… with Mung. In a recent comment Mung asserted that
If Darwinists had to put up their hard earned money they would soon go broke and Darwinism would be long dead. I have a standing $10,000 challenge here at TSZ that no one has ever taken me up on.
Now, I don’t have $10,000 to bet on anything, but it is worth exploring what bet Mung was making. Perhaps a bet of a lower amount could be negotiated, so it is worth trying to figure out what the issue was.
Mung’s original challenge will be found here. It was in a thread in which I had proposed a bet of $100 that a Weasel program would do much better than random sampling. When people there started talking about whether enough money could be found to take Mung up on the bet, they assumed that it was a simple raising of the stake for my bet. But Mung said here:
You want to wager over something that was never in dispute?
Why not offer a meaningful wager?
So apparently Mung was offering a bet on something else.
I think I have a little insight on what was the “meaningful wager”, or at least on what issue. It would lead us to a rather extraordinary bet. Let me explain below the fold …
Mung accepted that Weasel programs reach their goal far faster than random sampling. However Mung also said (here) that
Weasel programs perform better than blind search because they are guided. I didn’t think the performance was in dispute, nor why the performance was better.
and elsewhere characterized Weasels as succeeding because of “intelligence” as opposed to ignorance.
So let’s imagine what might happen if we took Mung up on the $10,000 bet. We would bet that the Weasel would succeed, because of cumulative selection. Mung would bet that (because of “intelligence” or being “guided”) the Weasel would succeed. The stake would be held by a house of some sort, which would not take a commission.
The Weasel would be run. It would succeed. So the house would declare that we had all won. The stake would be given to the bettors, in proportion to their bets. But alas, no one actually bet against the Weasel. So the winnings would be zero. Everyone, Mung and the rest of us, would get their stake back, and that’s all.
To bet against Mung, we have to come up with some event that distinguishes cumulative selection from “intelligence” (or being “guided”). That seems to be the issue on which Mung was offering a $10,000 bet, and declaring (here) us all to be “pretender[s]” because we would not put up or shut up.
So there it is. We’re all betting on the same side, and no one will win or lose a penny. Unless Mung can come up with some test that distinguished “intelligence” or being “guided” from cumulative selection.
Now I am possibly misunderstanding what the bet actually would be. I hope that Mung will straighten us out on that, so that we can understand what test is proposed, and place our bets.
Mung, to Rumraket:
What accumulates is fitness, Mung.
This stuff completely baffles you, doesn’t it?
Was this a title bestowed on you by Dazz- The Environment Chooser?
Hey! I wasn’t the one who took away your picture blocks.
you understand THAT was the joke, right? ugh
Wow. What a relief. I thought I was the only one with a negative IQ.
Sounds like something written by Douglas Axe.
Do you mean the fact that you think that constitutes a joke is a IQ test?
And your score would clearly be negative.
Do you know Jerry Lewis died today. You must be heartbroken.
LoL!
What accumulates is the number of letters matching the target phrase, and then the fitness is calculated based on the number of letters that match. And that value then gets assigned to the genotype.
Do you just not understand your own code?
Cumulative fitness. Why didn’t Dawkins think of that?
Rumraket, keiths used a population size of 200.
#define POPULATION_SIZE 200 // total population size
He allows for one single survivor:
#define NUM_SURVIVORS 1 // number of survivors per generation
Here’s his own comment as to how he CALCULATES the fitness:
// Calculate a genome’s fitness by determining the number of loci at which
// it matches the target.
int fitness(genome_t *genome) {…}
keiths,
So your claim is that you are demonstrating cumulative selection with a model that only slightly resembles biology. Cool 🙂
phoodoo,
Even in Weasel, one target doesn’t mean one path. You have no idea how the program works, do you?
Besides, the lack of specific targets in biology is an advantage, not a limitation. You’ve scored another point for evolution and against ID, phoodoo. Good job
Okay, Mr. Trump. Whatever you say.
Mung,
Sounds like a biological process to me 🙂
It does. You see, I have your source code. And I can see how the letters that match the target phrase accumulate. Heck, even Dawkins’ own book shows them accumulating. So yeah, I’m baffled as to why you would deny the blatantly obvious.
Must be a keiths thing.
And for those who think Biomorphs are natural selection in action:
Will that satisfy Alan Fox?
Is the Weasel model any less “strictly a model of artificial selection, not natural selection?”
Mung,
I realize that you aren’t the sharpest stick in the ID bundle, but surely even you can see that “what accumulates is fitness” does not conflict with “in Weasel, letters that match the target phrase accumulate.”
Can you explain why, or does that also baffle you?
Fortunately we have your source code. So when you say something silly, or something false, we can show you your own code. 🙂
You see phoodoo, there are all sorts of awesome targets out there in “target space” just waiting for evolution to stumble across them. And how did those targets get there? Well, if we let Weasel be our guide, they were obviously planted there, by an intelligent designer.
Perhaps keiths will gift us with a multi-target Weasel program.
Where do you store the fitness as they accumulate? A bag? As in a bag of fitness?
See, what baffles me, is how you can just ignore common English terms and their meanings. But perhaps “accumulate” has some special meaning in biology.
accumulate – gather together or acquire an increasing number or quantity of.
See, when I say that the number of letters that match the target phrase accumulates, no one has to wonder what I mean. Over time, the candidate solutions gather together or acquire an increasing number or quantity of letters that match the target phrase.
When you say that fitness ‘accumulates’, no one but you knows what the hell you’re talking about.
You mean we can both be right? Because, you know, your original replay to what I wrote made it sound like I was wrong, and baffled by something that should not have been a source of bafflement.
Apparently not so much as you’d like to make out.
Yes, Mung was right. The number of letters matching the target phrase do accumulate. Go ahead. Say it. 🙂
What accumulates are the changes in the genotypes in the population. And no, they don’t accumulate perfectly, owing to mutation and genetic drift (and other evolutionary forces). But because they are cumulative, they can get the genotype to places that are remarkably better than if they were not at all cumulative. As, for example, in single-step selection.
Which is, of course, what Dawkins was trying to get across.
What a bore you are, Mung. Read it again:
Mung, to Rumraket
keiths:
What I was pointing out, and which apparently went right over your head, was the fact that what accumulates in cumulative selection is fitness. And not just in Weasel, but generally.
Fitness doesn’t accumulate in single-step selection. It’s all or nothing. Single-step selection is not cumulative selection.
No Joe, that is wrong. You see, it is not the changes that accumulate, it is fitness that accumulates. Because keiths sez so.
Joe agrees with me. But we’re both wrong. 🙂
So? The number of letters that match the target phrase don’t accumulate in single-step selection either. This has to be one of the most vacuous “corrections” I’ve ever seen.
What you were pointing out didn’t contradict anything I wrote, by your own admission.
So I was right. Just admit it.
Mung,
Okay, let me dumb it down even more for you.
You can accumulate changes even in single-step selection, though earlier changes may be overwritten by newer ones, just as in cumulative selection.
So what distinguishes cumulative selection from single-step selection is not the accumulation of changes, which happens in both, but rather of fitness, which happens in cumulative selection.
This is Dawkins’ agenda. Even Erik knows it. Why don’t the evolutionists here know it? Weasel is an attempt by Dawkins to explain “adaptive complexity.” But it has some shortcomings, which he acknowledges.
To pretend that Weasel has nothing to do with explaining adaptive complexity and that it’s sole purpose was to dispel the creationist myth of the tornado in a junkyard is pure revisionism. Hogwash.
First, I apologize to everyone for quoting his entire post, but given that keiths is known to have edited his posts after the fact I thought it is at least prudent, if not wise.
keiths, thank you for dumbing it down for me. Now I can understand clearly what your claim is. And it is wrong.
You have your very own subjective personal unique definition of single-step selection. In your version of single-step selection the result of selection is used as the basis for a new population. In your version of single-step selection we copy the string that was produced and mutate it and those copies become the next generation.
Is that right?
Looks suspiciously like one path.
Am I the only one who noticed, keiths seems a little odd?
Pearls before swine. Their entire worldview hinges on not understanding, so that’s what they do.
phoodoo,
Of course there is a measure of fitness of individuals. However, one individual is no more relevant to evolution than one molecule is to the temperature of a gas. Taking the mean of a large number of individuals, those with and without a given trait, eliminates the random noise that one would expect from the fact that each individual has many different traits, and its actual offspring numbers may be unrelated to any of them.
You never take just one measurement in science – especially biology. Why would you think it reasonable in this case? You are lampooning a strawman.
Mung,
What, like random? Or selection? Or code? Or … SOP.
phoodoo,
Essentially, yes. ‘Counting offspring’ is open to (deliberate) misinterpretation, so one adds that caveat that it is actually counting offspring that get to reproductive maturity. It’s not different, simply clarifying. One could also count zygote-zygote intervals. But again misinterpreted as ‘different’ because … well, you’re phoodoo. It’s what you do.
colewd,
What on earth makes you think we can’t?
phoodoo,
This is just a grotesque spectacle – I can’t look away! And Mung, despite posting pictures of his shelves groaning with books on the subject, prefers to align with this nonsense over the view of fitness presented in those very books. (The biology ones, that is. The computing ones have a slightly different take, hence much confusion over The One True Definition).
Seems pretty obvious to me that both options are correct and not mutually exclusive. Both the number of letters matching the target phrase, and the fitness of selected phrases at every generation accumulates.
Take a phrase from generation 3 and compare it to a phrase from generation 12, the generation 12 phrase will have higher fitness. Compare the generation 12 phrase to a generation 21 phrase, the generation 21 phrase will have higher fitness. And so on. So fitness accumulates.
And it will have higher fitness because the number of letters that match the target accumulates over generations.
So both views are correct.
Here is a simple test to see whether fitness increases during the run of Weasel. Allow it to run for a few generations, then call a halt. Take a fraction of the resulting population and start another run, mixing this into the ‘random’ strings of the normal starting point. Turn mutation off – it will only confuse people further.
Keep tabs on the numbers of copies accruing to the two fractions. I am willing to bet significant sums that the fraction taken from partial runs will outcompete the random ‘starting’ fraction. It will be fitter; more copies (offspring) will be made … and, by complete coincidence, more letters will match.
Allan Miller,
No no, Alan, I won’t let you hijack words and concepts, and accept that they mean what you want them to mean.
First off, you want to quibble about what is being measured, individuals, or traits. That is your attempt to divert attention from the fact that individuals reproduce based on lots of things, mostly luck, and you want to downplay that. So every time you try to draw that concept of fitness back to some genotype or some trait, I say screw that, that is not a measurement of fitness of organisms, that is a measurement of trends. Sure you can measure trends, but trends are not fitness.
Secondly, all you talk of offspring, is not a measurement of fitness at all, its a measurement of what exists. You can’t say the fittest survive, and then prove that by saying, “See, this is what survived, so its the fittest.” If you don’t understand the circularity, and the meaninglessness of that statement, that’s your problem, not mine.
Maybe the fittest didn’t survive, maybe less fit survived, because that’s just how luck goes. But you want to steal the meaning of fit. You want to say that fit means what survived, and therefore the fittest survived.
That’s not science, that’s word play, that you hope no one catches. So you can stomp you feet all you want, and whine and bitch and moan, but you can’t prove the fittest survive, by simply saying, the ones that survived by definition are fittest. That has no more meaning than me saying, “The least fit survive”, and the definition of “least fit” is those that survive.
Sorry Alan, you card trick is for suckers, not for people who aren’t so easily duped.
And just to prove how useless the “those that survive are fittest concept” really is, I can use that to prove cumulative selection doesn’t work in Weasel.
All you have to do is set it up so that in each generation of strings, you chose the one furthest from your target. Since all you need for fitness is to be the one remaining, then the fittest keep getting farther and farther away from your target. The more fitness you accumulate, the less chance you will ever have of reaching your target.
So I have just proven, that by using fitness and selection, you will devolve further and further away from a complex target.
phoodoo,
All you have shown is that, if you change the selective environment, you will reward genotypes differently (Weasel strings are both genotype and phenotype, BTW). If the criterion is maximal distance from target, then those are the strings that will accumulate – will have the greatest fitness.
Talking about hijacking words.
What exactly does the word “target” mean to you?
phoodoo,
Not downplay it, account and correct for it. By taking a large census, the Law of Large Numbers comes into play; you eliminate, at least partially, the ‘random’ factors that affect smaller samples.
Here’s how the conversation goes.
Me: Fitness is the mean offspring accruing to carriers of a genotype or trait.
You: What about individuals?
Me: Fitness is the mean offspring accruing to carriers of a genotype or trait.
You: What if you put a brown bear in a volocano?
Me: Fitness is the mean offspring accruing to carriers of a genotype or trait.
You: What about a lightning strike?
Me: Fitness is the mean offspring accruing to carriers of a genotype or trait.
You: Why do you keep trying to change the subject?
So defining the less fit as more fit results in the increase in less fit which you defined as more fit. So what you defined as fitness increases but it is really less fit. Think you proved your point beyond a shadow of a doubt with geometric logic
Allan Miller,
Right, so how will this do better than random chance?
No, how can you say that? If the only definition for fitness, is what exists, what survives, then by definition those that are kept are more fit no less fit. Where does less fit come in?
BTW, I do understand your confusion however, because the definition Allan, and Darwinian biologists try to use for fit is the dumbest fucking thing on the planet, so of course you are confused.
The way you define fitness it will probably do worse than random chance.
phoodoo,
I think you will find that, if your fitness criterion is greatest distance from ‘target’, the genotypes remaining in the population will be further away from ‘target’ than any random collection. You will still have a selective bias.
I think you need to be clearer what your objective is. It has been conceded many pages ago that it is possible to generate a Weasel That Doesn’t Work – if by ‘work’ we mean finds a target phrase faster than blind search.
phoodoo,
Whirr … click … reset …
Allan Miller,
I get that is the latest version of your fitness definition. And it is still just as dumb as the first.
Question: “In evolution, do the fittest survive better?”
Answer: “Most certainly”
Question: “Well, how do you know this?”
Answer: “Because we decided the definition of fitness will be those that survived. Isn’t it clever?”
Question: “Well, I don’t know about that. Who decided that was the definition of fitness?”
Answer: “Darwinian biologists of course!”
You determined the one further from the target is the one to survive,(” All you have to do is set it up so that in each generation of strings, you chose the one furthest from your target.”) you defined fitness. With that criteria, the target is being further away from the string
Thanks