Per my sig, the least competent are the most likely to overestimate their knowledge. I think a brief scan of this thread would have most people in agreement as to who such people are. The ones not in agreement, would be those people.
I'm not sure it's over-estimation of knowledge articulett, more incorrect preconceptions compounded by dogmatism and possibly plain old misunderstanding, but possibly a combination of all of these. I could be accused of the last, possibly with some justification, which I could humbly and justifiably, I believe, put down to my lack of background in this subject, but certainly not the others. That said, I do not believe that the 'more knowledgable' participants to whom you allude have yet either convincingly countered the analogy or the vast majority if not all of the points that I have subsequently raised in support.
You will see from my OP that I would not, at that time, have been at all surprised to have been immediately shot down in flames with my analogy. The fact that I wasn't, and that both you and Cyborg have argued the case far more clearly and logically than the opposition have, strongly indicates that the analogy has teeth, and probably sharp ones at that.
Having said all that, I don't think I would categorize jimbob as one of those to whom you allude. Whilst he clearly sits in the opposition camp I can at least follow most of what he writes, which seems generally logical, albeit it sometimes flawed. Actually, 'flawed' might be a disingenuous word. I think jimbob is generally only guilty of failing to see my point, but that could also be down to my less-than-perfect ability to argue and debate. I'll happily give jimbob the benefit of any doubt, for the time being, as I reckon he could come around to our way of thinking.
On that note I'll now respond to his last post:
I don't really agree, although it is a subtle point.
Why do you not agree? You sound doubtful of your position - perhaps you could be conviced through further discussion?
Most importantly:
How does one decide whether something has "survived", unless it is either "survived for a length of time, or 'incidents'" (arbitarily defined with intent) or if it has survived to produce as many copies of itself as it can.
The best example for this analogy might be fighter aircraft.
Do you decide to choose those which survive one dogfight, ten , one hundred? Does the machine itself choose? (those hawks which have bred, have bred)...
When you get to computers, what do you choose as the selection criteria?
This is an interesting question, but I suppose you could ask the same of natural evolution. I don't know how many iPods there are now on the planet, but I doubt that any reasonable person would argue that the iPod hasn't 'survived' or isn't a 'successful' design. I suppose the sales statistics form the measure of success in this instance. The Sinclair C5 (remember that one), in contrast, was a 'commercial disaster', to quote Wikipedia, and as a result soon became 'extinct'. Again, I suspect the measure of its failure was its inability to generate sales targets.
In either case, although the sales targets might well be construed as artificial selection, they're not really. Apple or James Sinclair could, at least in theory, simply have developed their respective products and put them on the market with no criteria for 'success'. Whether they became 'successful' or otherwise would, in any event, have become apparent sooner or later by whatever measures would have been deemed appropriate (running out of money to continue production, super-profits, competition?!), and the production would either continue (replication - survival of the fittest) or cease (extinction) (or, of course, evolve to something better!).
To what extent can the dolphin, for example, be considered a survivor? Would you not have considered the dodo a survivor, had you been asking the question, say, 1,000 years before its extinction? 'Survival' seems to me a somewhat arbitrary or relative term when applying it across multiple generations. The Spitfire was a highly successful fighter aircraft, but is now extinct. I would guess it could be concluded that it 'out-survived' its counterparts, but by what measure?
Design could be argued to be a short-circuit of evolutionary algorithms, but not of evolution.
OK, in the context of what's already been argued on this thread by me, cyborg and artuculett, in particular, please offer that argument.
Even there, going back to the TV with the CRT vs LCD example.
Imagine an evolutionary approach to creating a 14" TV display in the 1980's.
One random variation uses an LCD screen. It is far worse than a CRT display. There is no way that would get selected, unless an intelligence decided that it was worth pursuing because it had potential.
I think you might be inadvertently alluding to the widely rejected hypothesis of saltation with this example (incidentally, the piston engine/jet engine analogy counter argument also falls victim to it), or at best confusing two entirely different 'products' with separate evolutionary histories that just happen to perform essentially the same function. The bow and arrow and AK47 might be a good example to make the point, or the cheetah and wolf, if you prefer a biological comparison.
The basic evolution/design analogy need not go so far as the LCD screen to work; it can stop at the CRT and still hold true (a conventional CRT TV could equally have been used for my OP example, but I guess it demonstrates fewer incremental changes compared to the motor car). I think you're still looking for exceptions that 'buck' the analogy rather than examples that follow it, and falling victim to the preconception that the two cannot be likened in the process, as certain other posters have.
