It's a long article, and I can't be bothered to summarise it properly, this'll have to do until you read it yourself.
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Testing Darwin
A computer program called avida which is designed to simulate evolution, or as they put it;
Quote:
Avida is not a simulation of evolution, it is an instance of it.
It's not a direct simulation of biological life, but instead uses digital life, which can evolve very rapidly. Basically like a computer virus which can mutate it's own code.
The reason this is an answer to irredicable complexity? The results of one experiment to get a digital organism which can compare two binary numbers bit-by-bit and output whether they are the same.
The intermediate stages between starting and reaching the goal are useless to the organism, as comparing the two numbers is quite complex.
But over 16,000 generations, the program beat the problem 23 out of 50 times.
Quite cool. No time to post more details tohugh sorry. Check out the magazine.