I was out for a week, and just as I entered this forum, my browser crashed so I'm now hand-sifting through posts. Sad aint it?

My way of thinking is this, many of the basic processes of evolution is well understood enough such that they can be functionalized and described algorithmically. In fact, this is done by GA (genetic algorithm) researchers all the time. It's known that not all the functions of evolution has been discovered, and often times biological discovery feeds computational GA work, and vica versa. That said, when I say some function is part of the evolutionary process, I speak algorithmically, not metaphorically. Now, where it gets semi-mystical is *all genetic algorithms* are non-deterministic. That means if you execute the same process, with the same conditions, you will never get the same path to the answer. Sometimes you do not get an "answer" in that sense of it.

Reason for this, is the random walk. Random, and the random-walk is not the same thing. Evolution is not "random numbers" it is more like a random walk. I'm going to have to call bullshit on the claim that the evolutionary-mechanism-of-gradual-change-such-that-eventual-discovereries-for-environmental-problems-are-kept is *not* based on a random walk. Note, I did not say the evolutionary process is random. (see link in previous message describing random walk).

You'd think that each living creature is only "indirectly" networked to each other, but if you think about it, it's another way of saying that the environment is the network! :-) I'm not saying dna is connected to other dna by 802.11b, but suffice to say not all the mechanisms for cross-dna communications have been discovered. I heard that only recently were prion-like molecules, sub viral in size, have been found delivering "packets" :-). But for the most part, the standard mechanisms of code transfer (plasmids, viral agents, etc) are old hat. Some theorists have gone as far to say that perhaps these cross-dna communication systems over time have unintentionally taken on a life of their own. For example, viruses may have been a chain-letter style messaging system that allows innovation to be passed onto a species as a whole no matter where they are physically, but over time has been damaged and converted into self-perpetuating code. We've all seen it on the Internet, but evidence to this effect lies in the so-called "unused" portion of dna. We've all heard of large sections of dna that supposedly does "nothing" -- and analysis of the inactive dna shows ancestral viral code, viruses built into the human dna that resemble wild viruses out there today. This inactive code is theorized to be inactive communications code, perhaps waiting to be called() by some unknown source.

Tony, how can you believe in evolution, and not believe in evolutionary leaps? Do you not believe the archeological record and the computational evidence to this? One of the basic experiments in computational genetic algorithms is evolution of quicksort. You have a population of N algorithms that you breed with the hope that they will be capable of sorting a string of letters. Some of the individuals in the population evolve into non-optimal sorting algorithms, and many thousands of generations later, the funniest thing happens is quicksort appears out of literally nowhere. It just appears. If you graph this, it looks exactly like a step function. Evolutionary leaps. It does not always happen, and there are theories to explain why this happens. And when it happens it happens in a single generation. Richard Dawkins claims it is because several independent algorithms develop gradually, and then when they accidentally fit together in one generation it pops into place. (e.g. development of the human eye, flowers that look like bees, etc). There are mathematic explanations (structure of the underlying solution leads to quantum leaps in the fitness function due to natural peaks and plateaus) and network theory (part of a problem solved in several places, is synthesized into a complete solution by way of communications, and so on. I will readily acknowledge there are many known and unknown mechanisms behind evolutionary leaps (or quantum jumps or whatever), with the most rare type in higher-order creatures being evolution within the same generation, followed by evolution in a single generation. But for lower-order creatures this is much more common. My theory is just that higher order creatures have more safety/stability cushions to overcome. Anyway, while you might not subscribe to the concept of evolutionary jumps, they happen, it's well documented, and in many cases explanable. Without bringing a "god" into the equation at all, consider that a mechanism for sudden change in the same or next generation is an incredibly beneficial survival tool eh? Who is to say the process for activating it isn't scientifically explanable? Personally I don't care either way, since I'm agnostic about it all, but I do know there is a big fat hole in our knowledge regarding this part of evolution, and if there's ever a God playing the species for suckers he would be right there. :-p

Calvin