mr Dawkins' own words. So, we know that there was a bait-switch on the key FSCI challenge right from the outset; i.e. Weasel, from 1986, is a grand, key question-begging strawman argument. (Notice how this is simply not being seriously faced by the evo mat advocates, quote miners and selective hyperskeptics above.) On observed letter-latching circa 1986, which is a reflection of that targetted rewarding of non-functional micro-increments in closeness search algorithm, the possibility of creating versions of Weasel that do not do that is being used as a red herring distractor from the material point on this case study and for the wider thread. Namely: evo mat is being propped up by a climate of selective hyperskepticism, which is destructive to our civlisation. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{March 15, 2009
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Onlookers: The selectively hyperskeptical games -- sadly -- continue, here reaching the case where the associated selective hyper-credulity on claims one is inclined to believe causes DK to miss a few key points. I note this,a s an ongoing autopsy on the progress of selective hyperskepticism as a dangerous contagious intellectual affliction that is ripping our culture apart and may well kill it, unless we can by God's grace and mercy, turn back the tide. (Enough has already been said on the GLF case, above. There seem to be no substantial new developments, sadly: prognosis is not good. At least, the exchange between Apollos and JT seems to be raising some important points. Of course, as I raised in 346 - 7 above, a program that latches English words as they turn up as a toy example for basic functionality will tend to latch a, I, he, it, me, go, no, etc, and if then there is the requirement to create grammatically correct and meaningful sentences from a vocab of functioning words so formed, there will be a major challenge.) One striking point of urgent correction, on JT: "DAWKINS in BW ch 3 as cited above KF and others have been implying that merely the search phrase “Me thinks it is a weasal implies directed search.”" For, he explicitly states (as already cited and linked at Wiki -- admission against interest here folks:
We again use our computer monkey, but with a crucial difference in its program. It again begins by choosing a random sequence of 28 letters, just as before ... 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.
Okay:
(i) nonsense phrases = non-functional configs are being used, (ii) examines = intelligent intervention, (iii) chooses = decision making in a targetted, foresighted context (iv) however slight = even a one-letter improvement is good enough [and leads logically to latching or quasi- latching] (v) difference between the time taken == Dawkins knows that imposing a realistic functionality criterion for then getting to "cumulative selection" based hill-climbing across competing entities, would make Weasel fail for want of search resources.
All that, in 1986. Dawkins plainly is the inadvertent co-founder of the design theory explanatory filter, which works off precsely this search challenge issue. So, now . . . re DK at 487:
. . . Very clearly, and more than once, a correct letter becomes incorrect. Therefore, Dawkins’s “Weasel” program does not keep letters once they are correct. QED.
H'mm: 1 --> 1987 [the dateline of the BBC Horizon programme] is of course several months to a year after the algorithms and runs in BW ch 3 and in New Scientist would have been done prior to publication of the book BW. And, from the outset, the striking letter latching in the published runs in BW ch 3 and New Scientist would have attracted attention, as -- albeit a secondary feature of the root problem with Weasel -- they highlight the underlying problem. 2 --> Namely, in response to Hoyle's challenge that chem evo [and by extension body plan level Darwinian macro evo] has a major challenge to generate complex functional information though its permissible non-foresighted mechanisms, Mr Dawkisn did a bait and switch:
a] begging the question being asked: that of origin of the functionality that is a premise of natural selection to engage in hill climbing by differential reproductive success across populations ["nonsense phrases . . . "] b] Rewarding slightest increment in mere closeness to target even amidst non-functionality c] Publishing runs that show latching behaviour, which is best accounted for by explicit latching [My T2] and/or implicit quasi-latching that leads to high probability of output latching, as is OBSERVED in the 1986 printoffs [cf T3 etc].
[ . . . ]kairosfocus_{March 15, 2009
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JT, JT, I'll confess that I haven't given Zachriel's site much attention yet. (I'll get to it eventually.) I'm still trying to digest the scope of arriving at one functional arrangement from another, in effect blindly, through functional intermediate steps. Just to note, certainly if the problem can be made smaller, such as finding words instead of entire phrases, it's easier to solve. In that case, we only need to find combinations of 26^2 to 26^12 or so in most cases (still not trivial). I suspect however that assembling phrases from entire words (using words as informational bits instead of characters) would still present a significant problem if we don't: a) dramatically limit the size and/or scope of our library; b) use a directed search, such as one that employs a heuristic. Even with a modest library of 500 words, a 10 word phrase gives us a search space of around 9.8*10^26. If we assume that there are one trillion ways to assemble the library into a grammatically appropriate phrase, we still need to search 4.9*10^14 times to find a single one (mean value). Moving from one 10 word phrase to another while retaining meaning at each step isn't a problem from a teleological standpoint, but from a blind search it's just as difficult of not more so. I'm still stuck on the blind search, so forgive me if I'm essentially just talking to myself here. ;-) Thinking again about using a character based approach on a simple phrase, a modest goal might be to start with this:
methinks it is like a weasel
and morph it into another 28 character phrase:
my dog pepper has three legs
Would it be possible to do this by substituting 2, 3, or 4 characters at a time, with each substitution resulting in a grammatically correct, meaningful English phrase? I honestly don't know the answer, but I suspect it's no easy task even programmatically. For a 28 character string and an alphabet of 27 characters (a-z and space) we get a search space of 27^28, which is around 1.2*10^40. If we assume that there are a trillion functional intermediate configurations (meaningful, grammatically correct English phrases) in the search space, we would need to search up to 1.2*10^28 combinations to find just one (using the mean, it would be around 6.0*10^27 trials). If our algorithm could perform 10^9 searches per second, we could expect to search for 1.9*10^11 (190,000,000,000) years to find our first one. I think it's apparent that a blind search is of very little value unless the scope is extremely small; but if we inject a little teleology into the process, hopelessly large search problems can readily be solved.Apollos_{March 15, 2009
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Apollos [494]: I’ve been thinking of the situation this way. How difficult is it to morph a meaningful phrase (something of adequate length, say 100 characters) to an entirely different meaningful phrase by 2, 3, or 4 character substitutions at a time. The way I was interpreting the zachriel site at first, is that all the individual words are formed first, before any sentences or phrases exist and then new sentences are formed by selecting at random from completely in tact words. However, although Zachriel only preserves valid english phrases of completely in tact words, it now appears that in his scheme each new word in the sentence is formed from some sort of letter-level mutational process. But consider the fact that the basic building blocks of life (e.g. cells?) are formed first, and only subsequent to that do multicellular creatures (ie. "phrases") appear. So it seems to me that we should think of mutations at the level of individual "letters" occurring primarily early in the process, so new words are being formed rapidly before any multi-word phrases actually exist. And then as random, in tact words start to accumulate in number, certain ones of them that form valid "phrases" start stringing together (forming multi-cellular life). And suppose you do have some individual letters forming in isolation on the end of some valid multi-word phrase. Well if there are already random in tact words floating around as well, chances are one of those complete words will establish on the end of a phrase before letter-level mutation on the end of that phrase has a chance to take hold. And adding entire new words to a phrase would seem to coincide with such macro-level processes as endosymbiosisJT_{March 14, 2009
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JT, #489 is interesting. I've been thinking of the situation this way. How difficult is it to morph a meaningful phrase (something of adequate length, say 100 characters) to an entirely different meaningful phrase by 2, 3, or 4 character substitutions at a time. If it were possible, and it may very well be, we should expect it to take approximately 350 trials for a two mutation change, 10,000 for a three mutation change, and around 250,000 trials for four. Performing a blind search for functional configurations (rational intermediate phrases) would of course be impossible, as even if we identified a billion of them, we're searching a space of around 1.37*10^143 in size. We should expect it to take about 6.8*10^133 trials to find just one of them. If we could identify a chain of functional intermediates, it would at least be possible to calculate the difficulty of moving from one to the next. It would take either some prodigious wordsmithing, or a fairly sophisticated grammar parser identify a chain of 4-character shifts from one phrase to the next for start and end targets of around 100 characters each.Apollos_{March 14, 2009
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KF @470, Exactly. The explicit latching algorithm can display output that's indistinguishable from one that throws away 499 strings per generation to circumvent it. Likewise, Weasel output shows latching behavior regardless, because it expends a great deal of resources assuring that each generation advances toward the target. Two algorithms perform the same task. One fixes characters in place from iteration to iteration as they match the target, the other fixes an entire string. One algorithm fakes negative mutations, the other fakes positive ones. Casual analysis of the output is highly unlikely to reveal which algorithm is in use.Apollos_{March 14, 2009
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(I guess I'll try a different compiler also.)JT_{March 14, 2009
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Apollos [488]: If you got 162 both ways, that's encouraging. When I used doubles and expressed the closeness as a fraction I think it messed up the random number generator some how (I'm guessing).JT_{March 14, 2009
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You may find this site interesting http://www.zachriel.com/Phrasenation http://www.zachriel.com/mutagenation ---------- I have not able to decipher his excel spreadsheet "programs" as of yet, but the concept as he lays it out is quite coherent, credible and compelling: You can definitely build up words by one or two random letters combinations at a time, and then only preserving legal words. There's nothing combinatorially intractable at all in this step. Stop and think about it for a moment if necessary to confirm that. But the process is heirarchial, and thus the subsequent two steps are not intractable either. As the next step, you take words formed as shown above, and randomly combine them to get all the compound words (only preserving valid compound words). So now, you have all the words. Next you can start randomly combining words to form sentences or phrases, only keeping phrases that are meaningful and legal. So you can defintely maintain viable intermediaries at every step of the way. (please note KF...) In his example he shows how to get any arbitary sentence from Hamlet this way. Hamlet is intended to represent "Any valid english sentence", so that is our goal ("as opposed to "Me thinks it is a weasel.") But this would seem to imply a directed search, and in a sense that is correct, and furthermore its the only way that evolution itself could actually work. How does evolution work without "any viable biological organsim" as a goal? And is that more or less teleological than ""Any valid english sentence"? It would be a very impressive program to be able to parse natural language. But as a stand in we could use some very large piece of text as an example of legal english. If we used War and Peace or some other 1000 page tome as an example of legal english, even that wouldn't be extensive enough. The entire Encyclopedia Brittanica would not be extensive enough., However there could in fact be an english language detector program that is much smaller than the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Thus we cannot neccesarily draw inferences concerning the inherent complexity of a task based on the length of our own solution. Now to take it to a biological realm, obviously there has to be a conception of what constitutes a viable biological form. And such a conception or specification must be implicitly at work, if evolution is preserving viable biological froms and rejecting inviable ones. But just how complex that specification is, is an open question. However, its hards to envision it not being quite complex and specific indeed. So the teleology implicit in that scenario should be quite evident for those thus inclined. What sort of expertise does it require for a human to detail and elaborate and identify what life is and what viable life is? Well nature is doing that - what does that say about nature? But nevertheless some people are simply unmoved by that. But teleology in a sense seems intrinsic to the process.JT_{March 14, 2009
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JT @[474], I tried your updated code and I find no difference between runs when I comment and uncomment the lines you specify. I get a target match at 162 generations either way. I suspect we're using different compilers. I need to make a small modification to make the code run. I'm using MS VC++ (native compiling) and it requires constant expressions in order to initialize static arrays, so I just fix the string length at 29 instead of allowing it to be initialized by the strlen() function (line 23 of your sample). I'll spend some additional time with it later and see if I can make sense of the mystery. ;-) Best...Apollos_{March 14, 2009
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Side note: I incorrectly claimed that my original GUI sent to Dr. Marks had links to source code and that his editor somehow removed the links; looking at the code this morning however I can see that I was wrong. (I must have been thinking of the Ev Ware GUI) AtomAtom_{March 14, 2009
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I found a video of Dawkins running the program, taken in 1987 here. If you watch the video, starting at about 5 minutes 30 seconds, Dawkins shows the screen with the morphing phrase as it reaches the target. If you watch the video . . . Very clearly, and more than once, a correct letter becomes incorrect. Therefore, Dawkins's "Weasel" program does not keep letters once they are correct. QED. Of course, maybe Dawkins anticipated this objection and fudged the run in 1987. Or maybe Dawkins, like Darwin in the racism thread, has access to a time machine.David Kellogg_{March 14, 2009
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But just to characterize what zachriel says he's doing - he starts with a single letter that is a word, "O" and forms longer and longer words by adding individual random characters and keeping what is a valid english word (as presumably nature would keep a valid biological entity). Actually, I'll allow two letter additions below, as that is just 26^2. o oh oath oats boots scooter scouter scouts scouting So you can get longer and longer words this way, and evidently he does the same with phrases. But all this is directly applicable to the weasel discussion.JT_{March 14, 2009
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I just felt like the following needs to be reiterated because KF and others have been implying that merely the search phrase "Me thinks it is a weasal implies directed search." But just consider that there must be some sort of specification of what constitutes a viable biological organism. Reality or nature itself must determine this, but if we were to code it and it took a lot of code, would it imply sentience as such on the part of nature? Actually, maybe it would - But it seems to show how an evolutionary type search will work quite well. So, nature does have a "weasel" type goal - it has to, as there is some sort of specfication of what works biologically and what doesn't and that must be what is searched for. I've understood this more clearly in the past, but you tend to forget the details, and even now, I'm not sure if the significance of the above is apparent to everyone. I haven't studied the zachriel.com phrasenation and mutagenation code yet, but if its what he's claiming them to be, everyone here should be looking at it. The weasel example is starting to look like quite a reasonable illustration of evolution, nature and reality.JT_{March 14, 2009
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KLF: You may find this site interesting http://www.zachriel.com/Phrasenation/ http://www.zachriel.com/mutagenation/ Thanks, I will study that carefully.JT_{March 14, 2009
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allanius
Dawkins hasn’t got a clue of how amino acids could become assembled in complex meaningful sequences by pure chance
Do you have "a clue" as to how "the designer" did it then? If not, then what are you complaining about? allanius
that his weasel analogy is not just a polemical allegory but the real thing!
In fact, you are correct. Nobody thinks the simplistic, fixed operation of Weasel is anything but a teaching aid designed to illustrate a point Dawkins was attempting to make. In and of itself it is not exactly sophisticated. R0B @ 435 said it better then I could
Nobody in science cares about the 20-year-old trivial illustration. It’s the ID and creationist camps that keep bringing it up, and as long as they do, we’ll keep trying to help them get their facts straight.
Is that clear? If you want a more state of the art example of a similar program to Weasel I can certanly point you in the right direction.
People know Dawkins and his fellow theoretical scientists are just telling stories for political ends, which is why they’re not willing to take them seriously anymore.
What "political ends" would they be? Can you clarify?George L Farquhar_{March 14, 2009
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Arthur
Also Dawkins is alive and contactable. Why not ask Professor Dawkins to clarify?
In fact this has already happened. http://tinyurl.com/c9nl6b Joseph
However the issue- partitioned search- could have been written differently in the Marks/ Dembski paper- a more correct position would have been to call it a targeted search.
My apologies for my crack regarding "big words" upthread. You appear to be making a good faith attempt to determine the truth of the matter and as such I can only applaud you for that. Nobody is disputing the search is targetted, It obviously is. The issue, in the specific case I am arguing is only if the letters are fixed once found and only one mechanism correctly represents how Dawkins wanted Weasel to work, others do not. JT, You may find this site interesting http://www.zachriel.com/Phrasenation/ http://www.zachriel.com/mutagenation/ I believe the source is available, you may find it useful in your own projects.George L Farquhar_{March 14, 2009
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Dawkins hasn’t got a clue of how amino acids could become assembled in complex meaningful sequences by pure chance, and neither does anyone else—but he does know how to tell a story! And in this story amino acids are a little bit like bits of computer information! And with a little bit of luck (and a little push from their creator) these little bits can climb the hill of Meaningful Information! Dawkins is such a good storyteller, and moreover such a nice-looking fellow, that he has been able to convince his ideological soul-mates in Big Science and the fourth estate that his weasel analogy is not just a polemical allegory but the real thing! To the extent that they actually engage it and talk about it as if it were real science! What a guy! But please note…that’s precisely the cause of the hyperskepticism lamented in the original post. People know Dawkins and his fellow theoretical scientists are just telling stories for political ends, which is why they’re not willing to take them seriously anymore. "Methinks Batman is a weasel." But then that makes The Joker seem a lot less strange.allanius_{March 14, 2009
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As long as moderation policy is being discussed why can't we edit or delete our own posts?JT_{March 14, 2009
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I am thinking of any conceivable grammatical meaningful English sentence. Now for each of those sentences allow arbitrary spellings of words. (Consider that up until the 1800's people more or less spelled word as they liked.) Now allow grammar mangling as well, as long as someone could make some sense of the sentence. And allow for strings of random letters in these sentences that people will just skip over completely if they can't make sense of them. Now to the above add any sentence with the above characteristics but also in any concievable human language. So this is our "target". Any such sentence fitting the above description is acceptable, and demonstrates at least marginal functionality, and we can converge toward any of them. And you also have to imagine massive parallelism in the search engine, as this would characterize nature. Someone (perhaps KF) is jumping in to say that it implies our search engine has intelligence. Well, fine. But consider, does nature distinguish between a healthy liver and a diseased liver (for example)? Is it displaying intelligence to do so? I may go ahead and attempt to complete a working facsimile of the above (sans the massive parallelism.) Presumably someone's done this though.JT_{March 14, 2009
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I am thinking of any conceivable grammatical meaningful English sentence. Now for each of those sentences allow arbitrary spellings of words. (Consider that up until the 1800’s people more or less spelled word as they liked.) Now allow grammar mangling as well, as long as someone could make some sense of the sentence. And allow for strings of random letters in these sentences that people will just skip over completely if they can’t make sense of them. Now to the above add any sentence with the above characteristics but also in any concievable human language. So this is our “target". Any such sentence fitting the above description is acceptable, and demonstrates at least marginal functionality, and we can converge toward any of them. And you also have to imagine massive parallelism in the search engine, as this would characterize nature. Someone (perhaps KF) is jumping in to say that it implies our search engine has intelligence. Well, fine. But consider, does nature distinguish between a healthy liver and a diseased liver (for example)? Is it displaying intelligence to do so? I may go ahead and attempt to complete a working facsimile of the above (sans the massive parallelism.) Presumably someone’s done this though.JT_{March 14, 2009
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KF But, that does not shift the material conclusion and confession from 1986: Mr Dawkins resorted to “cumulative” search as he knew in 1986 that a search that requires even relatively modest functionality at each step is infeasible on probabilistic resources grounds. Maybe you think the monkey example is more illustrative of nature. Incidentally, I would not describe "me thenkz it iz o beegel" as devoid of "functionality".JT_{March 14, 2009
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Apollos: Also I stand corrected that it would take additional code to lock those letters in place:JT_{March 14, 2009
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Apollos [464]: Thanks, I did go over your code. Incidentally, I ran into a very odd situation which is illustrated here: If you divide g_val_crnt by s_len prior to comparing it to g_val it drastically decreases search time. It makes absolutely no sense. It should not effect anything. (Note: g_val, g_val_crnt also changed from int to double, and srand is seeded to a constant value for testing; Also loop breaks when g_val==1 instead of g_val==s_len;)JT_{March 14, 2009
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"The Blind Watchmaker" is out (of the local library) so I ordered a copy from another library. So that research is on hold. However the issue- partitioned search- could have been written differently in the Marks/ Dembski paper- a more correct position would have been to call it a targeted search. That said I read about a GA that was similar (it may have even been "Methinks") in that mutations occurred to a string BUT also in each generation the parent was also copied unaltered. That means that the next generation could never be any farther away from the target than the previous generation. And that would be a form of latching. If I can find it- big IF- I will post it.Joseph_{March 14, 2009
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Onlookers take note!
If the issue is one of fact, shouldn't The Fable of the Horses Teeth be followed. I have my copy of "Watchmaker" dusted off. Also Dawkins is alive and contactable. Why not ask Professor Dawkins to clarify?Arthur Smith_{March 14, 2009
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Kariosfocus, I'll address each of your points in turn, in light of your original stagement
Weasel sets a target sentence then once a letter is guessed it preserves it for future iterations of trials until the full target is met.
And my original challenge
Provide a quote from Dawkins that shows that that is how he intended Weasel to work
1->
According to Dawkins, as long since cited in 346, point 1, from Ch 3 BW:
You can quote Dawkins, but you cannot provide a quote where he says that latching was his intent in his example. Conversely I have provided evidence that he explicitly did not want latching. If you can quote Dawkins in support of your argument (whatever it is about, it's not about what I'm asking) why can't you provide a quote that supports your case? 2->
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
And does it or does it not affix each letter once correct? That is the question. 3->
–> This directly and immediately implies that:
Yes, we're all well aware of your opinions on the matter. However, they are a side issue. The issue is clear. You claim that Dawkins' Weasel affixes letters once correct yet continue to duck the issue and talk about side issues. 4->
4 –> So, whether or not the program explicitly latches letters, it is already outside of the parameters of the alleged BLIND Watchmaker.
The blindness or otherside of the watchmaker is not the point. The point is if your first sentence is true or not. Either the program explicitly latches letters or it does not. It matters. If you claim it does, you are misrepresenting Dawkins' Weasel. It's clear Dawkins intent was that letters are not latched. So why cannot you just say that?
Weasel, by Dawkins’ statement, and in a context that he is ducking the implications of requiring that the search compare functional configs arrived at by chance,
Nobody is ducking any implications, apart from you. 5 –>
Furthermore, Weasel is by Dawkins’ direct statement already a designed, targetted, foresighted search, regardless of explicit latching or not.
Of course it's a designed search. It was designed by a human. Of course it's a targetted search, it has an explicit target. Of course it's a foresighted search, the program "knows" what the target is. The issue is is latching explicit or not. It matters. It's amusing how your position is evolving from "it latches, it may latch, it does not matter if it latches". You know you are wrong in your understanding of how Dawkins Weasel was intended by Dawkins to work. 6 –>
THUS, THE MATERIAL ISSUE IS SETTLED AT THE OUTSET, FROM DAWKINS’ WORDS: Weasel is irrelevant to Hoyle’s challenge, and that of the later ID thinkers.
Your attempts to change THE MATERIAL ISSUE to one of your choosing are noted, yet again. The material issue is not if Weasel is a good example or not, if it representes anything relevant to evolution or not. The material issue is that you claim explicity latching is taking place. Dawkins says it does not. You say it does. How is it you know better then Dawkins how his example was intended to work? 7->
functionally specific, complex information is known to be resistant to random walk based searches that require functionality to be present before hill-climbing warmer/colder algorithms can be applied.
What does this have to do with the issue at hand? Yet another red herring from you. 8 ->
So, BEFORE we deal with any specific questions, we already know that we are dealing with red herrings and strawmen, right there from BW ch 3 on in 1986.
To put it in perspective. Right now I don't care if Weasel is totaly wrong, useless or irrelevent. We could be talking about a car for all it matter. You claim the car has three wheels. I claim it has four. The way to settle it is to check the source material - have a look at the car. I've "had a look at the car" (Dawkins' original description of Weasel) and it has four wheels. You continue to claim that it has three, and furthermore that no three wheel car can drive. 9 ->
And, therefore, GLF’s “irrelevancies” are all too relevant indeed!
I have been quite clear in the scope of my disagreement with you. The issue is if you are capable of representing your opponents case in a accurate manner, and if proven to be in error admitting it. The only “irrelevancies” are the ones you continue to bring up, hill climbing, Hoyle, FSCI etc etc. 10 –>
BTW, a basic question: in a pre-biotic soup or other similar environment, just what [apart from a designer] would have naturally rewarded closeness to life-functionality?
At the risking of allowing your diversions to work as intended I would just say that you should look into "Scale-Free Networks and Autocatalysis" - simple chemical molecules on the early Earth catalyzed more complex molecules, which in turn served as further catalysts themselves. In time, loops of these catalyzing molecules served as the first replicators - they "auto catalyzed" all of their own components using material from the surrounding environment. 11->
Just so, assuming that we have simple unicellular life forms,
This has nothing to do with the issue at hand and I will not address it until you admit you are in error regarding Weasels intended design. 12 –>
In Dawkins’ toy example, do we not see a designer rewarding closeness to a target independent of actual functionality?
If the example is only a "toy example" why does it matter so much to you that latching takes place? If this "toy example" is so poor an example why do you care that latching must be taking place? 13->
Is not Weasel then, a demonstration of the power of intelligent design?
It's a demonstration alright, just not of the sort you are thinking. It's a demonstration of the lengths you are willing to go to to avoid representing your opponents arguments correctly and when called on it attempting to confuse the issue with side issues. 14 –>
And are we not in a position to conclude these things long before we come to the interesting but peripheral issue of whether or no Weasel circa 1986 used partitioned search with explicit letter latching? [Cf my actual quotemined remarks, in 404 and 407 above.]
If it is a peripheral issue, why can you not simply admit that Dawskins should know how Dawkins' Weasel was intended to work? We have been at the issue of if Weasel circa 1986 used latching since I first raise the issue. I believe that is clear to anybody who has followed this thread. The issue is not about the effect, or otherwise, latching has on the operation of Weasel. That may be of interest, but it's not the issue I'm raising. The issue is about YOU KF, and if you can admit error once pointed out and supported. 15->
his credibility on soundness, fair-mindedness or responsiveness to the truth and to correction where found in error is not very high.
You are a fine one to talk. Your responsiveness to the truth is ZERO. Your ability to correct when found to be in error is ZERO. Irony, thy name is Kariosfocus. 16->
Back on point: in effect, to code: simply partition the search letter-wise, and make a mask that if in state 1 permits further variation
Yes, we know how it works, thanks. 17->
A totally off “nonsense phrase” will be distance metric 28.
That's just great. What's the relevance to the issue of your misrepresentation of how Dawkins Weasel works?
18 –> Furthermore, observe again the CITED and LINKED cases published by Mr Dawkins in 1986: these evidence that Dawkins’ program has the effect of latching successful letters even without wider functionality, beyond reasonable doubt.
Ah-ha. In the midst of 10,000 irrelevant words do we finally have an admission of error? Lest we forget, here is your original claim which you have defended for days
once a letter is guessed it preserves it for future iterations of trial
And now we have
Dawkins’ program has the effect of latching successful letters
Yet we are not quite there. If you can simply say something along the lines of "correct letters can always revert to incorrect letters" then you are correctly representing how Dawkins intended to Weasel to work. 19 –>
The above is the obvious way to do that, and requires no great additional coding effort.
It's just a pity that it's taken this many words to get your position to change a slight amount towards the correct position. 20 - >
But, on he actual evidence from 1986, the best — simplest — explanation, plainly is latching, not pseudo-latching or quasi- latching.
Ah, so we revert again to your original position do we? So, let me summarise A) The printouts you use as your primary evidence appear to show latching behaviour. As discussed at length (but not by you) this is not surprising as they represent only a fraction of the population. As we do not know the state of the population that those few lines were taken from it is impossible to say that no reverts had taken place. B) Dawkins himself says that his example explicitly did not implement latching as it was both not needed and would have been at varience with the biological principles he was trying to communicate. C) Versions of Weasel that explictly do not have latching behavoir coded in appear to, in the majority of cases, show percieved latching behaviour. Yet even so, they still allow letters to revet to incorrect states. D) I provided a run of a correctly implemented Weasel that shows both reverting behaviour and a snapshot of the population as a whole in the generation where the revert happened. So the "effect" you see of latching is not latching at all, as letters can revert to incorrect letters. So, find a different name for it. 21->
If he knows better, he is setting up and knocking over a strawman here, to try to discredit me.
And your strawman of how Dawkins' Weasel operates? You are doing a fine job of discrediting yourself all on your own. 22->
Furthermore, by Dawkins’ testimony we have 40+ and 60+ generations in his published 1986 cases, in a context where he stated [ch 3 BW, evidently] that the initial BASIC implementation took 1/2 hour to run:
And this proves what exactly? Be explicit. 23->
23 –> an hour of processing time to run 100 or so generations indicates that a LOT of processing was going on in each generation.
An hour of processing time in 1986 is somewhat different to an hour in 2009. And in any case, what is your point? That Dawkins' Weasel in print is somehow different to Weasel in Basic? Would explicit latching behaviour cause this slow-down? How fast would you expect it to run in 1986 a) If explicit latching was in place? b) If no latching was taking place? Address the issue. 24->
both of which produce a significant number of right letters by Gen 10 and 20, and both of which NEVER have a selected, sampled letter that is correct revert.
On the surface you are correct. It is indeed the case that even with a correctly implemented Weasel you will see far more runs without reverts then runs with reverts. Yet I notice you have ignored my questions regarding how, given that only a few lines were printed in your example, you know for a fact that (for example) generation 14 had 9 correct letters and generation 15 had 8 when only generations 10, 20 etc were shown. Do you have some magic powers? Yet again, we find you addressing the correct issue but making claims you cannot substiantiate. In fact, the creationist (!) site you link to makes the same error as you, they say
Once a letter falls into place, Dawkin's program ensures it won't mutate away.
No, it does not ensure it. It does not fix the letters in place. If it does, it is not how Dawkins Weasel was intended to work. 25->
in which I showed how we can get explicitly guaranteed latching, and close to guaranteed implicit latching, in algors T2 and T3. [That is a failure of basic duties of care before making adverse comment.]
Once again you skirt the issue, coming close but never quite making it. The issue is quite simple. You claim that Dawkins Weasel, as described in BW in 1986 fixes the letters in place once found. All you have to do to claim your $100,000 is substiantiate that with a quote from Dawkins. That is the issue. 26->
26 –> But, never let us forget, onlookers: in EVERY case across dozens of sample points for coming on 2 dozen letters that get right fairly early, we NEVER see a single reversion,
The onlookers will no doubt have seen my run that showed reverting behaviour, the other correct implementations of Weasel where reveting behaviour is apparent and as such you have not made your case in any way at all. So it is simply not true that "In EVERY case" reversion is not shown. There are none so blind as will not see eh?
BOTTOMLINE: Dawkins’ Weasel diverts attention from and begs the question that the basic challenge to proposed mechanisms of chemical and biological evolution
The bottomline is that you continue to misrepresent your opponents arguments and even when corrected refuse to admit it. The only thing diverting attention from the issue at hand is your refusal to admit that your original statement was in error. As you have not been able to support your original statement it's obvious to all that you are in error.
Weasel is therefore foresighted — designed — search with a warmer/colder oracle.
Yes, it's designed. But the question is how it was designed? You claim it was designed to affix letters once found. I claim it was not. I can support my case. You cannot.
That is before “latching” — which is OBSERVED — is even an issue
Again, a attempt at misdirection. I have never claimed the issue is anything other then your claim that latching is taking place. There is no "before" issue, no after issue. Only the single issue of your original claim and it's accuracy.
similarly hyperskeptical strawman on how latching can occur “naturally,”
In the same comment you say that you also say "So, whether or not the program explicitly latches letters" Which is it?
Thus, the atmosphere for serious discussion towards truth has been thoroughly poisoned by selective hyperskepticism.
On that we are agreed. Except the "selective hyperskepticism" is yours.
[And, oh, yes, I forget: GLF, refuses to acknowledge the implications of Dawkins' direct statements
Dawkins directly stated that latching behaviour is not implemented in Weasel.
and the printoffs of his program circa 1986
Printouts that only show a small snapshot of the run. Printouts that cannot be used to prove your case Kariosfocus, as in the same comment you get close to saying that even without explicit latching behaviour apparent latching behaviour can still be seen.
, with his statement that US$ 100 k would be there for a charity if what Daw,kins directly implies could be shown from his mouth so to speak.
It's quite simple. You claim that Dawkins Weasel, circa 1986, explicitly latches letters. Dawkins says it did not. There is a different between "directly implies" and a stated fact. Your understanding of what was "implied" appears to be different from everybody else who has implemented Weasel correctly.
He demands that in effect I get a citation from Dawkins confessing in so many words.
It's not a confession that's requried! It's a simple "this is how Weasel was intended to work". When you get a new gadget and are reading the instructions, do you follow them or do you make up your own interpretation of the instructions?
Well, Dawkins has EXPLICITLY confessed to targetted search that does not require functionality, my primary point.
No, again, you attempt to weasel out of the issue at hand. Earlier in your comment you noted that Weasel was a toy example. As such does it matter? Your "primary point" is designed to allow you to avoid addressing my primary point. Which is that you claim Dawkins Weasel fixes letter once found. You now claim that Dawkins "implys" this. This despite the fact Dawkins has clearly stated that is not the case. Therefore you have misunderstood the "imply".
Also, in EVERY instance, once a letter is right, it never ever reverts.
You say this despite being shown runs from a correctly implemented Weasel where letters do revert. It's obvious that no amount of actual evidence will cause you to change position.
PPS: Upright, good points on FSC, but I doubt that you will get get a serious and sober response on the merits, any more than I have. Sadly
Discussion requires to partys acting in good faith to be productive. If you can admit you are in error then perhaps such a discussion can take place. Until you do so, it cannot. Onlookers take note!George L Farquhar_{March 14, 2009
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2 –> Got that, JT? repeat: 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.
Got it. No mention of latching.crater_{March 14, 2009
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PS: Apollos, it just struck me: you have implemented a "latching" version of Weasel that shows letter reversion!
The output is identical to Weasel in virtually every respect. A string of gibberish makes a steady walk toward the target while also demonstrating imperfect latching. Internally, like Weasel, it makes a direct comparison to the target on every generation. Here the latching is explicit instead of implicit, while still allowing for negative mutations.
While this is probably not relevant to 1986 -- can you imagine coding what you did in early- mid 1980's style line- number BASIC? -- it is a game changer. From now on out, even "imperfect latching" in output can be seen as being due to explicit latching in processing; the feasibility of that having been demonstrated! (Code dumps required, please from now on out, then . . . ) But, that does not shift the material conclusion and confession from 1986: Mr Dawkins resorted to "cumulative" search as he knew in 1986 that a search that requires even relatively modest functionality at each step is infeasible on probabilistic resources grounds. (And, by definition, natural selection is about differential functionality, whether preserving or slightly modifying or allegedly greatly transforming life forms through "descent with modification.") AND THAT IS THE KEY POINT ON FSCI AS A RELIABLE SIGN OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN. The debate on the merits of FSCI is over, thanks to Mr Dawkins' admission in 1986.kairosfocus_{March 14, 2009
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Apollos: Thanks. You are right: the real coding effort is to avoid doing he simplest strategies: deterministic search or latching search. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{March 14, 2009
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