Antievolution & Computation Austringer on 15 Mar 2009 08:27 am
Dembski, “Weasel”, and Video-Level Evidence
A post over at Uncommon Descent with a long-running series of comments resulted in a link to a video segment that bears on a stance taken by William Dembski and others that Richard Dawkins’ “weasel” program somehow worked by locking-in correct characters, protecting those from further mutation. The video shows that no such protection was given to correct characters. I’ve sent an email to Dembski and Robert Marks to bring this directly to their attention. I’ll share it with you here.
“David Kellogg” on Uncommon Descent linked to a YouTube video of a 1987 BBC Horizon
sprogram on Richard Dawkins’ “The Blind Watchmaker”. It includes video closeups of Dawkins’ “weasel” program in operation. The video also plainly shows that letters that match the target string are not locked or latched, just as I informed you some time ago (2000/10/09 for Dr. Dembski and 2007/10/11 for Dr. Marks).View the following video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sUQIpFajsg
The relevant part begins at 6:15 into the video. The camera is close enough to the screen to show the letters in the evolutionary computation clearly, and it plainly shows that there is no latching of any character in any position.
You have continued to present Dawkins’ “weasel” program as incorporating a latching mechanism for correct characters, and have gone so far as to term “weasel” a partitioned search. You concluded in drafts of papers that “weasel”’s performance advantage over blind search was due to it having a partitioned search as its mechanism.
I previously laid out the evidence that the description of “weasel” provided by you was incorrect, without apparent effect. I have a further blog post that plots the performance of the partitioned search as you described it, and an accurately implemented version of the “weasel” program.
dembski-and-marks-are-still-mischaracterizing-dawkins-weasel
While actual “weasel” is slightly less efficient than Dembski-partitioned-search, both are dramatically better than blind search. This is at variance with several of the claims that you have made.
Given that now the evidence is as clear that Dawkins’ did not use a partitioned search as it always has been that he never described a partitioned search, I would hope that you each and jointly will take steps to remove the inaccurate descriptions and invalidated conclusions that were made on an incorrect premise.
Wesley R. Elsberry
Why pay attention to persistent antievolutionist error over a toy pedagogical example from 23 years ago? Because the antievolutionists don’t seem to be able to understand even the simplest sort of illustration of evolutionary computation, and that implies that understanding the basics of the principles behind “weasel” is also far from them. The incorrect description of “weasel” is propagated in the text of a paper that Dembski has claimed has been accepted for publication somewhere, though the correction was brought to Dembski’s attention over eight years ago, and to his co-author’s attention in 2007. Not only is the description incorrect, but the incorrect elements of the description were the ones that were the subject of analysis and the basis for the erroneous conclusions that they drew. Further, the tenacity with which this error has been clung to has resulted in the incorrect description and conclusion being used by others in the religious antievolution movement, as may be seen in Meyer’s Hopeless Monster. Error this basic whose effects have been so protracted needs to be exposed assiduously.
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on 15 Mar 2009 at 9:15 am 1.Bob O'H said …
Actually, the programme was called Horizon (in the singular). I dimly remember watching it when it was first broadcast.
Don’t worry, I’ll give you 8 years to correct yourself. :-)
on 15 Mar 2009 at 9:28 am 2.Erasmus, FCD said …
I eagerly anticipate the resolution of this long standing error in the antievolutionist propaganda literature. lol. i’m sure it is in the pipes.
The UD post has been highly entertaining and is an excellent case of the epistemological (not to mention ethical) problems with intelligent design creationism as you have been documenting for years. always your fan
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on 15 Mar 2009 at 9:39 am 3.Austringer said …
I can’t say that I really expect the sort of retractions and notice to follow that would be just the standard thing if someone working in science were to discover an error in their work. Primarily, it gives me the ability to say that they were informed of relevant evidence telling them that they were wrong at a particular date. And that I can reference if/when any of the stuff they say is pending publication actually makes it into print.
on 15 Mar 2009 at 11:14 am 4.David Kellogg said …
Hi Wes, this is David Kellogg. Credit where credit is due: I got the link from Patrick May, who sent the link to my Facebook page after posing the question on the Dawkins board: http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=75197
Just in the interest of full disclosure.
David
on 15 Mar 2009 at 11:55 am 5.Austringer said …
David, thanks for the complete set of attributions.
As I noted on AtBC, it should be instructive to see the response in an instance where antievolutionists get the video-level evidence that they often claim is what it would take to make them change their minds.
I note that Gordon Mullings at UD has taken it rather badly so far, lapsing into bizarre fantasies about Dawkins’ actions in 1986 and 1987 rather than accepting the far simpler explanation that Mullings had the wrong end of the argument all along.
on 15 Mar 2009 at 8:30 pm 6.Patrick May said …
Thanks for the hat tip, David, but the real credit goes to you for holding KF’s feet to the fire in the face of thousands of distracting verbal bullets. I only got involved because I was wondering why I was getting links from the funny farm all of a sudden.
Regards,
Patrick
on 25 Mar 2009 at 3:26 am 7.steve said …
Curiously, I have not heard anyone suggest that Dawkins produce the source code of his program to end the debate emphatically.
I did hear that a commentator on the UD thread contacted Dawkins, who advised no latching took place. Why not simply have Dawkins produce the actual source code? Or is Dawkins balking at such a move?
on 25 Mar 2009 at 12:09 pm 8.Austringer said …
No, someone noted in the comments at UD that I had contacted Dawkins, who said no latching took place. I did that in 2000, informed William Dembski of that, and … Dembski simply keeps on with asserting that stuff never said by Dawkins must be the case. Dembski could have communicated with Dawkins to ask if he had gotten the description right, but he didn’t. Dembski could have revised his description on being informed it was in error in 2000, but he didn’t. Dembski could have written his own version of the program to find out that “latching” wasn’t required for “weasel” to work, but he didn’t.
“weasel” wasn’t intended to be some monumental achievement. It was essentially the computer science equivalent of a napkin doodle. Dawkins doesn’t have the original code, just as I’m sure he isn’t using the original computer, either.
But Dawkins gave us a description of the steps the program takes, and any number of people have programmed their own “weasel” instances that get results like Dawkins reported without “latching”. It isn’t Dawkins who needs to substantiate a claim; it is the religiious antievolutionists who have been in obvious error about this for years.
The video demonstrates that the “weasel” program used by Dawkins was not latching, no source code is needed to confirm that. The religious antievolutionists have themselves latched onto the utterly demented notion that Dawkins used a different “latching” program for “weasel” output in “The Blind Watchmaker” and “New Scientist” in 1986 than in the 1987 video. Why is it demented? First, because “latching” is completely unlike the biology, and Dawkins is an accomplished biologist. Second, because the program Dawkins obviously did use in the video documentary about his book “The Blind Watchmaker” obviously doesn’t use latching. Third, because the math says that for reasonable population sizes and mutation rates, one doesn’t expect to see the best candidates from successive generations lose correct characters. Fourth, because Dawkins himself has said that he didn’t do anything of the sort.