Richard Dawkins has made his programs from The Blind Watchmaker and Climbing Mount Improbable available via a web browser interface.
Sadly for our friends at Uncommon Descent, the Weasel is not included.
189 thoughts on “Richard Dawkins’ Software”
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keiths,
Isn’t it unbelievable? People here take the time to explain the model in extreme detail, and then to implement it, share the results, discuss them, compare them to what the model predicts, plot the data, etc… and Mung still doesn’t get it and now demands tests to document the code? Because of course, in Mung’s world the best documentation is the one produced by automated tests. Like he would get it if he had it anyway. He can’t appreciate the time and effort you guys put into this, and he won’t even try to understand.
Mung, if at this point you still don’t get it, it’s entirely your fault. You’ve been spoon-fed all the relevant data yet you keep demanding more irrelevant stuff to your satisfaction. Your intellectually lazy and arrogantly stubborn willful ignorance is just pathetic
A Weasel without selection will on average match the target at 28/27 sites, so a bit more than one match. The variance and standard deviation of matches will be a bit less than 1. So if you match at, say 10 positions, that is 9 standard deviations out, and is incredibly improbable. It will take about
different trials to come up with the target sequence.
On the other side, I have never seen a run of a Weasel program that didn’t get to, or close to, the target in less than 10,000 steps (mostly they do it in hundreds of steps). That’s noticeably sooner.
Mung said in a previous thread that “I’ve never doubted the power of cumulative selection.” Now Mung is not willing to believe that Weasel programs have this power without “empirical tests”.
And Mung then changes the subject to whether or not the Weasel algorithms are “directed”. Mung, meet Mung, and let us know when one of you convinces the other.
No one is going to waste time writing elaborate test suites when results this dramatically clear do not convince Mung.
A little over ten year ago I worked for a company called Software Quality Engineering. Our product was training in how to test software. Clients included nobodies like HP, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, and such.
Automated test suites were a big deal.
What mung seems incapaple of understanding is that a GA is a kind of automated test suite.
Apparently Mung didn’t even bother reading the link he posted:
petrushka,
Automated test suites are appropriate in some circumstances but not others. In the context of my Weasel and Drift-Weasel implementations, an automated test suite would have been a waste of time. Other less expensive methods made more sense, such as validating the program against Joe’s Wright-Fisher model.
No, because a GA tests the fitnesses of genotypes, not the correctness of the GA program itself.
I’m sure that attitude would have gone over great with your clients. You don’t need any tests. What you don’t understand is that your software is a kind of automated test suite. Ship it!
Empirical verification? Who needs it.
Your WEASEL program does not test the fitnesses of genotypes, it assigns the fitnesses of genotypes. A unit test would test that the correct fitness was assigned to a genotype.
Here’s the comments from your own code:
// Calculate a genome’s fitness by determining the number of loci at which
// it matches the target.
// scan the entire genome, counting the number of loci that match the target
Do you deny that your code assigns the fitness to the genome?
This is why you won’t write the requested tests because doing so would show how fraudulent your claims are.
Write a test to validate that the correct fitness is assigned to the genotypes. You can do it, I know you can. What they will show is that the “correct” fitness is relative to the target phrase.
Get rid of the target phrase and how do you know what the correct fitness is? Now write that test. How then do you assign the fitness to the genotype?
Joe, why not just admit that you can’t follow every thread and every comment on the site. I am mocking people like Patrick who don’t believe anything without “objective empirical evidence.” I’m just exercising my right to be “skeptical” here at “The Skeptical Zone.”
I used to believe in “the power of cumulative selection” because I used to think I knew where that power came from. But people keep telling me I’m wrong.
You’re the one who indicated “the power” was in guidance. It’s not a change in subject on my part. It’s the freaking point.
You didn’t learn anything from Richard’s PI calculator GA did you?
There was no explicit or implicit target solution there
One can easily get rid of the target phrase and have that as an arbitrary input. But the main issue is that you still don’t get how irrelevant that is
Is this supposed to be relevant to the “silly, silly belief that you would be embarrassed to hold if you had an inkling of how silly it is”? I ask other people to take a stand and from that you infer that I believe those things?
Which one of his posts?
Here’s the second one:
Target. Target. Target.
I don’t believe his first exercise specifically called for a GA.
Glass houses and all that shit.
Are you saying that having a target is irrelevant, or that having one hard-coded into the program is irrelevant?
Let’s say there is no target. How do you calculate fitness? Write the unit test validating that the correct fitness is assigned to the genome. Go ahead.
dazz:
Indeed. I don’t know how much of it is willful ignorance versus a lack of the required abilities, but either way the problem lies with Mung.
Mung, instead of asking to be spoon-fed by the people who already understand this stuff, why not go off and study it yourself until you get it?
Then you can search for fatal flaws in the Weasel implementations. I predict that you won’t find any, thus continuing your losing streak.
ok, see, this is great. This is exactly the sort of analysis that I was hoping for. But in order to do these calculations, don’t you need to know that there is a target and what that target is? Else how do you calculate the standard deviation?
What similar analysis can be done without knowing there is a target or knowing what the target is?
Is there any “power of cumulative selection” if the genomes are not converging? What would the units be of “the power of cumulative selection”?
What flaws in WEASEL implementations do you think I am looking for?
Are you going to admit that your own WEASEL program assigns the fitness? So sure, no need for you to test that, lol.
For sure, I get a good laugh every time they come running to defend WEASEL. It’s like I was trying to take a piss on their holy book or something.
Mung,
The same thing you’ve been trying and failing to find all along: flaws that would show that Weasel doesn’t demonstrate the power of cumulative selection.
For example, you claimed that
…and:
Both of your claims were wrong, of course, as was easily demonstrated.
You haven’t been paying attention.
Let’s hop into The Way Back Time Machine:
So you’re wrong. You fail. You either haven’t understood what I’ve been saying or you’re misrepresenting what I’ve been saying. I won’t accuse you of doing it deliberately, because I really think you’re just sloppy.
There is no doubt in my mind that we can change the code of a typical WEASEL program such that it would utterly fail to “demonstrate the power of cumulative selection.” You even managed to agree with me about that even if only as an accidental byproduct of the discussion over numerous threads.
So the question still remains. We have a WEASEL that does not demonstrate the power of cumulative selection and we have a WEASEL that presumably does demonstrate the power of cumulative selection. And the difference is?
If we dispensed with a “target” would the program still demonstrate the power of cumulative selection, and if so, how so? This is where empirical tests would really come in handy. But alas, we have none, and none are in sight. That’s just how I’d want it if I were in your shoes.
Hi keiths,
Your WEASEL program is written in C. And in C the ‘=’ sign is known as the assignment operator. So when your code is as follows:
genome->fitness = fitness(genome);
Aren’t you ASSIGNING a fitness to the genome?
Just say yes. It won’t kill you to admit it. I promise.
Perhaps that’s part of the magic of “the power of cumulative selection.” What do you think?
p.s. In looking over your code again, perhaps you should have written a test to validate that you were assigning the correct fitness value to the genome. Or perhaps it doesn’t really matter what fitness value you assign. 🙂
This is silly. Besides, I don’t think I’ve ever argued about whether or not the WEASEL algorithm creates information. What it does is create an illusion that evolution is somehow analogous to the WEASEL program while at the same time denying that there is an analogy there at all. WEASEL fails as a model of evolution.
And yes, there are search algorithms that perform better than blind search. Who ever thought otherwise? The thing that is misleading about the WEASEL program is the implication that evolution uses a search algorithm that performs better than blind search.
This is what the “WEASEL WARS” are about.
I can write a search algorithm that performs better than blind search. So what.
OK, so Mung isn’t worried that the programs might be incorrectly written, or that the Weasel algorithm will not succeed in finding the target. Mung’s call for “empirical tests” is just a terribly indirect and laborious way of pointing out that the Weasel algorithm has a target. (And Mung’s previous acceptance of the “power of cumulative selection” was because Mung was somehow misled by the fans of the Weasel).
Yup, the Weasel algorithms have a target. Yup, fitnesses of genotypes are calculated with respect to that target. Was anyone in doubt about that? Ever?
So, does that mean that when evolution (or else evolutionary algorithms) do remarkable things, finding more fit genotypes, does there have to be a target? Is there necessarily information as to the details of the exact solution desired coded into the algorithm?
No. Several of us have pointed out simulations that do marvellous things without the details of the result being coded in. Interestingly, these involve some sort of simulated physics or geometry. I have pointed some of these out here more than once. In the following comment I will list them once more. These points have been met with silence from the critics of evolutionary biology. Maybe this time they will feel them worthy of comment.
I disagree. Douglas Axe has a new book coming out soon. It will be interesting to see whether and to what extent it depends on arguments from improbability.
But the problem you face is that programs like WEASEL are designed to demonstrate how the “effects” of evolution are not as improbable as they seem. So arguments against ID are probability arguments and as long as that continues to be the case ID will not be SOL because those arguments grant the premise.
I read the article a while back and at that time I didn’t see anything relevant to any arguments I was making, but I’ll take a second look.
I think the impression that the WEASEL program leaves of “the power of cumulative selection” depends the program itself and have said so. Dawkins fine tuned the program to get the results he got.
Mung,
Sure I have. I notice the dumb things you say and I quote them back at you, explaining why they are wrong.
I think that wascally Weasel has defeated you once again, Elmer.
Well, if we’re pointing out dumb things:
keiths claimed that GAs test fitness whereas his own GAs assign fitness. keiths can’t seem to bring himself to admit that his own WEASEL programs actually assign fitnesses to genomes. And that’s sad.
I wouldn’t go that far Joe. 🙂
How would a program that claims to demonstrate the power of cumulative selection need to be written? Let’s assume we can agree that there are incorrect ways to write such a program. Can we at least agree on that?
Can we write a test or tests to demonstrate that a program which claims to demonstrate the power of cumulative selection actually fails to do so? Can we at least agree that if such a test or tests can be written that a program that failed that test or tests is not correctly written? Can we at least agree on that?
And there’s the rub. If it can’t be tested, it’s not empirical. Can we at least agree on that? Objective empirical tests that can validate that a program demonstrates the power of cumulative selection do not exist.
keiths claims such tests are not necessary. How convenient.
Here is a list of simulations that are evolutionary algorithms that do not have a target (an explicit genotype that is being sought). I listed two of them in a previous comment last February:
Plus, others here have developed the Steiner Weasel, which solves Steiner Problems without having the particular solution built into the algorithm. A really great version runnable through a browser was posted recently near here (I have lost it for the moment but someone here should post a link to it).
And earlier this year, at Panda’s Thumb, Dave Thomas gave some good explanation and history of the War of the Weasels which centered around this example and ended badly for the ID advocates.
That is incorrect.
That is incorrect.
If we remove the target, how do we then manage to demonstrate the power of cumulative selection? In the WEASEL program, the power of cumulative selection is due to the presence of a target. If you dispute this claim, how do you propose to demonstrate the power of cumulative selection in the absence of a target?
Now we are getting at the heart of my position. What is it that allows us to demonstrate the power of cumulative selection? What happens to “the power” when we remove the target? How can we objectively test the claims?
How do they fail to demonstrate the power of cumulative selection? What tests exist to validate that they fail to demonstrate the power of cumulative selection? What test could be written to demonstrate that they fail to demonstrate the power of cumulative selection?
Objective empirical evidence. The Holy Grail of “Skeptics” everywhere.
Joe:
In addition, the GAs I wrote for Rich’s two threads (link, link) do not seek explicit genotypes.
The target objection is bogus. Yet another Mung fail.
How do they fail to demonstrate the power of cumulative selection? What tests exist to validate that they fail to demonstrate the power of cumulative selection? What test could be written to demonstrate that they fail to demonstrate the power of cumulative selection?
Why do I not trust your Papal decrees? You probably don’t even understand what you call “the target objection.”
I don’t object to targets. I just want to know how they factor into the results and what happens when you remove them. Absent a target, what is the impact on “the power of cumulative selection,” and how is that demonstrated, empirically?
You have no tests, and we know why you don’t have tests, because they would expose the fraudulent nature of your claims. Write tests. Prove me wrong. You won’t. You can’t.
Very simple: they don’t “fail to demonstrate the power of cumulative selection”.
They are pretty impressive to me. And Weasels of all sorts seem to succeed in a lot less than
tries.
And if you think otherwise, present your evidence.
Apparently falsifiability only applies to claims made by theists and ID’ists.
But when testing software, there exists what is known as the Red, Green, Refactor cycle. Should we trust a test that cannot fail? Should we trust claims that are not subjected to tests?
Sorry Joe, but this is “The Skeptical Zone.” Maybe you don’t really belong here. You must support your claims or retract them. That’s THE RULEZ!
I suggested Bob O’s avatar at AtBC. Mung, do you fancy this one?
Mung:
Sure they do, and I have tested my Weasel implementations. The fact that you don’t recognize this is due solely to your own limitations. You simply don’t understand software testing.
Hardly. Tests are necessary, but automated tests are not. Competent programmers know this and choose the testing method that is appropriate for the occasion.
As an incompetent programmer, you are inflexibly demanding automated tests in a context in which they are a waste of time. Don’t expect me to take your foolish advice.
On the other hand, if you want to waste your time doing automated tests, have at it.
Or you could do the smarter thing and follow my lead. For example, you could run my Weasel program and toggle selection on and off, observing the difference in convergence. It should be obvious even to you.
With selection on, convergence will typically happen in a matter of seconds. With selection off, you’ll wait your entire lifetime.
Rich:
That’s good, but where are the tiny turds?
keiths,
Mungflungdung.
Richardthughes has no tests. keiths has no tests. Mocks are not tests.
But this is “The Skeptical Zone,” where content does not matter. I feel right at home.
Your tests are subjective. They are not objective empirical tests. You simply don’t understand what objective and empirical mean. The fact that you don’t recognize this is due solely to your own limitations. You simply don’t understand objective empirical software testing.
Do you have anything relevant to offer? No? Thought not.
Mung:
Incorrect. Convergence time is objectively measurable.
Another swing and a miss by Mung.
Let us know when you and Richardthughes publish your results.
Mung,
‘Us’ ??? !!!!
So?
Did I claim that convergence time is not objectively measurable?
How do you think they keep finding the correct answers, Mung?
Do you have anything relevant to offer? No? Thought not.
I’m asking who ‘us’ is. Who (do you think) you speak for?
I apologize to all those who were offended by my failure to properly state that it was as if I was pissing on their HOLY BOOK.
You either have tests or you don’t. The empirical evidence available to me indicates that you don’t. The demand for objective empirical evidence defines what it means to be a “proper skeptic” here at TSZ. If you are not a skeptic then perhaps this is not the site for you. If you are looking to hook up with keiths, perhaps this is not the site for you.
Why don’t you go back to Noyau where you belong, since you lack the balls to challenge the claims by people like dazz, who flat out lie about things you’ve written?