Intelligent Evolution?

[ImaginalDisc]

ID, can you not see that what I've been trying to focus on, and I think cyborg too, is NOT the processes of design and evolution, but the incremental changes that both concepts exhibit in creating increasingly complex products?

The incremental changes exhibited in living things are substantially slower than the changes in machines. The changes in living things take thousands of generations. Machines have no generations at all. A machine's design can be altered and retrofitted directly. Only the subsequent generation of a living thing is different from the parent(s.) The designer of a machine can make whatever change they want, at any time, to any degree. The amount, rate, and type of change in evolution are much more restricted. Because of these restrictions, living things evolve into cul de sacs, and down lonely roads from which there is no return, until they go extinct and all the information within them is lost forever.

Designers can share information freely. Advances made in metallurgy can be applied swiftly to all machines everywhere, provided the resources exist to do so. Such shared innovation is absent in nearly all living things (plasmid exchange exists in bacteria alone.) Other than bacteria, all living things inherent only through innovations made to their parents. Machines, however, are influenced by the innovations in all sciences. Insights made by the designers of cars can be applies to airplanes, but evolutionary changes in horses cannot be applied to dogs. The process of change in evolution is made in discrete gene pools. There's no such segregation in machines. That's instantly obvious when you examine our technological progress. That's yet one more way in which design and evolution are so astoundingly different.

 

[jimbob]

As I have said before in t'other (mercifully "resting" thread).

When speaking imprecisely, I might talk about "the evolution of the fighter aircraft" or any other technological artefact. As ImaginalDisc has been saying thate is a fundamental difference between evolution and other ways of development.

I would say that Cybporg's definiton is so broad that any developmental iteritive process could be described as evolution.

Plumjam, for one could argue that there is thus no difference between evolution and ID.

He is not the only one: Creationsafaris
Hidden for preservation of sanity.

Can Humans Use Evolution? 09/10/2007
Evolution is being used. A press release from University of Wisconsin-Madison was titled, “Using evolution, UW team creates a template for many new therapeutic agents.” How does one use evolution? It continued, “By guiding an enzyme down a new evolutionary pathway, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers has created a new form of an enzyme capable of producing a range of potential new therapeutic agents with anticancer and antibiotic properties.”
We must keep up the heat on evolutionists till they become too embarrassed to say such things. You cannot “use” evolution. The moment you use it, you are doing intelligent design. Evolution has no purpose, no aim, no guidance no goal, and no reward – not even survival. Extinction happens and is just as dispassionate as survival in Darwin’s universe. If you think survival is somehow good, that’s your soul speaking.
The moment a human does the selecting, guiding or rewarding, evolution stops and intelligent design begins. Evolution, as used by Darwin, is not just change.

There are many differences between the development of the fighter aircraft, and the evolution of the fighter aircraft.

For example, Operational analysis showed that the spitfire required improved low-level performance, so the famous clipped wing was introduced.

This was not evolution, as the change was deliberate, with a known goal. It was in some respects learning from mistakes; evolution can only learn from (relative) successes.

Engineering is interesting, as now there are evolutionary algorithms (cool link pdf)

The same common wisdom says, however, that it costs only little effort (in comparison with those sophisticated methods: much less effort) to develop an evolutionary algorithm delivering an acceptable solution in acceptable running time. This is an often mentioned trade-off and it is widely believed that evolutionary algorithm solutions are very often very good, making them a serious alternative to other approaches. Citing an unknown evolutionary algorithm researcher: “An evolutionary algorithm is the second best algorithm for any problem”.

I read that as "at least the second best algorithm" for any problem.

However this approach is different from classical engineering, as it is mindless.

In fact that is the point about evolution. There need be no directing will. It follows from imperfect self-replication.

Talking about the strength of iterative approaches just muddies the waters, as these are powerful techniques, but have a guiding intelligence. Indeed even evolutionary algorithms and selective breeding have intelligently defined fitness criteria, which is not needed for evolution.

That is the problem with using these analogies, when talking to a vaguely competent IDer...
"intelligently defined"


Jim

 

[cyborg]

Just because I object to your unscientific comparsion, that does not make me irrational.

Yes ID, the comparison is unscientific.

PAY ATTENTION: we are talking about ABSTRACTIONS for the last and final time. If you cannot grasp this then it's an absolute waste of time talking to you.

You are irrationally rejecting the abstraction based on the ****ing words. Consider the ALGORITHM.

Don't be facetious. Clearly, the first person to make a flint knife was a human. What's the point of that strawman?

ID, would you PLEASE read what I actually say? I did NOT say the first person to make a flint knife was NOT a human. I asked: WHO GUIDED IT? Or, better still, how did intelligence guide it?

For the last time, intelligence evolved through selective forces, what we do with our intelligence is not just at the whim of natural selection.

Bifurcation fallacy.

Our machines are not the products of natural selection, they are the product of deliberate deign by intelligent actors.

Your ignorance of the history of invention does not help you at all since there are many, MANY examples of things NOBODY set out to design and yet did anyway.

Why do you refuse to think about HOW an intelligence actually goes about design? Simply asserting: "Intelligent design is different to stupid design," doesn't explain a single goddamn thing.

Design, a completely different creation mechanism than evolution.

UGH.

Trial and error is not an evolutionary process in the context of the deliberate creation of machines.

UGH.

What I am not aware of is why you persist on prattling on about non-existent comparisons to evolution.

ONE MORE TIME:

IS A COMPUTER SIMULATION OF EVOLUTION EVOLUTION?

 

[cyborg]

Indeed even evolutionary algorithms and selective breeding have intelligently defined fitness criteria, which is not needed for evolution.

UGH.

Stop pretending intelligence is a magical thing! It is NOT.

EITHER selection function X applies OR IT DOES NOT.

It makes NO difference whether or not X was pulled out of a hat or written down by a God. X does what X does.

PERIOD.

 

[jimbob]

Your ignorance of the history of invention does not help you at all since there are many, MANY examples of things NOBODY set out to design and yet did anyway.

I don't think ImaginalDisc is arguing that there are systems which if designed from scratch would have been vastly different to ones that developed incrementally, due to historical inertia.

The classic example would be the PC. "Ah the joys of backwards compatibility".

However, each change was deliberate (if not always thought out fully).

I think a better statement is that nobody designed them in their entirety.

Somebody designed every part. Lots of somebodies.

When a chimp first solves a problem by devloping a tool, are they designing it? I would say yes.

 

[mijopaalmc]

You know, I find it interesting that, when someone tries to draw a parallel between evolutionary biology and statistical physics in hopes of explaining how evolution can function as a probabilistic/random/stochastic process, the very same people who are trying to make a strong analogy here between biological evolution and technological development insist the analogy is bad because it "gas particles don't reproduce". However, the same argument about machines not reproducing themselves here is dismissed for apparently no reason.

I realize that the bulk of the above comment is best left to another thread, but I just wanted to point out that there is a deep inconsistency in the argumentation of those who support the technological development/biological evolution analogy that needs to be addressed.

 

[jimbob]

Back to the OP,

Southwind, I would say your analogy is good when talking to an avowed creationist, but bad if talking to an IDer.


The difference being that the creationist is arguing for a perfect creation, whilst ID is arguing for an incremental and guided evolution.

 

[cyborg]

However, each change was deliberate

If it is not deliberate when DNA can't replicate properly because of a chemical malfunction arising from perfectly consistent physical laws then it's not deliberate when a neuron firing causes someone to try some design and not another.

Always keep in mind that when you say things like, "this is by purpose of man," and "this is not by purpose of man," that man is still natural. It is, and can only be, a helpful way of understanding the world.

All abstractions lie.

 

[cafink]

Well, I think Southwind's analogy is a pretty good one.

No, machines don't reproduce like living things do. So what? Southwind (whom I hope doesn't mind my paraphrasing) didn't say, "Modern machines are a good analogy for evolution because the two are exactly alike in every way." He said, "Modern machines are a good analogy for evolution because the two have some very specific characteristics in common." Of course they differ in other ways, outside of these specific characteristics. But those differences aren't relevant to the particular point Southwind was attempting to make.

 

[articulett]

ID-- all outside influences are environmental inputs that can effect the design... Yes, it's the change in life forms are from DNA changes-- but the environment determines which of those changes are best suited for the environment... the same with technological design. Yes input can come from anywhere... and can be added in much more versatile ways than plasmid insertion or recombination-- but it's still the environment honing the design through time via building "design vectors" and "choosing" the best.


http://blog.case.edu/singham/2007/06/19/evolution1_the_power_of_natural_selection

In response to the "evolution is just chance and is very unlikely to produce complexity" argument, those who understand the theory of evolution sometimes argue in its defense that the theory is just as good at producing complex things as any conscious designer. But such people are really selling the theory short. In actual fact, the theory of evolution by natural selection produces results that are often much better than those produced by conscious design.

A wonderful example that illustrates this point is given by biologist Steve Jones, as recounted in his book Almost Like a Whale: The Origin of Species Updated (1999) (Chapter IV, Natural Selection). (Thanks to Heidi Cool for alerting me to the podcast of a talk by Jones which is where I first heard this story.)

I once worked for a year or so, for what seemed good reasons at the time, as a fitter's mate in a soap factory on the Wirral Peninsula, Liverpool's Left Bank. It was a formative episode, and was also, by chance, my first exposure to the theory of evolution.

To make soap powder, a liquid is blown through a nozzle. As it streams out, the pressure drops and a cloud of particles forms. These fall into a tank and after some clandestine coloration and perfumery are packaged and sold. In my day, thirty years ago, the spray came through a simple pipe that narrowed from one end to the other. It did its job quite well, but had problems with changes in the size of the grains, liquid spilling through or − worst of all − blockages in the tube.

Those problems have been solved. The success is in the nozzle. What used to be a simple pipe has become an intricate duct, longer than before, with many constrictions and chambers. The liquid follows a complex path before it sprays from the hole. Each type of powder has its own nozzle design, which does the job with great efficiency.

What caused such progress? Soap companies hire plenty of scientists, who have long studied what happens when a liquid sprays out to become a powder. The problem is too hard to allow even the finest engineers to do what enjoy the most, to explore the question with mathematics and design the best solution. Because that failed, they tried another approach. It was the key to evolution, design without a designer: the preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of those injurious. It was, in other words, natural selection.

The engineers used the idea that moulds life itself: descent with modification. Take a nozzle that works quite well and make copies, each changed at random. Test them for how well they make powder. Then, impose a struggle for existence by insisting that not all can survive. Many of the altered devices are no better (or worse) than the parental form. They are discarded, but the few able to do a superior job are allowed to reproduce and are copied − but again not perfectly. As generations pass there emerges, as if by magic, a new and efficient pipe of complex and unexpected shape.

Natural selection is a machine that makes almost impossible things.

In other words, by mindlessly applying an algorithm based on the principle of natural selection, they were able to come up with a complex design for a superior spray nozzle that was inconceivable to the scientists trying to design one using engineering and science principles.

Creationists won't get it because they believe their salvation depends on believing in an intelligent designer...but most people actually do get it... especially younger people. Technology is a good way to explain bottom up design and the basics of evolution. Moreover, I think it's going to play an important role in problem solving in the future.

http://www.futurenet.org/article.asp?ID=448
http://multispective.wordpress.com/2007/04/05/janine-benyus-on-ted-talks-video-link/

I think technology gives a concrete way of allowing people to understand what is happening over time periods they cannot imagine and how and why it looks "designed" from the top down and too complex to come about based on exponential growth of the best reproducers (the info. that builds the best vector for the environment it's in.)

It's not exactly the same-- but it's pretty easy to understand... A city is complex and it evolves from the bottom up... so does the internet... think of the ways they are similar to a species evolving complexity... Think of the way artificial Selection (everything that goes into the dogs we see today) is similar to natural selection... Think of the above quote.

The info. that gets copied the most (for whatever reasons, tricks, usefulness, niche-filling, etc.) multiplies exponentially and has a chance to mutate, be refined, honed, and recombined in future generations. The stuff that never gets a toehold... doesn't exist in our world. We only see the success of an infinite number of experiences--and, admittedly, many of those seem to need much improvement--

This concept does seem to confuse hard core creationists, but they cannot learn. They won't see the similarities. Their salvation depends on them NOT biting from the tree of knowledge. I've noticed that physicists really have a hard time with it too--they are used to the concrete and not the abstractness of information (which is what a genome is)-- but, truly, most people can understand how the evolution of complex systems including technology and the nozzle example is similar to natural selection and nature's pruning through time.

The mistake people make is thinking that a single organism evolves-- as though it can think ahead... but instead some mutation will be lucky and preferentially survive and multiply. That IS what happens with technology... it's not always the best--sometimes it's the cheapest or most accessible... or the one closest connected to a trusted product or name-- Complexity almost always is based on what came just before and rarely thought out far in advance.

 

[articulett]

I teach Evolution... Jones teaches evolution... and Dawkins teaches evolution. Cyborg and Southwind are correct. Their ways of explaining the evolution of technology is useful helping people understand evolution... even youngsters who have only gotten the "intelligent design" story. They are explaining it in a way that can help people understand the basics of natural selection--the information which "works" or has a "good trick" sticks around to be built upon, added too, and modified by it's environment.

Even if it doesn't make sense to physicists... even if Intelligent Design proponents will go out of their way to call the situations different. The general algorithm is the same and it's useful for people see the similarities between the evolution of air travel (from the first plane) the evolution of dogs from wolves, and the rise of life on this planet...

Natural selection builds beautiful things that look amazingly "designed" to a brain honed to notice "design" and "patterns". Natural selection is a lot like human selection but it just takes a lot longer and there is not consciousness (though no single human is entirely conscious of everything involving technology either... as in the internet--nobody is in charge overall or even grasps the whole completely...all who use it participate in it's growth and refinement...whether they choose to or not.)

Here is another person who said it better than I.

http://keeperofthesnails.blogspot.com/2006/10/talk-by-professor-steve-jones-on.html

Just because it doesn't work in your head Jim Bob or ID, don't think it doesn't work for many. To me, the similarities are much stronger than the differences, and that appears to be the case for the majority of people I have a chance to discuss the subject with. Technology is a useful analogy.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Yes ID, the comparison is unscientific.

PAY ATTENTION: we are talking about ABSTRACTIONS for the last and final time. If you cannot grasp this then it's an absolute waste of time talking to you.

You are irrationally rejecting the abstraction based on the ****ing words. Consider the ALGORITHM.

The algorithm of the evolution of living things involves selective pressures on the randomly sorted and randomly mutated traits a thing has inherited from its parents. That's not even remotely like the algorithm of design.

Please stop.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Just because it doesn't work in your head Jim Bob or ID, don't think it doesn't work for many. To me, the similarities are much stronger than the differences, and that appears to be the case for the majority of people I have a chance to discuss the subject with. Technology is a useful analogy.

Please list the similarities you see.

 

[jimbob]

How can talking about a system that has intelligent designers be used as an argument against intelligent design?

If the process was "perfect creation" (Adam and Eve and The Fall) in all its mysogonistic "glory", then it would be a useful analogy.

As we are talking against people who keep moving the goalposts as to where "evolution happens", it is not.

 

[jimbob]

Articulett, do you agree that evolution "learns" from relative successses, but can't learn from failures?

 

[mijopaalmc]

If technological development is such a good analogy to biological evolution, why isn't statistical physics?

 

[articulett]

Please list the similarities you see.

I thought I have-- repeatedly. The information that gets a toehold (because it works or because it's environment doesn't kill it off) sticks around to be added to, honed, and recombined. Both involve incremental addition and exponential spread of information.

Do you understand how artificial selection is similar to natural selection (some life forms preferentially survive because of the environment...thus they multiply exponentially...and the information that "makes them" sticks around for possible modification in the future) So there is a preferential increment of certain types of information in given environments. When we eat foods we ensure farmers can make profits off those foods and so they help those life forms preferentially survive... even if they or we are not aware of the fact that we are honing or "evolving" the food genomes of the future.

All airplanes today are built upon the first airplane-- the two wing model...the same basic layout. Consider the design of the first airplane similar to a successful genome (a super friendly wolf and nutritious pest resistant crop). Humans do what they can to make sure there are more because this helps our genomes survive... this happens all the time in nature... without any awareness to the entities involved... leaf cutter ants grow fungus. They are "naturally selecting" for a certain type of fungus' genome to exist and be built on in the future thus ensuring the success of their own genomes. Humans are programmed to ensure that their genes and memes live on two and encourage the preferential survival of other genes and memes (ideas) in the process).

Once information exists in a vector... be it a nozzle, a fungus, or an airplane, it can interact with it's environment...the information within it (it's design) can then be modified, added too, or honed through time with an incremental change towards greater efficiency, use, spreading power, etc.

Religions evolve-- how? The information that has a trick for getting passed on. It tells the vectors, good things will happen if you spread this and bad things will happen if you don't. This allows the information to grow and be refined according to what spreads it best. (Go forth and multiply--god won't give you more than you can handle...) Humans spread this because they are programmed to do things which will make their future better and to trust authority figures--these traits evolved because generally, this is a good trait for making more humans live and spawn more of these traits.

I don't think you will have a problem with the notion that scientific information evolves. What does that mean?--To me ,it means that the stuff that works and is useful and helps us learn more sticks around and is built upon and refined through time, right? Isn't that true of airplane designs? livestock genomes? The best, most useful information spreads widely via other humans in science, technology, math, medicine...etc. so that it can be used, refined, and honed by other humans.

Would you say the internet evolves? Isn't it an example of complexity evolving through bottom up design? Although I may type and people may go on it for their own purposes that they may or may not be aware of, the result is that a complex system evolves without anyone in charge or anyone knowing what will be different 5 years from now-- but certainly it will be more complex. Think of trying to explain youtube, 20 years ago. The internet, like any given genome is an information system growing in complexity through time that seems to fit amazingly well with it's environment almost as if it was created by some intelligent designer so humans could converse with each other!

Evolution is about amassing, replicating, and honing information--and whether that information makes products, technology, computer programs, life forms, religions, or books--
it must grow and be honed through time or it will become obsolete, die out, or be replaced by better information vectors to fill the niche. Selection is about the environment modifying what information sticks around to be built upon, pruned away, mutated, or recombined.

If amazing things could come to be without starting small... without building on what came before-- that would or could be proof of some sort of god or power that we cannot understand. But everything we do observe can be explained by what came just before--it evolved. Good ideas or "tricky" ideas get copied just as good as "good" genomes or genomes with good tricks.

In the nozzle example, did you understand that it was a mindless algorithm that came up with the best nozzle design? That doesn't mean there couldn't be something better-- but the design could only evolve from the designs that were tested in the environment. You can understand how all environments can act similarly in selecting for or against particular designs, right? This is true whether it's an environment of humans picking the best way to get from here to there or an environment of organisms trying to survive and multiply on some speck of planet earth.

I really like it when people intuit this understanding, but I also know that it some cases it's just not possible. I don't know why. And I haven't been able to remedy it in particularly recalcitrant cases. I think that if you can't get the gist of it from my explanations above and cyborg's explanations, and Steven Jones's etc. explanations-- that it just might not be something that you CAN understand. But make no mistake about it, generally speaking, the analogy regarding evolution of technology and the evolution of life HAS helped very many younger people understand natural selection and how evolution can seem "designed" and yet, most decidedly not be.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

I thought I have-- repeatedly. The information that gets a toehold (because it works or because it's environment doesn't kill it off) sticks around to be added to, honed, and recombined. Both involve incremental addition and exponential spread of information.

The information does not spread across species lines, or even populations separated by geography. A new development in drag reduction in cars can be applied to airplanes, but a new development in the mylenation of nerves cannot be passed from one species to another. The information isn't shared at all, it's passed down. There's no inheritance in machine design, because machines do not produce. This is a very poor similarity.

Do you understand how artificial selection is similar to natural selection (some life forms preferentially survive because of the environment...thus they multiply exponentially...and the information that "makes them" sticks around for possible modification in the future) So there is a preferential increment of certain types of information in given environments. When we eat foods we ensure farmers can make profits off those foods and so they help those life forms preferentially survive... even if they or we are not aware of the fact that we are honing or "evolving" the food genomes of the future.

I'm sorry, I asked for similarities between the design of machines and evolution. Artificial selection is an entirely different topic.

All airplanes today are built upon the first airplane-- the two wing model...the same basic layout. Consider the design of the first airplane similar to a successful genome (a super friendly wolf and nutritious pest resistant crop). Humans do what they can to make sure there are more because this helps our genomes survive... this happens all the time in nature... without any awareness to the entities involved... leaf cutter ants grow fungus. They are "naturally selecting" for a certain type of fungus' genome to exist and be built on in the future thus ensuring the success of their own genomes. Humans are programmed to ensure that their genes and memes live on two and encourage the preferential survival of other genes and memes (ideas) in the process).

Memes are an interesting theory, but there's no data to validate their existence.

Once information exists in a vector... be it a nozzle, a fungus, or an airplane, it can interact with it's environment...the information within it (it's design) can then be modified, added too, or honed through time with an incremental change towards greater efficiency, use, spreading power, etc.

The means by which those ideas are modified are entirely different, as are the means by which they arose in the first place.

Religions evolve-- how?

You teach Evolution. Clearly, you should know better than to use Evolution, in its common usage, in a discussion about the Theory of Evolution. The next three entire paragraph is based on an equivocation.

The information that has a trick for getting passed on. It tells the vectors, good things will happen if you spread this and bad things will happen if you don't. This allows the information to grow and be refined according to what spreads it best. (Go forth and multiply--god won't give you more than you can handle...) Humans spread this because they are programmed to do things which will make their future better and to trust authority figures--these traits evolved because generally, this is a good trait for making more humans live and spawn more of these traits.

I don't think you will have a problem with the notion that scientific information evolves. What does that mean?--To me ,it means that the stuff that works and is useful and helps us learn more sticks around and is built upon and refined through time, right? Isn't that true of airplane designs? livestock genomes? The best, most useful information spreads widely via other humans in science, technology, math, medicine...etc. so that it can be used, refined, and honed by other humans.

Would you say the internet evolves? Isn't it an example of complexity evolving through bottom up design? Although I may type and people may go on it for their own purposes that they may or may not be aware of, the result is that a complex system evolves without anyone in charge or anyone knowing what will be different 5 years from now-- but certainly it will be more complex. Think of trying to explain youtube, 20 years ago. The internet, like any given genome is an information system growing in complexity through time that seems to fit amazingly well with it's environment almost as if it was created by some intelligent designer so humans could converse with each other! [/QUOTE]

Evolution is about amassing, replicating, and honing information--and whether that information makes products, technology, computer programs, life forms, religions, or books--
it must grow and be honed through time or it will become obsolete, die out, or be replaced by better information vectors to fill the niche. Selection is about the environment modifying what information sticks around to be built upon, pruned away, mutated, or recombined.

If amazing things could come to be without starting small... without building on what came before-- that would or could be proof of some sort of god or power that we cannot understand. But everything we do observe can be explained by what came just before--it evolved. Good ideas or "tricky" ideas get copied just as good as "good" genomes or genomes with good tricks.

That not an accurate summary of the Theory of Evolution, that's an application of the word "evolution," with a different meaning.

You're insisting on using evolution to mean "change over time," which is not what it means in the context of the origin of living things. Yes, religions and technology "change over time," but that doesn't mean the means by which they arose and are changed resembles the Theory of Evolution.

 

[articulett]

Articulett, do you agree that evolution "learns" from relative successses, but can't learn from failures?

No.

That which works survives to be built upon. That which fails is eliminated.

The better something works-- the quicker the spread and chances for modification.

The worse, the quicker it disappears.

I understand how evolution of life is different than evolution of technology. I'm saying that most people find enough similarities to understand the analogy and intuit both natural selection and evolution. The people who have the hardest time understanding the analogy as far as a I can tell are a few physicists on this forum and some older creationists. Southwind's OP is more reflective of what I see in younger people beginning to "get" evolution. It grabs them. And it unlocks a lot of understanding across the board in how complexity arises as well as making an "intelligent designer" unnecessary as a filler for understanding.

I don't believe the analogy ever can work for Jim-bob and those who argued so adamantly against it on another thread. I do think Imaginal Disc can understand how the analogy can work. It DOES work for many people. And people who use such analogies are usually much better at explaining evolution to others than those who don't seem to understand the analogy. I think this is because those that don't understand the analogy don't understand evolution as well as they think they do. I think they think they understand it and can describe it to others, but I am skeptical about such assertions. In my estimation, if you do not understand the similarities in the technology examples, you are unlikely to be able to convey understanding of evolution to others because you don't quite "get it" yourself.

The OP is about whether it's a decent way to explain evolution. I can say, it has worked for me, and I teach it. Southwind appears to understand evolution better than those who don't see how the analogy can work, and I suspect any noted expert in the field would agree. The randomness is easy... it's how things are selected and stick around through time that is a little tougher to get-- but Southwind gets it and could probably convey his/her understanding to a peer better than the supposed experts who think it's a bad analogy. The similarities are more important to the differences--and selection by the environment based on what has worked best so far is key...

 

[ImaginalDisc]

No.

That which works survives to be built upon. That which fails is eliminated.

Not quite. In Evolution, only the organisms who get unlucky, or whose net traits are maladaptive fail to reproduce. In the case of machines, individual traits which lead to failure can be neatly excised or modified, while retaining the rest of the machine intact. In Evolution, an organisms which achieves a high fitness reproduces all of its traits indiscriminately. This is a major cause of the retention of otherwise maladaptive traits, they're not bad enough to cause the organisms which bear them to lose appreciable fitness.