How to Make a Watch via Evolution

[Stellar Vision]

WARNING:
If you're a slow reader like me the pause button will come in handy. Otherwise, enjoy.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0


So yeah. I thought it was incredibly fascinating and enlightening. What about you?

 

[ENominiPatri]

I don't know what is more sad, the ID watch argument, or the video refutation investing any more than 20 seconds refuting it...

 

[Washington]

So yeah. I thought it was incredibly fascinating and enlightening. What about you?

Yeah. I too am incredibly fascinating and enlightening.

 

[Washington]

I don't know what is more sad, the ID watch argument, or the video refutation investing any more than 20 seconds refuting it...

Why is a video that refutes a very common creationist argument, "sad."

 

[pgp_protector]

Why is a video that refutes a very common creationist argument, "sad."

The fact that it's even needed.

 

[necroforest]

I want to know how his fitness evaluation function worked. I can't imagine a remotely simple algorithm that can measure the "clockiness" of some combination of parts.

EDIT:

Ah, it's pretty neat (He has the source code on the youtube link... too bad it's in Matlab):
1. Search for pendulums, as they are the only thing in the simulation that can produce periodic motion.
2. Starting at the pendulum, search for connected components that would result in gears turning
3. If he finds a gear thats turning and has a hand attached to it, he measures the periodicity of the hand to
determine how well it tells time.

 

[pgp_protector]

I want to know how his fitness evaluation function worked. I can't imagine a remotely simple algorithm that can measure the "clockiness" of some combination of parts.

EDIT:

Ah, it's pretty neat (He has the source code on the youtube link... too bad it's in Matlab):
1. Search for pendulums, as they are the only thing in the simulation that can produce periodic motion.
2. Starting at the pendulum, search for connected components that would result in gears turning
3. If he finds a gear thats turning and has a hand attached to it, he measures the periodicity of the hand to
determine how well it tells time.

If you follow it through you can see his source code.
The "clockiness" is measured by how accurately it measures time.

LOL You're edit hit right as I was posting

 

[Stellar Vision]

It's the natural selection criteria at work. I'd imagine it as humans in a grocery store looking for the best fruit, or in this case the most accurate watch (if watches actually reproduced). His functions, as you said, filter everything but the more quantitative improvements regarding accuracy in time measurement. Although organisms are much more complex, the analogy gives me an even clearer understanding of the underlying evolutionary process. Pretty cool stuff IMHO!

 

[And-U-Say]

WARNING:
If you're a slow reader like me the pause button will come in handy. Otherwise, enjoy.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0


So yeah. I thought it was incredibly fascinating and enlightening. What about you?

I was most fascinated by the similarity to the history of life. Simple organisms, then a whole long time where nothing seems to happen, then sudden and dramatic change.

This is perfect.

 

[necroforest]

Creationists never seem to comment on these types of OPs...

 

[NPH]

It's not biological, but can't the position of the planets be 'read' in such a way as to figure out the current date? That certainly counts as a clock, a natural one no less

 

[sbvera13]

Creationists never seem to comment on these types of OPs...

Not even so much as a "but the program was designed!" blurb.

 

[Adivi]

It's not biological, but can't the position of the planets be 'read' in such a way as to figure out the current date? That certainly counts as a clock, a natural one no less

Assuming you knew the position of the planets at some initial time, sure
This reminds me of the chain e-mail going around that says that scientists have found a 'missing day and 40 minutes' somehow in calculations of a planet's position, and this proves the one story in the Bible where God stopped the earth.

 

[pgp_protector]

Assuming you knew the position of the planets at some initial time, sure
This reminds me of the chain e-mail going around that says that scientists have found a 'missing day and 40 minutes' somehow in calculations of a planet's position, and this proves the one story in the Bible where God stopped the earth.

I think it was supposed to be NASA that found it

 

[NailsII]

It is a cracking video, and shows eveything we would expect.
A very clever piece of programming in my opinion.