pmd@cbnews.ATT.COM (Paul Dubuc) (12/13/88)
In article <4029b61d.ffb5@bumper.engin.umich.edu> (daniel m offutt) writes: }There is an argument that you can use against creationists which }has not been used before, to the best of my knowledge. } }There are maybe a couple of hundred people in the computer sciences and }engineering today who are using a certain simulation of biological }evolution as a computational function maximization method. }The simulation algorithm is called a "Genetic Algorithm". }There is now substantial evidence from thousands of experiments that }genetic algorithms can be highly-efficient optimizers of otherwise }very hard to optimize functions. One researcher saved his company }$140,000 (with an expected continuing savings amounting to $1,000,000 }per year) using this algorithm to evolve ever-better communication }network designs. This algorithm is generating increasing interest }among people with practical optimization problems to solve. } }A genetic algorithm simulates a population of linear chromosomes, }crossover, and fitness-based differential reproduction over a period }of hundreds or thousands of generations of simulated evolution. }The algorithm was originally intended as a model of evolution; }it is quite interesting that it just happens to also be a very }efficient function optimization method. } }So to come to the point: If creationists are right and evolution is }nonsense, then how can it be that when one implements a computer }simulation of evolution (of the right type) the simulation turns }out to be an algorithm that has tremendous practical value? I have no reply, but I've crossposted this to talk.origins on the assumption that your question is not merely rhetorical. (Follow-ups to talk.origins.) -- Paul Dubuc | "I can never be sure of writing a line that will cbdkc1!pmd | not some day be published by friend or foe." | John Quincy Adams |