RhetoricalAbsurdity
13th January 2005, 02:29
Has anyone heard about this amazing computer program Avida? It's a digital life program, and it's absolutely mind-blowing. Plus it looks like it might just play a key role in proving evolution correct.
Full article: http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2005/ar...2005_Avida.html (http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2005/articles_2005_Avida.html) (Read it.)
After more than a decade of development, Avida's digital organisms are now getting close to fulfilling the definition of biological life. More and more of the features that biologists have said were necessary for life we can check off, says Robert Pennock, a philosopher at Michigan State and a member of the Avida team. Does this, does that, does this. Metabolism? Maybe not quite yet, but getting pretty close.
One thing the digital organisms do particularly well is evolve. Avida is not a simulation of evolution; it is an instance of it, Pennock says. All the core parts of the Darwinian process are there. These things replicate, they mutate, they are competing with one another. The very process of natural selection is happening there. If that's central to the definition of life, then these things count.
Just wow.
Full article: http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2005/ar...2005_Avida.html (http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2005/articles_2005_Avida.html) (Read it.)
After more than a decade of development, Avida's digital organisms are now getting close to fulfilling the definition of biological life. More and more of the features that biologists have said were necessary for life we can check off, says Robert Pennock, a philosopher at Michigan State and a member of the Avida team. Does this, does that, does this. Metabolism? Maybe not quite yet, but getting pretty close.
One thing the digital organisms do particularly well is evolve. Avida is not a simulation of evolution; it is an instance of it, Pennock says. All the core parts of the Darwinian process are there. These things replicate, they mutate, they are competing with one another. The very process of natural selection is happening there. If that's central to the definition of life, then these things count.
Just wow.