tribdog
Feb13-05, 07:48 PM
I just got the newest Discover magazine and it has an article about about evolution and a computer program called Avida. Avida makes digital organisms that can make digital copies of itself. Mutations occur just like in DNA, and you can reward certain mutations by letting those organisms replicate a little bit faster. I guess it has really proved evolution beyond a shadow of a doubt. When scientists tried to evolve an organism that could carry out an "equals" routine they succeeded 50 times in 50 experiments. Without the rewards an equals command occurred 0 out of 50 tries.
When they tried to stop evolution by killing off any organisms that appeared to have evolved something beneficial the creepy stuff started happening. The organisms evolved the ability to know when they were being looked at and stop displaying their new ability until they were no longer being examined.
I'm in the process of downloading Avida right now and am about 91% done. I just hope I don't evolve something that eats RAM or thinks HTTP stands for Here's The Tasty Portions.
When they tried to stop evolution by killing off any organisms that appeared to have evolved something beneficial the creepy stuff started happening. The organisms evolved the ability to know when they were being looked at and stop displaying their new ability until they were no longer being examined.
I'm in the process of downloading Avida right now and am about 91% done. I just hope I don't evolve something that eats RAM or thinks HTTP stands for Here's The Tasty Portions.