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On 20/05/2020 13:49, Re Rose wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.14.1589978971.2107.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">EVOLUTION
FINDS BRILLIANT SOLUTIONS to many problems, and even evolutionary
algorithims quickly lead to novel and adaptable solutions! Don't
be mean to evolution.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Evolution definitely does not come up with 'brilliant' solutions to
any problems. That's not how it works. It comes up with
just-good-enough solutions, that result in more offspring. That's
its job, that's all it has to do, and that's all it does, or even
can do.<br>
<br>
This is why we have such terrible solutions as the recurrent
laryngeal nerve, the inside-out mammalian eye, and the ridiculously
inefficent Okazaki fragments in DNA replication, that <i>every
single organism on the earth</i> is stuck with. Don't tell me that
these are 'brilliant solutions'. They are afwul bodges. But they
work just well enough to not kill a potential parent before it can
produce offspring. It's these kinds of things that show the
'intelligent design' religious nuts to be so laughable.<br>
<br>
It's not being mean to point out that evolution is a bit like
democracy, in that it's a terrible system, but the best one we know
of. So far. <br>
In fact, that's not really true. We don't know what system would
work better than democracy, but we do actually know that deliberate
design usually works much better than evolution. That includes using
evolutionary algorithms, because there is a meta level sitting above
it that makes deliberate decisions about the longer-term usefulness
of an evolved system, instead of blind selection for fitness under
local conditions.<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Ben Zaiboc</pre>
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