Simulation of biological evolution under attack,but not really: a response to Meester |
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Authors: | Stefaan Blancke Maarten Boudry Johan Braeckman |
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Institution: | (1) Department for Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Ghent University, Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium |
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Abstract: | The leading Intelligent Design theorist William Dembski (Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham MD, 2002) argued that the first No Free Lunch theorem, first formulated by Wolpert and Macready (IEEE Trans Evol Comput 1: 67–82,
1997), renders Darwinian evolution impossible. In response, Dembski’s critics pointed out that the theorem is irrelevant to biological
evolution. Meester (Biol Phil 24: 461–472, 2009) agrees with this conclusion, but still thinks that the theorem does apply to simulations of evolutionary processes. According
to Meester, the theorem shows that simulations of Darwinian evolution, as these are typically set in advance by the programmer,
are teleological and therefore non-Darwinian. Therefore, Meester argues, they are useless in showing how complex adaptations
arise in the universe. Meester uses the term “teleological” inconsistently, however, and we argue that, no matter how we interpret
the term, a Darwinian algorithm does not become non-Darwinian by simulation. We show that the NFL theorem is entirely irrelevant
to this argument, and conclude that it does not pose a threat to the relevance of simulations of biological evolution. |
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