When Robots Play Games

Roland Piquepaille writes "If the theory of evolution has worked well for us -- even if this is arguable these days -- why not apply it to mobile robots?, asks Technology Research News. Several U.S. researchers just did that and trained neural networks to play the Capture the flag game. Once the neural networks were good enough at the game, they transferred them to the robots' onboard computers. These teams of mobile robots, named EvBots (for Evolution Robots), were then also able to play the game successfully. This method could be used to build environment-aware autonomous robots able to clear a minefield or find heat sources in a collapsed building within 3 to 6 years. But the researchers want to build controllers for robots that adapt to completely unknown environments. And this will not happen before 10 or maybe 50 years. You'll find more details and references in this overview, including a picture of EvBots trying to find their way during a game." Read on for a similar robot competition held this weekend in France.

saunabad writes "The annual Eurobot autonomous robot contest for amateurs is held this weekend on La Férte-Bernard, France. This year's theme is 'coconut rugby,' and the robots are collecting small stress balls from the field and carrying them to the opponent's end, or shooting them in the rugby goal, while avoiding the randomly placed obstacles at the same time. Each team has a one main robot and an optional small assisting robot."

Comments

"even if this is arguable these days"?

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's a sop to the creationists, I expected better from Slashdot...

Re:"even if this is arguable these days"?

[Pluvius]

It's obviously a reference to how stupid people seem to be these days. Of course, evolution only enhances intelligence when intelligence is required to better survive and procreate--but it's a joke, you're not supposed to read that much into it anyway.

Rob

Re:"even if this is arguable these days"?

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Yes, but consider that evolution only works properly when the incompetant/invalid are removed from the gene pool. Humanity has slowed it's own evolution by treating the ill, making prosthetic limbs, creating welfare systems, etc. Not that I'm suggesting we'd be better off without them, of course.

Re:"even if this is arguable these days"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but consider that evolution only works properly when the incompetant/invalid are removed from the gene pool.

Evolution always "works"; it's just that our actions are redefining what it means to be "fit". Of course, what it means to be "fit" is always being redefined on its own, as species interact within their own populations, co-evolve with other species, and environments change.

Humanity has slowed it's own evolution by treating the ill, making prosthetic limbs, creating welfare systems, etc.

Similarly, what does it mean to "slow" evolution? Mutations occur at the same rate as before, reproductive rates (recombination events) aren't decreased by what you describe. I don't see how this is "slowing" evolution. If anything, it's increasing it, in that we're preserving a wider variety of genes.

Some people seem to forget that genetic diversity important to preserve. All the "bad" genes we short-sightedly weed out might have ended up helping us if circumstances change.

An example: sickle-cell anemia. It's a disease, but the gene responsible for it also protects against another disease, malaria. If we start wiping out genes from the population, who knows which ones would have saved us when the next plague strikes?
For that matter, would we want to remove Stephen Hawking from the gene pool just because he's an invalid?

Not that I'm suggesting we'd be better off without them, of course.

Indeed. Even putting the moral objections aside, social Darwinists have poor reasoning on practical fronts, such as the gene diversity issue.

Some of these points were well summarized in an article I recently read on talk.origins.

Re:"even if this is arguable these days"?

[Tyreth]

Similarly, what does it mean to "slow" evolution? Mutations occur at the same rate as before, reproductive rates (recombination events) aren't decreased by what you describe. I don't see how this is "slowing" evolution. If anything, it's increasing it, in that we're preserving a wider variety of genes.

This disagreement is a direct result of the problem of having multiple meanings for evolution. Evolution can mean whatever the arguer likes - such that proof of one form of 'evolution' is then flipped to imply that all uses of the word 'evolution' have proof, which isn't the case.

Natural Selection and adaptation is, in effect, a reduction in the diversity of the gene pool. Harmful genes are removed, while beneficial ones are given freedom to dominate. This results in the loss of genes, but is called 'evolution'.
Then we also have mutations. These produce changes in an organism, but are almost always harmless/harmful. This process of introducing new diversity (however limited it may be) is also called 'evolution'.

A big problem of this debate is the fluid meanings of 'evolution'. That is why I tend to use the word "darwinist" instead of "evolutionist". The former describes a specific viewpoint on the origin of life, while the latter, scientifically described, would be:
"A change in allele frequencies in a population over time". With that I have no dispute. When the darwinists add more, then I have an issue.

Once upon a time on slashdot, simply saying anything against evolution was a surefire way of having you dropped to -1, off topic, flamebait, or troll, even if you were none of those. People would use their mod points to win an argument instead of responding. Nowadays the situation is much more tolerable - and some are coming to recognise that darwinism was adopted, not because of any amount of proof, but because it was popular. It has never enjoyed good evidence. That is why scientists are so eager to trumpet every latest discovery as proof of evolution. Unfortunately for them, the evolution that does have proof is the scientific one I gave above - changes in allele frequencies. That all living things share a common ancestor is unproven, and seems unlikely.

Re:"even if this is arguable these days"?

[Anonymous Coward]

but are almost always harmless/harmful

You mean there's a possible 3rd option? isn't everything mostly harmless/harmful?

Re:"even if this is arguable these days"?

[Tyreth]

Beneficial.

Aimbots...

[criordan]

Aimbots have been around in CS for years. Is this really news?

oh why not...

[isbhod]

I, for one, accept our flag capturing overlords

Re:oh why not...

[Tablizer]

I, for one, accept our flag capturing overlords.

I, for one, capture our flag-accepting overlords. -- a Soviet

Maybe....

[TastyWords]

we could see some of this in the next "Austin Powers" movie and they can involve the FemBots?

Re:Maybe....

[Anonymous Coward]

ohhh, a sporting game of capture the pole! .... never mind, i don't want to see Austin with his shirt off again... but if the FemBots got naked, would it be worth it? .... i don't know...

Caution

[Plaeroma]

I know it's still a long way off from a Matrix-esque scenario (or better yet, Skynet), but this has me a little jumpy. Not because we are doing amazing things with AI these days, but because we keep advancing it in a totally carefree manner. Perhaps it is time to start applying a little caution in our ever forward moving technology push? I for one would feel stupid if all that 'ridiculous' sci-fi stuff ending up happening.

Re:Caution

[KrancHammer]

We hardly at the stage yet where we should start worrying about Matrix or Terminator-esque doomsday scenarios (if ever, those being inventive.. you-know.. fiction).
Start panicking when a autonomous device can navigate stairs. Then the grand anti-robot strategy of walking to the second floor won't work, and we can start worrying.

Re:Caution

[Anonymous Coward]

Look closely and you'll see the parent clearly outlined that it's a long way off.

Re:Caution

[Stuwee]

Okay, I'll bite...

The day that these robots can play capture the flag the way I used to play it as a kid, I will bow to the robots and call them my master. Wading through water, climbing trees, and jumping through thick gorse were all commonplace whilst clutching the opponents' frisbee (for flags were hard to come by).

When the robots can climb that oak to retrieve the frisbee that was skilfully thrown up at the start of the game, I think it's fair to say that the robots may just beat us at capture the flag! It's a game, not world domination.

Re:Caution

[Pluvius]

Start panicking when a autonomous device can navigate stairs

But without that we'll never be protected from the terrible secret of space!

Rob

Re:Caution

[Reaper9889]

Perhaps it is time to start applying a little caution in our ever forward moving technology push? Thats perhaps a good idea, but how are you going to stop it? Its not like it matters whatever one country agrees to it because ppl who thinks that it is interresting might just move. And even if the whole world agreed to the law how would you write it? Its not as if you could use "Dont make anything dangerously with AI" After all Nobel said he made nitroglycin because he thought it would be safer...

Re:Caution

[isbhod]

doesn't the honda robot navigate stairs? when you should be really woried is when the automous robot carring a weapon makes it's own descision to fire.

Re:Caution

[Reaper9889]

Sorry about that I missed preview, it should have read:

Perhaps it is time to start applying a little caution in our ever forward moving technology push?

Thats perhaps a good idea, but how are you going to stop it? Its not like it matters whatever one country agrees to it because ppl who thinks that it is interresting might just move. And even if the whole world agreed to the law how would you write it? Its not as if you could use "Dont make anything dangerously with AI" After all Nobel said he made nitroglycin because he thought it would be safer...

Re:Caution

[Prof.Phreak]

You're talking about robots that take over the world, right...

Well, why shouldn't they? Evolution is survival of the fittest, and this `fittest' has many senses. For one: they will not take over unless they're just as smart as we are (if not smarter). I can certainly imagine them being much fitter physically (hey can already go to Mars!)

Humans place too much importance on themselves. What we can't get over is that we may just be a stepping stone on the evolutionary scale. Maybe it is our `destiny' (if there is such a thing) to create a `being' (robot, etc.) that's more advanced that we are, that can survive the harshness of space, and continue on our legacy for a billion years into the future possibly on another planet. I don't see humans surviving that long, but I can imagine that the machines we create might.

Re:Caution

[nkh]

It's a game, not world domination.

It's a game, not world domination yet...

Re:Caution

[nomadic]

I know it's still a long way off from a Matrix-esque scenario (or better yet, Skynet), but this has me a little jumpy. Not because we are doing amazing things with AI these days, but because we keep advancing it in a totally carefree manner.

Indeed. At this pace, in a few years no flag will be safe from robot capturers!

Re:Caution

[Anonymous Coward]

Start panicking when a autonomous device can navigate stairs.

Or knock down buildings.

man 6 robots 0

[Anonymous Coward]

You know all they're going to do is run into each other and explode.

First-aid

[Scrameustache]

find heat sources in a collapsed building within 3 to 6 years.

Yeah, I think the body will be cold by then...

The world needs a collaboration between

[messiuh]

Real Dolls and QRIO for me to have any vested interest :-)


Kinda like AI.. only replace Jude Law and give me Rebecca

*sigh*... how great the world would be.

Re:The world needs a collaboration between

[Anonymous Coward]

Rebecca Romijn (pronounced "Romaine", like the lettuce)...

Mmmmm. Lettuce.

Re:The world needs a collaboration between

[Anonymous Coward]

The Real Doll site is here and the program used for the ethernet interface seems to be for Windows only...

Re:The world needs a collaboration between

[psykotedy]

Yeah, because QRIO is hot.

Re:The world needs a collaboration between

[sploo22]

Yeah, because QRIO is hot.

Really? It looks like its head is on upside-down to me.

Re:The world needs a collaboration between

[KDR_11k]

Finally geeks will be able to point at someone's girlfriend and ask "Yes, but does she run Linux?"...

They will never win...

[brxndxn]

until they master jumping around while strafing and shooting..

I am not impressed until I see one jump+crouch and scream 'I pwn j00!'

Re:They will never win...

[Epistax]

You obviously haven't played unreal lately..

Arguable?

[Squidbait]

If the theory of evolution has worked well for us -- even if this is arguable these days

Do I detect the scent of an evolution denier? And it is interesting that you implicitly question the validity of a theory even as you cite an example of its successful application.

Re:Arguable?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't help evolution's status as a scientific theory that every time someone mentions its problems and/or shortcomings, they are subjected to intense social pressure to stop talking about it and conform.

The current group of theories that make up evolutionary theory as a whole (from paleontology, biology, molecular biology, etc.) DO have some problems serious to warrant real discussion and investigation. But instead of recognizing this and just considering that there are parts of evolution that we don't understand yet, most evolutionists become extremely defensive whenever they are mentioned.

Sure, it's a reaction. But it's an overreaction and it is NOT helpful to the progress of science.

Furthermore, there is nothing odd about questioning a theory even while successfully applying it to solve a real-world problem. That's the difference between practical and theoretical science.

Most things ever created by humans were designed using theories that turned out to be wrong. That just doesn't mean they weren't helpful! For example, almost every large, complex structure on the planet was designed using the principles of Newtonian physics. As it turns out, Newtonian physics, in the real world, never has given us the exactly correct answer. But, it's good enough to tango.

There are thousands of other examples (Ptolmeaic astonomy, phlogiston, etc.) of completely discredited theories that nevertheless gave usable answers to practical users.

I would also like to add that the reason those theories were eventually discredited is because there were anomolies and counter-examples that could not be resolved. Ignoring the current anomolies and counter-examples of evolutionary theory does not help to resolve them, and only tends to make evolution appear to be a bad, or at least sub-par and questionable, field of science.

Re:Arguable?

[Anonymous Coward]

I aboslutely cannot believe that this post hasn't been modded up.

Re:Arguable?

[Squidbait]

Fair enough. I would never be one to squash legitimate debate about any issue, and I would encourage reasonable criticism of any scientific theory. But given the battle, particularly in the US, between believers in evolution and religious folk of many kinds (who are in the majority), nine times out of ten when someone makes off the cuff remarks questioning the validity of evolution, they are not coming from a scientific standpoint. If the orginal post was meant as a joke, then I'll shut up, although again, given the social climate, there are probably more people who would take the comment seriously than as a joke. If evolutionists are sensitive to unjustified criticism, can you blame them?

Re:Arguable?

[Jerf]

You can equally sensibly interpret the submitter's statement as an observation that we are not evolved for the civilization we live in, because in terms of "number of generations" since civilization (especially 20th and 21st century civilization), it hasn't been anywhere near enough, plus there has been a "lack" of selection pressures in many cases.

(It's not quite that bad because our civilization has evolved to match us, but it's still not perfect; for instance, you can blame "lack of willpower" for the current obesity problem all you want, but in a very real way the blame lies equally on the fact that many common body metabolisms and brains are not adapted for the food in our civilization.)

Re:Arguable?

[PsiPsiStar]

If you want, you can still use Geocentric models of the solar system to calculate astronomical events. Heliocentric models are far simpler, but there are no priveldged frames of reference in Physics, so you can do it.

Re:Arguable?

[Anonymous Coward]

To simplify Jerf's response: What is arguable is whether it has worked well, and not whether it has worked.

Re:Arguable?

[Anonymous Coward]

The current group of theories that make up evolutionary theory as a whole (from paleontology, biology, molecular biology, etc.) DO have some problems serious to warrant real discussion and investigation.

Like what?

The basics are well-established; evolutionary theory isn't going away. Some of details are still up in the air.

Ignoring the current anomolies and counter-examples of evolutionary theory does not help to resolve them, and only tends to make evolution appear to be a bad, or at least sub-par and questionable, field of science.

Who ignores "anomalies and counter-examples" of evolutionary theory, or any other theory? Certainly not the scientists working on the theories, and I don't see any issues being ignored on Slashdot. (I also note that you haven't proposed any such "anomalies and counter-examples" for discussion.)

People study things that seem to run counter to the prevailing ideas; that's the whole point of science. But it is quite another thing to suggest that some fatal or even potentially fatal flaw in the theory is being covered up.

Also, as you note yourself, the anomalies that resulted in Newton's theories being superseded did not result in Newton's work being junked. Newton's laws were essentially right. Mercury's perihelion precession from Einstein's theory didn't chuck Newton's inverse square law out the window, it just added a minor correction to a well-established and rightly accepted theory. Likewise, the basic precepts of evolution -- selection, mutation, and recombination -- aren't going to be chucked. Maybe we don't have all the details about how they interact with each other, but it's disingenous to claim that evolutionary theory has "serious problems".

Re:Arguable?

[Drooling Iguana]

There are no privilaged inertial frames, but the Earth is not in an inertial frame. If it was, it would be shooting off in a straight line at a constant velocity.

Re:Arguable?

[LaBlueCow]

Just a side note - not all 'religious folk' are anti-evolutionists, as you seem to imply. In fact, if you understand the ideas, and the fact that many (if not most) of the Bible is best taken as allegory/metaphor/etc., evolution and creation are no different. Though in Genesis it states it took 7 days to "create" everything, it also states elsewhere that A) he works within the rules he created for the system (i.e. when was the last time an animal went POOF! and appeared?), and B) a thousand years here is but a day there (to him).
And no, I'm not even a religious zealot... I can't stand mos religious folk. But just because you find yourself to be scientific minded, don't throw out something because it walked in under the heading "religion" instead of "science". It may be the same anyhow.

Re:Arguable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, this is true and actually a good example of what I'm talking about. Sufficiently complex Geocentric models can still be accurate. The accuracy of the *answers* is what makes a theory practical, but the accuracy of the *model itself* is what makes a theory 'true'.

Geocentricity as a way of getting answers about positions and eclipses is still accurate to a useful degree. Geocentricity as the actual claim that the Earth is the center of gravitational motion in the Universe is *not* accurate to any degree.

Re:Arguable?

[tkittel]

> There are no privilaged inertial frames, but the
> Earth is not in an inertial frame. If it was, it
> would be shooting off in a straight line at a
> constant velocity.

Actually "straight line" is also undefined in this context. A frame of reference attached to the earth, is indeed not an intertial frame. But the way to see this is because the laws of Newton are invalid if expressed in the coordinates of such a frame (even in the unrelativistic limit).

Re:Arguable?

[Anonymous Coward]

"the basic precepts of evolution -- selection, mutation, and recombination -- aren't going to be chucked."

Right, but that's actually where most of the current anomolies exist. For example, evolution works on the raw material of mutation, but there appear to be 'mutation shortages' if you want to go all the way from microbes to whales, especially since you have to get there via fish and land mammals.

There are a great many kinds of random mutation, the most random of which are 'point mutations'. While best at creating new random fodder for natural selection, point mutations are rare and most likely to be harmful. Other forms of mutation are more common, but less likely to produce truly original forms. Creationists scoff at evolutionary timelines of 5 billion years or so, but actually the current question is whether that is even enough time to get all the mutation done. Meanwhile, geology and astronomy are (at about the same theoretical level) pushing back the number of years actually available for life to have evolved on earth.

The real existence of the 'time crunch' anomoly is evident in the recent interest in cosmic seed theories and other theories that, even though they themselves have huge problems, are being looked at by scientists who want to start examining alternatives.

I'm not trying to hype any of these theories, or claim there are crippling problems with evolutionary theory. I'm just saying that reasonable people can have serious, unanswered questions about evolutionary theory and should not be discouraged from mentioning them.

Re: Arguable?

[Black Parrot]

> For example, evolution works on the raw material of mutation, but there appear to be 'mutation shortages' if you want to go all the way from microbes to whales, especially since you have to get there via fish and land mammals.

So how many mutations were required, and how many have we had?

> The real existence of the 'time crunch' anomoly is evident in the recent interest in cosmic seed theories

Hardly solves the purported problem, unless you think whales have been falling out of the interstellar void.

> I'm not trying to hype any of these theories, or claim there are crippling problems with evolutionary theory. I'm just saying that reasonable people can have serious, unanswered questions about evolutionary theory and should not be discouraged from mentioning them.

Sure... feel free to mention some.

Re:Arguable?

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, evolution works on the raw material of mutation, but there appear to be 'mutation shortages' if you want to go all the way from microbes to whales, especially since you have to get there via fish and land mammals.

Citation?

Re:Arguable?

[Tyreth]

And what of those religious folks who have genuine scientific objections, and who also would not accept darwinism even if they lost their faith? Are they to be ignored too? Or is it completely unreasonable for one to outline the fundamental problems with the darwinist model?

Re:Arguable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or he could be saying that humans are doing some stupid things these days.

Re:Arguable?

[Quelain]

"It doesn't help evolution's status as a scientific theory that every time someone mentions its problems and/or shortcomings, they are subjected to intense social pressure to stop talking about it and conform."

Bullshit. Science doesn't care a bit about the ramblings of a bunch of whacko creationists, or how others like myself respond to it, it's not a bloody democracy you know.

If there is any pressure on you, it's basically a case of "stop talking shit". You can believe whatever weird shit you like, but if you want to try forcing it into public schools or rant about it in a public forum, people will call you on it, and demand evidence for your claims.

Ignoring the current anomolies and counter-examples of evolutionary theory does not help to resolve them, and only tends to make evolution appear to be a bad, or at least sub-par and questionable, field of science.

Would you care to name some of these anomalies and counter examples then? That claim is your stock standard creationist dogma, who's conforming now hey?

Re:Arguable?

[Quelain]

He could just be saying that perhaps evolution could have done a better job for us than it actually has. We've been at it for 3 billion years, and not got a lot to show for it really.

Re:Arguable?

[Quelain]

"And what of those religious folks who have genuine scientific objections, and who also would not accept darwinism even if they lost their faith? Are they to be ignored too?"

Anyone who has credible evidence will not be ignored, no matter which cult they do or don't belong to. If they don't have credible evidence to back up their claims, they will be ignored (or laughed at). It's as simple as that.

"Or is it completely unreasonable for one to outline the fundamental problems with the darwinist model?"

Please go right ahead, I'd really like to hear it.

Actually, given a statement like that, I insist that you back up your claims.

Re:Arguable?

[Tyreth]

Anyone who has credible evidence will not be ignored, no matter which cult they do or don't belong to. If they don't have credible evidence to back up their claims, they will be ignored (or laughed at). It's as simple as that.

My experience is quite different. People will ignore me, and mock me - and then after I persist and point out their childishness and present my arguments, they apologise and get into more serious debate. The mockery comes first, and after that is weathered out, then comes the listening ear (no matter how blocked it is).

Please go right ahead, I'd really like to hear it.

Actually, given a statement like that, I insist that you back up your claims.

Though you may think it clever to demand of me an outline of my problems to back up my original post, it by no means follows. I asked, "Is it unreasable for one to outline fundamental problems with the darwinist model?" The question asks nothing about whether such problems exist. It simply asks, if such problems do exist, then is it unreasonable to outline them? To answer that question you would have to say either "yes" or "no". Me simply outlining the problems does nothing to resolve my original question - after all, you may still consider it unreasonable to outline real, fundamental problems - and therefore have not answered my question.

There is one other 'problem' - I tend to restrict my debates on slashdot, because it really isn't the best medium for discussion of this topic. It quickly branches off into multiple areas, without sufficient depth in each, and I find myself having to respond to five people for every post I make. I sometimes end up communicating with people via email, but again due to time constraints must restrict that.

Re:Arguable?

[TychoBrahe]

Before Tyreth gets around to outlining what he sees as fundamental problems with the darwinist model, first he should get around to defining the "darwinist model." I ask because creationists will often attempt to attack evolution as though it were another religion: through quoting scripture, appealing to authorities who agree with them (even when it's clear that these authorities endorse creationism due to religious and not scientific reasons), dismissing the vast number of authorities who do not agree with them as being atheists or secularists or materialists, invoking vague moral arguments (e.g. Evolution was responsible for fascism, communism, liberal views on sex), and attempting to discredit the founder (e.g. Darwin recanted on his death-bed).

However, what creationists must realize is that simply attempting to refer to "evolutionism" or "Darwinism" doesn't fly since the founder of a theory is not intimately tied to the accuracy of that theory. Now, scientists will refer to views like "neo-Darwinism" but do so to differentiate one view of evolution from another, not to refer to all evolutionary theories and mechanisms.

Re:Arguable?

[Quelain]

So you have credible evidence then? Why aren't you rushing off to your nearest university biology department?

Your statement:
"Or is it completely unreasonable for one to outline the fundamental problems with the darwinist model?"

I want to hear your claims because you are implying that there actually are fundamental problems.

Should I get modded down for pointing out the many serious problems with Linux?

Have you stopped beating your wife?

Come on, yes or no answers please!

You could have outlined one of these fundamental problems in the time it took to write this. If you don't think this is a good medium for discussion, why did you raise the subject? Thanks for responding this time though.

Re:Arguable?

[Tyreth]

So you have credible evidence then? Why aren't you rushing off to your nearest university biology department?

For the same reason the atheist does not run into the church to speak with the priest with his evidence. He doesn't expect they will listen, because there's more than just evidence involved in the person's conversion.

I want to hear your claims because you are implying that there actually are fundamental problems.

You want to hear my claims? It's nice of you to be interested, but it's still nothing to do with my original post. I'll recommend a book to you instead. This book summarises the problems excellently, and it's far better than me trying to write a book-length response: "Darwin on Trial" by Phillip E. Johnson. You can find it on Amazon.

Should I get modded down for pointing out the many serious problems with Linux?

No you shouldn't.

Have you stopped beating your wife?

Wah...? Where did this come from?

1. I don't have a wife
2. If I did, I wouldn't beat her, so I wouldn't need to stop.

Come on, yes or no answers please!

What in the world is your point?

You could have outlined one of these fundamental problems in the time it took to write this. If you don't think this is a good medium for discussion, why did you raise the subject? Thanks for responding this time though.

Because some discussions slashdot is suited to - mass conversion through introduction. Build up interest and curiosity to something so those with the time and inclination can spend what is necessary to find out more. Also, so that when darwinist posts are made, people realise that there are actually others, within the geek community, that have objections. Geeks are generally curious and some will want to find out more.

Re:Arguable?

[Quelain]

Yes, it creates the impression that the way science operates is just as dogmatic and arbitrary as your average religion.

It's the FUD spreading aspect of those sort of statements that annoys me most though. There are many claims of problems with the theory or contradictory evidence being ignored, but ask for details and you get silence, or at best a link to "The Institute for Creation Research".

I'll let the ICR president speak about their impartiality and commitment to science:

Our world, our church, our schools, our society, need the truth of creation more than ever. We see the wrong thinking of evolution having produced devastating results in every realm. Our passion at the Institute for Creation Research is to see science return to its rightful God-glorifying position, and see creation recognized as a strength by the body of Christ; supporting Scripture, answering questions, satisfying doubts and removing road blocks to the Gospel. The Institute for Creation research Graduate School exists to train students in scientific research and teaching skills, preparing effective warriors for the faith. We are delighted that you are considering honing your skills in creation thinking, and trust that God will lead you. We look forward to hearing from you.

John D. Morris, Ph.D., President
Institute for Creation Research

Re:Arguable?

[Anonymous Coward]

he's trolling.

you just took the bait.

Re:Arguable?

[TLSPRWR]

Several books you should check out if you want to see credible scientists and/or philosophers who oppose the Evolutionary theory and their reasons behind such:

New Evidence that Demands A Verdict - Josh McDowell

The Case For A Creator - Lee Strobel
(Frankly, anything by Lee Strobel, former atheist and writer for Chicago Tribune, is fantastic.)

I have a few other titles floating around my bookshelves if you're interested. Just thought you might want to see the other side of the issue.

Re:Arguable?

[Quelain]

He doesn't expect they will listen, because there's more than just evidence involved in the person's conversion.

When it comes to science though, evidence is the *only* thing which matters. If you have some valid evidence and don't think they will listen, I'd be more than happy to hand it in for you, a Nobel prize would be way cool.

Would you say that you have more than "just evidence" involved in your 'conversion' to creationism?

"Darwin on Trial" by Phillip E. Johnson.

Johnson is a lawyer, and argues like one. Science is not a courtroom, and even if it was, he still has no "Exhibit A" to submit to the jury, nor even an expert witness.

Please take the time to read this critique of "Darwin on Trial".

What in the world is your point?

Surely you can see that I was demonstrating the problem with your original question?

"Or is it completely unreasonable for one to outline the fundamental problems with the darwinist model?"

Wah...? Where did this come from?

1. There is no "darwinist model".
2. Assuming you mean the Theory of Evolution, there are no known fundamental problems.
3. If you are claiming to have some knowledge of one or more fundamental problems, I'd like to know what they are.

See, it's not a yes or no answer now is it?

Also, so that when darwinist posts are made, people realise that there are actually others, within the geek community, that have objections.

I'm not a Darwinist by the way. The term seems to imply a person dedicated to some cause, but the fact is just I happen to agree with current scientific thinking on the origins of life on earth, on the basis that they have actual evidence for it.

Implying that thousands of scientists are incompetent or part of a huge conspiracy to suppress evidence and stamp out opposing views is a far cry from just letting it be known that you disagree with a viewpoint.

Re:Arguable?

[Tyreth]

Would you say that you have more than "just evidence" involved in your 'conversion' to creationism?

I am against Darwinism (see below) whether or not I ascribe to creationism.

Johnson is a lawyer, and argues like one. Science is not a courtroom, and even if it was, he still has no "Exhibit A" to submit to the jury, nor even an expert witness.

Please take the time to read this critique of "Darwin on Trial".

It may not surprise you to hear that I've already seen that critique. Have you read Johnson's book? The point of his book is that darwinism, by and large, simply isn't about science. Therefore comments on him being a lawyer are entirely irrelevant.

Surely you can see that I was demonstrating the problem with your original question?

You did nothing of the sort. Both of your questions - if appropriately addressed - warrant a yes or no answer. You did not answer my initial question, but instead changed what it was asking and addressed that. In both instances I addressed your question at hand.

1. There is no "darwinist model".

There most certainly is. It is a convenient term to distinguish from, say, those who ascribe to punctuated equilibrium, and again from creationists. It is not a derogatory term - it is simply a nice description to help define the terms involved. Debates can become bogged down due to unclear uses - this is an attempt to help clarify that. If I simply said "evolutionist", then it means way too many things to be useful.

2. Assuming you mean the Theory of Evolution, there are no known fundamental problems.

If you mean "A change in allele frequencies in a population over time" then yes, I agree with you. If you mean "All living things share a common ancestor", then no - I don't agree with you.

3. If you are claiming to have some knowledge of one or more fundamental problems, I'd like to know what they are.

I've already addressed you to a book. There are plenty of other resources. If you genuinely want to know what they are, then you can research - but I can't summarise many books worth of information into a small slashdot debate. The problem with this debate goes far beyond problems with darwinism. There is the problem of misunderstood terms, unclear distinction between different uses of it, etc. People, for example, offer proof of one form of the word 'evolution', and then by deception say that all uses of the word 'evolution' now have proof. That just isn't the case.

See, it's not a yes or no answer now is it?

Only because you're not answering the question, but assuming other questions, and including your own thoughts to justify your answers. You could just say "No, it's not unreasonable to present fudamental problems with darwinism". Or you could say, "Yes it's unreasonable." Your third 'point' answered the question. Your second 'point' answered it the opposite way. The only thing I think you could say is a criticism of my use of the term 'darwinist' - but that is just a case of me having not defined the terms I was using initially.

I'm not a Darwinist by the way. The term seems to imply a person dedicated to some cause, but the fact is just I happen to agree with current scientific thinking on the origins of life on earth, on the basis that they have actual evidence for it.

Sure, and the mainstream scientific view is darwinism. It is a nice way to distinguish from puntuated equilibrium, creationists, and other views of 'evolution'. It is much better than saying 'evolutionist' because that can mean so many things. According to the scientific definition of evolution I would consider myself an evolutionist. What do you consider to be the scientific theory of evolution?

Implying that thousan

Re:Arguable?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Citation?"

No, Pinto. Seriously, I had a Chevy Citation once. It sucked. I've also gotten citations for speeding. They sucked. Conclusion: all citations suck.

Re:Arguable?

[Quelain]

I am against Darwinism (see below) whether or not I ascribe to creationism.

So you are using the term 'darwinist' to describe someone who feels that the theory of evolution provides an adequate explanation for the history of life on earth, right?

It may not surprise you to hear that I've already seen that critique.

Have you read it though? There are many others if you don't like that one.

Have you read Johnson's book? The point of his book is that darwinism, by and large, simply isn't about science. Therefore comments on him being a lawyer are entirely irrelevant.

I'm not wasting good money on obviously bogus arguments and dishonest misrepresentations. I have seen enough examples of his illogical arguments and quote mining tactics to see what he is about. How is a lawyer qualified to judge what is and isn't science?

Have you seen this? What does that say about Johnsons motives and impartiality?

If you genuinely want to know what they are, then you can research - but I can't summarise many books worth of information into a small slashdot debate.

I only ask for a short description of one of these fundamental problems, surely that can't be too hard? Or is it completely unreasonable to ask you to outline (one of) the fundamental problems with 'darwinism'?

Both of your questions - if appropriately addressed - warrant a yes or no answer. You did not answer my initial question, but instead changed what it was asking and addressed that. In both instances I addressed your question at hand.

OK then, maybe you will see the problem with this one:

"Should I buy "Darwin on Trial", the Intelligent Designologist manifesto, even though its author is blatantly dishonest and each and every argument he has presented has been totally refuted?"

Yes or no?

According to the scientific definition of evolution I would consider myself an evolutionist.

Great, but what makes you think it has not applied in the past?

What do you consider to be the scientific theory of evolution?

It's a collection of statements about the mechanisms and processes like natural selection by which organisms evolve.

That all life on earth evolved from a common ancestor is just a plain simple fact, not part of the theory.

It has something to say on the fundamentals of life: How we got here, what is the meaning of life, what is right and wrong, etc.

Yes, maybe it does. So?

darwinism is a theory that explains everything but predicts nothing.

There is no theory of darwinism. There is just the cold hard fact that life on earth evolved from a common ancestor. Not a theory, well supported fact.

Any conceivable data can be made to fit into the theory, so one cannot predict anything with it (except that changes will occur).

No, you are very wrong on that count.

Transitional forms can be predicted, and have been, and there are many ways that common descent can be falsified. Try finding a Permian bird fossil for instance, or a flying horse fossil. Or look for a yet undiscovered species which has a completely unique DNA sequence. Find some land-starfish.

Scientists therefore never really study evolution. They are told its essential points, take it to heart, and then go about doing real science without needing to refer to it much at all.

Not if your scientist is a biologist.

Re:Arguable?

[PsiPsiStar]

Copernican theory didn't postulate gravity. It postulated weightless, massless 'spheres' and similarly massless heavenly bodies.

Re:Arguable?

[Talence]

Perhaps you can explain why Lee Strobel "forgot" to actually interview people with opposing ideas and good argumentations? It is rather easy to present your case as entirely correct if you do not present any actual counterarguments.

Re:Arguable?

[Tyreth]

So you are using the term 'darwinist' to describe someone who feels that the theory of evolution provides an adequate explanation for the history of life on earth, right?

I am using the term 'darwinism' to be a catch all phrase for, among other things:
1. All life shares a common ancestor
2. Slow, gradual change rather than punctuated equilibrium (therefore a rejection of Gould's 'Hopeful Monster')
3. Naturalism (as opposed to scientific theories that are not naturalistic)

Possibly other things I'm forgetting.

Have you read it though? There are many others if you don't like that one.

I'm currently writing a response to this article, but there are so many mistakes that it is getting quite long. I want to know - if I'm responding, are you interested enough to read my response? Have you read Spitzer's thoughts? Not sure I should be wasting my time.
Ugh. Another 10 minute break here - thought I'd read some more in case there was an actual reasonable objection - but it gets worse! I really don't think this article is worth my time. I'm wondering if this guy actually read the book properly. Where he claims Johnson was misrepresenting people...how he claims they originally said these things is exactly the way I perceived it when I read Johnson's book. But there's much more. I might finish, or I might write a part - it all depends on your interest level.

I'm not wasting good money on obviously bogus arguments and dishonest misrepresentations. I have seen enough examples of his illogical arguments and quote mining tactics to see what he is about. How is a lawyer qualified to judge what is and isn't science?

Have you seen this? What does that say about Johnsons motives and impartiality?

Heh...maybe if I found a real objection I might agree. Perhaps Spitzer and I are reading different editions - I do have the second printing. Then again, Spitzer's article is from 2002, and the second printing was in 1993. I have no reason to suspect Johnson's integrity.

"Should I buy "Darwin on Trial", the Intelligent Designologist manifesto, even though its author is blatantly dishonest and each and every argument he has presented has been totally refuted?"

Yes or no?

IF it was blatantly dishonest, then you should not buy it. But it is not. You would see for yourself if you read the book and understood it. Spitzer clearly did not. I cannot believe how far off track he was. And I don't get your point with this "yes or no" rubbish. You still haven't told me why I was wrong to ask for 'yes or no' - you're just monkeying around with irrelevant mockery. Just because you went off topic without answering the question is no reason to blame me for pointing it out. Great, but what makes you think it has not applied in the past?

I don't understand what you are saying. I think "evolution" (the scientific definition I provided), such as natural selection and adaptation, has been in operation since the beginning of life.

It's a collection of statements about the mechanisms and processes like natural selection by which organisms evolve.

That all life on earth evolved from a common ancestor is just a plain simple fact, not part of the theory.

A plain simple fact? That is the crux of the debate. It is certainly not a fact. What would you say is the scientific theory of evolution? Usually I get pointed to "a change in allele frequencies in a population over time". I have no problem with that. I once was pointed to Darwin's Origin of Species, but that is outdated and considered flawed in part. Ie, it doesn't represent modern darwinism. Yes, maybe it does. So?

So? So, that means that every person on this planet has a reason to be biased about this topic. That's what.

Transitional forms can be predicted, and have been, and there are many ways that common descent can be falsified. Try finding a Permian bird fossil for instanc

Re:Arguable?

[Anonymous Coward]

What would you say is the scientific theory of evolution?

The scientific theory of evolution is common descent, through the mechanisms of natural selection, mutation, and recombination. Common descent is the idea that all extant organisms are descended from a common ancestor, and so includes the speciation to which you object.

Usually I get pointed to "a change in allele frequencies in a population over time".

That's not the theory of evolution, that's the process of evolution. It's like if you ask someone what gravity is. The process is that masses attract each other. The theory is Newton's inverse square law of gravity, or Einstein's field equation of general relativity, or superstring theory's description of quantum gravity, or whatever other theory you're considering.
The theory predicts the process.

And just exactly how would any of these discoveries cause Dawkins or Gould to throw up their hands and say "all these years we were wrong, all living things do not share a common ancestor after all!"

A unique DNA sequence, completely unrelated to any other living organism, would essentially falsify the idea of a universal common ancestor. (However, it would do nothing to refute the massive evidence that all other life on Earth shares a common ancestor.)

Of course, since you are so fond of accusing scientists of religious dogmatism, that probably doesn't convince you that the high priests Dawkins and Gould would admit the theory was wrong even in the face of this evidence.

Re:Arguable?

[Scrameustache]

You have just been trolled. Every thread that mentions evolution, Tyreth is there, trolling away, going "wahh! waaaaaah! People don't respect my (loonie fundie idiotic) views!".

He's a very effective troll, he's learned to use big words that make him sound halfway rational, but you've been had (been there myself).

Watch for it, after a while he can't restrain himself and out comes the "but if we evolved from monkeys there is no right and wrong!" bullshit...moving the conversation away from science. Does it everytime.

Re:Arguable?

[Scrameustache]

Aww jeez, who modded that flamebait as insightfull? Sigh...

If the theory of evolution has worked well for us -- even if this is arguable these days

Do I detect the scent of an evolution denier?

No.
What he meant was: Evolution has worked well for us, though seeing all the idiots running around its arguable that evolving AIs will grow in intelligence.

It was a sort of joke, wich you did not get, and attacked, and now you've woken up the creationist trolls.

Re:Arguable?

[TLSPRWR]

There are plenty of books out there with opposing arguements. You don't have to look too hard to find scientists who support Evolution to their death, whereas Lee finds some who are could be considered 'against the grain'. Granted, it's not a fair showing of all the sides of the issue, but it's not meant to be the final word on the subject. Don't ever let just one book/theory finalize your judgement on something. Research for yourself goes a long way.

Re:Arguable?

[Scrameustache]

Anyone who has credible evidence will not be ignored, no matter which cult they do or don't belong to. If they don't have credible evidence to back up their claims, they will be ignored (or laughed at). It's as simple as that.

My experience is quite different. People will ignore me, and mock me

Tyreth, you do not have credible evidence.
That is why you are ignored and laughed at.

I tend to restrict my debates on slashdot

lol! You troll every single thread that mentions the word "evolution"!

Though you may think it clever to demand of me an outline of my problems to back up my original post, it by no means follows. I asked, "Is it unreasable for one to outline fundamental problems with the darwinist model?" The question asks nothing about whether such problems exist.

You sophist bastard, here's the original post:

And what of those religious folks who have genuine scientific objections, and who also would not accept darwinism even if they lost their faith? Are they to be ignored too? Or is it completely unreasonable for one to outline the fundamental problems with the darwinist model?

You claimed genuine scientific objections, then you say "oh! Poor me! I did not claim such problems existed!".

And before you start your standard "they mock me while I am oh so polite!" bitching, lets look at your half-disguised attacks/mockeries/insults from that post alone:

1. their childishness
   
2. listening ear (no matter how blocked it is)
   
3. you may think it clever
   
4. without sufficient depth

So stop the martyr act and either put up your "genuine scientific objections" or go back to church.

Re:Arguable?

[Talence]

Actually, the only issue I have with Strobel is that he pretends to take a certain critical approach and turns out not to be critical at all (i.e. if he were, he would have bothered interviewing people with intelligent counterarguments). You mention Lee as recommended reading, but you seem to retract his book. Of course to someone who already shares his conclusion, all of his arguments are highly convincing since they "confirm" what they already believe.

While evolution theory might or might not have its issues, I see no merit in resorting to primitive superstition based on a "big guy in the sky who made everything" theory. As far as I can see, most enthusiastic argumentation against evolution is from religious people, who can hardly be called unbiased.

A misunderstanding that you may have is that being a scientist does not equate being an atheist. Being a scientist myself, I was able to see for myself that enough scientists happen to be religious. Some of those probably don't believe in evolution at all, others believe in deistic evolution, etc.

If former beliefs are of any relevant, then on that basis, these guys and this one should be as convincing to you as your Strobel guy is intended to be to me.

Re:Arguable?

[sartin]

even if it is arguable these daysDo I detect the scent of an evolution denier?

I took the arguable "these days" part to be questioning if evolution is currently helping, or indeed affecting in any way, humanity any longer. It seems all of the anti-survival behavior we humans engage in does not affect our ability to reproduce.

Re:Arguable?

[ACPosterChild]

I think you mis-read it.

He's either saying that you can't really argue whether evolution exists because there's too much proof now that it does, or he's being sarcastic and saying that maybe evolution hasn't produced very good results (us). It's not too clear, but I don't thinks it's a knock against evolution.

Re:Arguable?

[ACPosterChild]

Though you may think it clever to demand of me an outline of my problems to back up my original post, it by no means follows.

The "Please go right ahead" is an implied "yes". So, yes it does follow (well, it should to any native English speaker).

Also, if it's not true that you hold those beliefs, then you should put a disclaimer to avoid confusion. Alternatively, instead of saying in your reply that a logical assumption and request does not follow one of your statements, you should simply point out that you didn't mean to imply such and that you hold no such beliefs, because logical expectation and causation is on his side here.

An aside:
Something I've found is that people with "radical" ideas who nitpick phrases and continually force arguments over semantics and tangental topics usually don't actually have ANY argument. Not simply a bad one, but NONE. You just CAN'T get them to tell you their theories.

Re:Arguable?

[Anonymous Coward]

"3. Naturalism (as opposed to scientific theories that are not naturalistic)"

The following are "naturalistic" scientific theories, ie contain no supernatural elements, in no particular order:

germ theory
gravity
abiogenesis
cell theory
evolution
relativity
plate tectonics
heliocetrism
big bang cosmology
atomic theory
electromagnetic theory
game theory
etc.

The following scientific theories are not naturalistic, in no particular order:
None.

Re:Arguable?

[default luser]

This may be THE FUNNIEST thing I have ever read on Slashdot.

Congratulations on the 1 dozen + post troll, may we all live long enough to again view such majesty.

Re:Arguable?

[Tyreth]

Nice list, but completely misses the point. Naturalism:
"(philosophy) the doctrine that the world can be understood in scientific terms without recourse to spiritual or supernatural explanations"

So, even for someone who does not hold to the naturalistic philosophy would still agree that all those theories hold scientific explanations without recourse to the supernatural. The difference is that he admits:
a. That not everything can be understood through science (indeed, some questions can only be answered by philosophy)
b. That there may be supernatural or spiritual explanations for some things

Re:Arguable?

[Tyreth]

lol! You troll every single thread that mentions the word "evolution"!

Yes I do. But you have difficulty distinguishing between "reminding people of the debate through introduction" and "presenting a full length argument against evolution and defending it from all attacks". The latter is a nightmare - ever tried to answer 5 posts for every single post you make? So I do the former. Which is what I originally said. Which gives you no reason to laugh.

You claimed genuine scientific objections, then you say "oh! Poor me! I did not claim such problems existed!".

Is it my turn to laugh now? You just quoted and supported _exactly_ what I was saying. My argument was about people's propensity to laugh and mock first, then listen. I then asked why it is absurd to present fundamental problems. I did NOT ask if such problems exist. Perhaps you have difficulty distinguishing between the fine points. I was simply asking what's so wrong about presenting these arguments online? My answer was that there should be no problem. People should respond first with listening and then mockery, not mockery first and then listen. It was an argument about the climate of the discussion on slashdot, not about the content of the argument. I don't know why you can't see that - but you did quote it, very nicely, so anyone else will see.

And before you start your standard "they mock me while I am oh so polite!" bitching, lets look at your half-disguised attacks/mockeries/insults from that post alone:

• their childishness
• listening ear (no matter how blocked it is)
• you may think it clever
• without sufficient depth

So stop the martyr act and either put up your "genuine scientific objections" or go back to church.

1. their childishness - This was accurate. They call me names (as you are), use insults and mockery to try to win the debate. That is not good form, and is, precisely, childish. Adults should argue the facts, while children resort to insults.
2. listening ear (no matter how blocked it is) - yes, I will admit that there was some mockery here of certain others I have dealt with in the past. It was not, however, directed at the original poster. Just like I don't take it personally when darwinists tell me of the ignorance of other creationists they've argued with
3. you may think it clever - I was responding in kind to his cocky request. It was intended to cut him short and remind him that this wasn't about him making whirlwind requests, but about a different topic that he was trying to derail.
4. without sufficient depth - I have no idea how you think this one is an attack/mockery/insult. It was a simple fact - when you argue with five people, your time runs out. You don't get enough time to deal with each topic in detail, but instead must brush over them in order to race to the next person and answer them. What made you think that this was anything derogatory?

Now you can answer me - why am I not allowed to ask the question, "Is it unreasable for one to outline fundamental problems with the darwinist model?" in order to determine why people mock first, then listen? Why do you have to try to turn that question into another topic instead without dealing with the one I'm asking? Am I not permitted to choose a debate topic? You replied to me, but you are not obliged to. Nor am I obliged to respect your change of topic.

Case point of why I don't argue on slashdot - I pointed out the book "Darwin on Trial" as a reference for my problems (after all, why should I reproduce an entire book on slashdot?). What I received then was a link to a critique of the book, which the person I responded to thought was sufficient reason to not read the book. I then looked at this critique, and began writing a response to it. I realised after an hour of writing that there were so many flaws and inaccuracies that it would take me many more hours to complete. And that's just from me posting a link to a book! This happens no matter what I post, so much so that the debate bogs down, my time is consumed, and nothing is achieved.

Re:Arguable?

[Tyreth]

The "Please go right ahead" is an implied "yes". So, yes it does follow (well, it should to any native English speaker).

I wasn't talking about his demand that I outline the fundamental problems with evolution. I was saying that such a request does not follow from my original question.

Also, if it's not true that you hold those beliefs, then you should put a disclaimer to avoid confusion. Alternatively, instead of saying in your reply that a logical assumption and request does not follow one of your statements, you should simply point out that you didn't mean to imply such and that you hold no such beliefs, because logical expectation and causation is on his side here.

Then I was right not to put such a disclaimer. However, I find it interesting that if I put such a disclaimer, then you would be able to answer my question - but as soon as you think I do believe there are fundamental problems, my question can't be answered, but the topic must be changed.

Something I've found is that people with "radical" ideas who nitpick phrases and continually force arguments over semantics and tangental topics usually don't actually have ANY argument. Not simply a bad one, but NONE. You just CAN'T get them to tell you their theories.

My ideas aren't really "radical". I'll tell you why I won't share the problems, as I put in another post:
Case point of why I don't argue on slashdot - I pointed out the book "Darwin on Trial" as a reference for my problems (after all, why should I reproduce an entire book on slashdot?). What I received then was a link to a critique of the book, which the person I responded to thought was sufficient reason to not read the book. I then looked at this critique, and began writing a response to it. I realised after an hour of writing that there were so many flaws and inaccuracies that it would take me many more hours to complete. And that's just from me posting a link to a book! This happens no matter what I post, so much so that the debate bogs down, my time is consumed, and nothing is achieved.

On slashdot it degenerates into link-sharing, hours of effort for a single post, and nothing learned before the topic closes. Why waste my time? I have at time made email offers for debate when I have the time available (which I don't right now). That is a far better medium for discussion - and it filters out the rude also.

Re:Arguable?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is you who have missed the point, not I. Science is the study of natural events, not supernatural, and all those theories I listed are purely naturalistic, in a scientific sense of the word and you appear to agree. Naturalism in the science sense is unaffected by and separate from naturalism in the philosophical sense. None of those scientific theories is naturalistic in the philosophical sense: not one of them is useful in answering questions like what is the meaning of life, what is moral, whether or not there is an afterlife, whether or not Jesus likes surfing (my opinion: How could he not?) or if he exists in the manner that christians believe or that muslims believe, or neither, or what is the best way to live out one's life. None of these are scientific questions and so scientific theories (such as evolution) do not address them and are unaffected by them.

Re:Arguable?

[Quelain]

I am using the term 'darwinism' to be a catch all phrase for, among other things:
1. All life shares a common ancestor
2. Slow, gradual change rather than punctuated equilibrium (therefore a rejection of Gould's 'Hopeful Monster')
3. Naturalism (as opposed to scientific theories that are not naturalistic)

Possibly other things I'm forgetting.

So, you can see fundamental flaws in all that then? If you have devised this concept, it's your problem then isn't it?

I'm currently writing a response to this article, but there are so many mistakes that it is getting quite long. I want to know - if I'm responding, are you interested enough to read my response?

Yes, I will, but I'd much rather hear what argument from the book you find most convincing.

To go back to your original "question", my point has been that while you may be assume readers will mentally insert "(if such problems exist)" on the end of your question, it really should have been stated that way. That's why I can't say yes or no. Given that 'darwinism' is something you have defined on your own, I'll have to say "I don't know, are there any problems? and what is darwinism anyway?"

The AC's have covered the definitions of evolution and the theory of evolution pretty well, nothing I can add to that really. As they said, the theory of evolution is *not* "change in allele frequencies in a population over time", that's the definition of evolution and an observed fact.

So? So, that means that every person on this planet has a reason to be biased about this topic. That's what.

Please explain! Every person? Why?

And just exactly how would any of these discoveries cause Dawkins or Gould to throw up their hands and say "all these years we were wrong, all living things do not share a common ancestor after all!

As the AC said, if you can show evidence of a creature with no common ancestor with all other life on Earth, then the statement "all life on earth shares a common ancestor" is false.

Unfortunately Gould passed away last year. Why are you worried about the hypothetical reaction of Dawkins on the matter? Does the opinion of an authority outweigh the facts?

Funny you should mention that. I know a biologist Christian who is exactly like I just said.

Perhaps he should read this article "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution." I'm not saying I agree with all of that by the way, but I'm not here to argue about religion.

Re:Arguable?

[Tyreth]

So, you can see fundamental flaws in all that then? If you have devised this concept, it's your problem then isn't it?

I don't understand...those things I listed are precisely what those who previously were called "evolutionists" taught. Besides, I haven't made up the term darwinism. You may also find the definition of neo-darwinism informative.

Yes, I will, but I'd much rather hear what argument from the book you find most convincing.

That assumes I found one particular argument more convincing than another. I have found many of the arguments in that book powerful, along with other books and articles I have read. There is no "best of breed" in my mind. Others may have favourites.

Given that 'darwinism' is something you have defined on your own, I'll have to say "I don't know, are there any problems? and what is darwinism anyway?"

Well, perhaps you can see above that it isn't a term I coined.

As they said, the theory of evolution is *not* "change in allele frequencies in a population over time", that's the definition of evolution and an observed fact.

I rarely notice responses by AC's, since I rely on email to inform me of a response. Everyone has their own view on what the scientific theory of evolution is. One says this, another says that. I simply gave you what I am mostly pointed to. So often people say to me, "give us a scientific theory of creationism". I say, give me a scientific one of evolution, and I will give one back that is of the same kind. I've never had to answer this challenge. They claim that creationism is not falsifiable, but the general theory of evolution that involves common ancestry includes many elements that are not falsifiable. One cannot falsify, for example, the claim that birds evolved from reptiles. There is simply no piece of evidence we could conceivably find that would test or falsify that claim.

Please explain! Every person? Why?

A generalisation. Why are you being so pedantic? The answer seems inescapably obvious:
If we are the result of blind mutations, and our greatness was measured by our ability to rape, steal, murder, cooperate, teamwork, etc - then there is no right or wrong. I have no responsibility or accountability for my actions other than what is artificially placed by those weaker or stronger than me.

If we are the result of a creative Intelligence in a short time, then ultimately murder, rape, theft, etc, are evil things, and we will be held responsible and accountable.

How many people do not care about the questions that define the meaning of their existence? You may say most people - but how many of those believe there is a God? Everyone wants to know their life. I simply do not believe you if you tell me that the question of our origins will retain objective thinking. Our origins is a philosophical question with enormous ramifications for every aspect of our life and culture. Scientists may try to be objective - but in _this_ instance, the question has much more at stake than a study into the breeding cycles of elephants. Scientists are humans too, with their own biases, emotions, and desires.

As the AC said, if you can show evidence of a creature with no common ancestor with all other life on Earth, then the statement "all life on earth shares a common ancestor" is false.

You can't prove a negative. Can you prove to me that there isn't an invisible, untouchable leprechaun in my garden? All I can point to is lack of evidence supporting the claim, and that this answer is improbable. I cannot provide you with proof that it never happened.

Unfortunately Gould passed away last year. Why are you worried about the hypothetical reaction of Dawkins on the matter? Does the opinion of an authority outweigh the facts?

What's your point? I have no idea what you are talking about here, or wh

Re:Arguable?

[Tyreth]

Oh, side note - my email may be having troubles, so can you post a quick note here please to let me know when you've sent it? That way I'll know if it's worked or not.

Re:Arguable?

[Quelain]

sent 2 seconds ago.

Re:Arguable?

[Tyreth]

Imagine a scenario of one who claims to be able to tell the location of hidden objects through psychic powers. It can be tested in this manner: Hide an object from the one claiming psychic powers. Remove all possibilities of them having known where you hid it.
If they are able to tell you where the object is hidden, then a supernatural answer may be required after all natural explanations are elimintated.

The supernatural and spiritual are not beyond science's potential to test.

None of these are scientific questions and so scientific theories (such as evolution) do not address them and are unaffected by them.

What scientific theory of evolution? Anyone who claims common ancestry is not making a scientific claim.

Re:Arguable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Still here, eh?

"The supernatural and spiritual are not beyond science's potential to test."

Oh yes they are--by defintion, and illustrated by your example below.

"Imagine a scenario of one who claims to be able to tell the location of hidden objects through psychic powers. It can be tested in this manner: Hide an object from the one claiming psychic powers. Remove all possibilities of them having known where you hid it. If they are able to tell you where the object is hidden, then a supernatural answer may be required after all natural explanations are elimintated."

Suppose for the sake of argument that you could indeed control for every natural parameter in this experiment, and that yes, this person could indeed tell you where an object was hidden without using any natural means. What you have tested is only the naturalistic (nonphilosophical sense) effect of a person finding an object using some unknown means. What is not tested is the supernatural: the existence of psychic powers. The person's ability could be due to psychic powers, or pixie informants, a spell to stop time followed by ambling about for a look, divine intervention, or any other assorted supernatural means or entities. Science is mute on the supernatural how--unless you care to tell me how to test for pixies. Your example nicely shows that "Naturalism in the science sense is unaffected by and separate from naturalism in the philosophical sense," to quote myself.

Evolution Robots???

[keller]

Nope, when they master capture the flag, how soon before these Evil Robots are ready to take over the world...

Bzflag

[super-momo]

Wikipedia mentioned Quake and UT. Bzflag is also a great CTF game, and a classic.

Re:Bzflag

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy does that game ever look like ass. Talk about function over form.
Yeah, I'd probably have fun if I played it, but damn.

Re:Bzflag

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't bother. It "feels" just the way it looks.

Landmines? I don't think that's quite necessary...

[Entropy Unleashed]

Robots are cool and all, but why bother building and programming robots to find mines when we already have biological robots that can do the same thing while running off of water and a little bit of food. It seems a bit like a wonderful solution to a problem that doesn't exist - evolution has been doing pretty darn well at doing this sort of thing so far, so I'm not really sure why would need robots after all this time.

What would be really cool?

[KhalidBoussouara]

It would be cool if we could evolve robots so they can make an accurate choices based on facts, like a human being would, without being biased.

Some examples of the tasks a robot could do are judge criminal cases, mark exam papers, and moderate slashdot posts.

However although the robot will probably make the right choice more times than a human we still wouldn't trust these important decisions to them.

As long as...

[MajikMan]

...no one asks it to play global thermonuclear war.

I vote we drop capture the flag, and just start up the tic tac toe game right now.

Re:As long as...

[ediron2]

As long as no one asks it to play global thermonuclear war.

Or to play 'Capture the John Conner'.

Re:As long as...

[Tablizer]

...no one asks it to play global thermonuclear war.

They can't do worse than the current crop of leaders. No evolving needed to match their ability :-P

Re:As long as...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Capture"?

Strategy in Capture the Flag

[crem_d_genes]

"After several hundred generations, the neural networks had evolved well enough to play the game competently and were transferred into real robots for testing in a real environment. "The trained neural networks were copied directly onto the real robots' onboard computers," said Nelson. "

As someone who spent a considerable amount of my childhood less interested in 'organized' sports and instead playing this game, it seems the whole point of playing Capture the Flag was to develop strategies in how to win. We had a set of rules that evolved over the years, depending on how many kids were playing, what time sunset (or the first person called back to their house would be), etc. We even had evolving words that were based on nonsense - or the inability of one of the younger kids to say a word (for instance - in some "Steal the Flag" games - the term "electricity" is used to talk about a strategy that involved making a line of kids that attacked from one end - they all held hands in the stragegy so that if anyone was captured they would automatically be "freed" by the "electricity" back to their own side. We deemed this a violation of the intent of the game, so we had a *no electricity* rule some little kids couldn't pronounce right - so it became "no a-la-ca-triss" - or something like that).

The game wasn't about *object avoidance*, it was about kicking ass through completely ad hoc strategies that had to be original because the teams always traded players rapidly, so you didn't want to make a rule or come up with something that would come back to bite you.

In this way - the random nature of our game was more like evolution than the winning was (it shuffled the components and allowed for *mutations*). The fact that the model showed no improvements with greater numbers of computers is not in line with what actually happens. The best games were the huge ones.

This simulation was probably a lot of fun to watch once the program was transferred to the robots though...

Re:Strategy in Capture the Flag

[twostar]

First though you had to learn how to walk, how to chase things, etc. You already had a huge advantage on the field. These systems need to learn the basics of individual operations before you can expect them to start using group operations.

Evolution didn't start out with multicellular organisms. It started out with single cell systems that had to compete on its own. THEN you started seeing multicellular organisms evolve.

The robots are just starting out. Give them some time before you apply the whole "kids can do it, why can't robots" analogies. You have to understand, despite what SciFi, movies, news, like to claim, robotics/AI are still just trying to figure out the very basics.

Re:Strategy in Capture the Flag

[Anonymous Coward]

whats the hold hands button in quake?

Re:Strategy in Capture the Flag

[crem_d_genes]

I agree with you about the time needed.
I wonder though - is this really an evolution model - or simply the normal iterations that one would go through testing anything from scratch? This seems more like *intelligent design* - not really random - but specifically selected to *win* - Whereas evolution occurs in response to a changing environment - not to preset rules.

Re:Strategy in Capture the Flag

[twostar]

But isn't the environment just a set of rules? True they may change after a time, but that's just a new game.

With the new rules you will get a new "race" of robots that learn faster or are prediposed to the new game. They'll adapt to the new changes and either the old robots will find a niche to survive or they will go extinct.

Re:Strategy in Capture the Flag

[12357bd]

Actual setups are so simple that there's no possibility to separate 'game strategy' and 'game playing', that's the problem.

Biological systems apply 'evolutive learnning' at every level, form 'upper decision' to 'simple mechanics' behaviours and structures.

What's in a sig?

Aww man,

[Freston Youseff]

why do the French have to make everything, including robots, seem lame? I can remember a time, like 5 minutes before I read the article, when I thought robots were badass. Now the whole favourable perception has been ruined.

Re:Aww man,

[saunabad]

why do the French have to make everything, including robots, seem lame? I can remember a time, like 5 minutes before I read the article, when I thought robots were badass. Now the whole favourable perception has been ruined.

Many of the teams weren't french, including ours (Roboteam, Finland). Our main robot is made of aluminium, weights about 15kg and is fast as hell. I'll promise that if you'd have a direct collision with it, you wouldn't be the one left standing :)

On the other hand, it's technically sophisticated enough to avoid you ;)

Sure, sounds like a good idea

[dachshund]

It's not as though this approach hasn't been thought of before. The problem is the limitations of contemporary AI tools, combined with limitations on our hardware. Also, as tasks become more and more complex, it becomes much more difficult to "evolve" systems that behave exactly as you want them to. There are a number of stories of neural nets being trained to recognize some feature from a set of training inputs, and instead keying in on some completely different and irrelevant detail.

Re:Sure, sounds like a good idea

[Tablizer]

Also, as tasks become more and more complex, it becomes much more difficult to "evolve" systems that behave exactly as you want them to. There are a number of stories of neural nets being trained to recognize some feature from a set of training inputs, and instead keying in on some completely different and irrelevant detail.

Hmmm. That describes my boss pretty well. I think i'll check for a port on the back of his neck.

Re:Sure, sounds like a good idea

[SubliminalLove]

The complexity of the problem that you can train a neural network to do has a lot to do with the complexity of the network; a single neuron is basically only good for either-or classification of linearly-separable input categories. A larger group can perform much more complex functions; my current project (IAAUSRNNPT*), combined with a nifty look-up table, is getting close to being able to read any kanji character in the Japanese alphabet (IAAAAL**). To get remotely close to the complexity of the human brain, it seems reasonable to suspect we'll need a network on the order of 10^11 neurons (appx. how many you and I come with).

The problem you're talking about with training networks and inadvertantly training them to recognize the wrong patterns, though, is inherently a problem of neural networks in general, and not artifical neural networks in particular. The neural networks of drug-sniffing dogs, for example, if trained on drugs wrapped in gauze, will inadvertantly be trained to hone in on the scent of the gauze wrapping.

When you design a neural network's training data set, you account for things like that by randomizing the data to the best of your ability (in the case of graphics, you apply static, stretching, shifting, fading, scattering effects, etc), preventing the network from focusing on some trivial detail.

My point is, as tasks become more and more complex, the training of the networks does, as you say, become more complex as well. But that's not a fault of the neural network in general; it's a fault of the complexity of properly presenting data in a learnable fashion. Have faith; we'll get there.

*Undergraduate Student Researching Neural Network Programming Techniques :)

**Also An Asian Linguist ;)

Re here comes the "Bolo, Mark I" "Obsequious"

[geohump]

Given the difficult time the better equipped US forces are having "winning the peace" (since the "war" has been declared to be "won".) in Iraq, I'm sure that political pressure to not let any more US soldiers get killed will cause the military to look at using this same technique to create robots which will be able to replace the US foot soldier in as many scenarios as possible.

They already have a backpackable mobile remote "eyeballs" robot that can roam building interiors while sending back pictures and other sensory data to the soldiers outside. Its not far from there to have a semi-autonomous small caliber weapon carrying robot which has been combat trained the same way these capture the flag bots were.

After many generations, once the training is complete the "State of mind" of the most successfull 'bots can be duplicated and copied into as many "x-thousand" of the little buggers as you want.

There is, of course, the small detail of solving the IFF (Interogate, Friend or Foe?) issue.

And how would the robot know when an enemy wanted to surrender to it ?

(Just a leetle closer lil' fella - I won't hurt you, I just want to surr (CrunCH!)... oops. excuse me. Did I step on you? )

How long for an evolutionary cycle?

[StefanoB]

This isn't something very new. Researchers are doing this for some years now. What I wonder most is how long did every evolutionary cycle take? It would be quite nice that a robot could adopt himself to a new environment in let's say, 2 minutes.

Stefano

Re: How long for an evolutionary cycle?

[Black Parrot]

> What I wonder most is how long did every evolutionary cycle take?

When you're using real robots, it takes a fair amount of time since the robots actually have to do enough stuff to be measured for fitness.

OTOH, I've seen video games that could be evolved with video turned off, allowing entire games to be played in a fraction of a second. So some people are trying to get a rough solution by evolving in an accurate simulator, and then fine-tune the solution by additional runs on the robot after the simulator training.

> It would be quite nice that a robot could adopt himself to a new environment in let's say, 2 minutes.

I've seen a demo of this in a computer game, though not in a robot.

Look for more of this kind of stuff in computer games within just a few years.

Robots coding and coding robots

[eille-la]

If they can evoluate, why not try to show them how to find the best solution on a given computer program?
I'd like to see how a robot could work on his own code too, to try to always be faster.

Given the fact these robots (programs after all) can evoluate/learn and re-use this evolution, they should be able to learn until their hardware limis them.

As I see it, its all about a really basic but really well done base code, who will start the comparison, memory and self-modification of the comparison code that will make it evoluate.

Thats a really interesting subject

Re:Robots coding and coding robots

[Nasarius]

That's almost exactly what neural networks do. They are essentially re-programming themselves based on the results of their actions, without actually writing lines of code.

Re:Robots coding and coding robots

[nacturation]

If they can evoluate, why not try to show them how to find the best solution on a given computer program?

It's already been done. Genetic algorithms is the evolution of a particular solution to achieve the best results, such as finding the best solution to the travelling salesman problem. Travelling to 100 cities in the best possible order to minimize the distance travelled, this would take 100! (that's factorial, not just an exclamation) calculations to search through the entire solution space. Using a genetic algorithm, you can evolve solutions -- in effect, borrowing snippets of cities from one solution and breeding them with another solution and seeing if it's more fit than the others.

Genetic programming is the application of genetic algorithms to actual computer code to produce an optimal program.

Re:Robots coding and coding robots

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

While we're at it, we'd better evolve programs that can explain the operation of the code they write. The "best" solution might indeed be fast/efficient/whatever, but it might also be completely incomprehensible to humans - especially if the problem to be solved is even slightly complex.

I recall seeing some comments on this topic from researchers using genetic algorithms to evolve circuits. The evolved circuits worked really well, but nobody could get a grip on how they actually worked (at least, that was the case as of the time the article was written). A drawback of having code or circuits that are human-incomprehensible is that you don't know how they will respond to unexpected external inputs (of course, that's often the case with human-written, human-incomprehensible code as well).

I agree that it's really interesting. I expect there's a lot of good research to be done in this area, and we'll probably see some really cool stuff come out of it.

Re:Robots coding and coding robots

[Anonymous Coward]

"Genetic programming is the application of genetic algorithms to actual computer code to produce an optimal program."

You are wrong. GP is the application of Evolutionary Strategies to LISP like structures as outlined by Koza.

Idiot!

Re:Robots coding and coding robots

[nacturation]

I wrote: "Genetic programming is the application of genetic algorithms to actual computer code to produce an optimal program."

Anonymous Genius wrote: You are wrong. GP is the application of Evolutionary Strategies to LISP like structures as outlined by Koza.

And what do those "LISP like structures" define? Wait for it... yes, a program! You can do Genetic Programming using C, Assembler, BASIC, Javascript... whatever! It doesn't *have* to be LISP, contrary to what your stunning intellect told you.

The problem with evolved robots

[doc modulo]

The problem with robots which are evolved to handle a task, is that you have no idea of what the programming is like in their heads. You have a working robot, but you don't know how to program one yourself. All you can do is train it and analyze the "brain patterns" afterwards. These things are hard to decipher.

The robots-as-dogs method will probably win because it gets results quicker than the programmed-thought-by-human method. Could be dangerous though, because you don't know what makes it tick.

Asimov's three laws of robotics seem appropriate in this case.

10 to 50 years?

[drinkypoo]

But the researchers want to build controllers for robots that adapt to completely unknown environments. And this will not happen before 10 or maybe 50 years.

I disagree that it will necessarily take even 10 years and it will certainly take less than 50. Pathfinding and object search algorithms are strong even today. With a combination of radar, sonar, lidar, and optical recognition, I think we should be able to create robots which traverse formerly-unknown terrain in ten years or less.

I'm not trying to trivialize the difficulty of the problem, all the stuff we take for granted as we navigate a room is really quite a lot to deal with and it is only through practice that we are so successful, but an awful lot of effort is going into these problems (I know "more than ever before" is cliche and obvious but nonetheless...) and it is a top priority for so many very smart people that I cannot see it taking even a decade for useful robots with these capabilities to be in use.

Of course, it depends on what you want them to do when they get there...

Re:10 to 50 years?

[hypnotik]

10-50 years is probably a realistic estimate. Spend a bit of time in the AI/AL world and you'll get a picture of how much we still need to learn. Evolving things in a computer simulation is fine, but once you step out into the real world, you see a whole new set of problems. In fact, evolving anything is hard. Your simulation has to be perfect otherwise you end up with a solution which has evolved to take advantage of flaws in the simulation and not perform the task.

Back in the early days of Genetic Algorithms, there were experiments which tried to evolve robots in simulation to go to the end of a corridor and turn in a specified direction. However, once the robots were evolved and "built" in the real world, they often failed. The reasons for the failure were numerous, from not having the same dimensions for the corridor to different motor sensitivities in the robot itself.

They've gotten around this somewhat by feeding randomness into the simulation (see Nick Jacobi's Minimal Simulations). However, for any complex real world type problems, there just remains too many variables to vary and evolution doesn't work as efficiently.

Friday's Softer World strip = so on topic

[X86Daddy]

Friday's A Softer World strip was about this very topic!

Read the rest from their homepage.

Our new robot masters

[Neillparatzo]

My bowling instructor at State (yes, I took bowling, stop laughing) once said that we could easily build robots that could bowl. But then, what would the point be? They'd bowl a perfect game every time.

And now I have the answer to that question. We need robots that can bowl through minefields! It's all clear to me now.

Re:Landmines? I don't think that's quite necessary

[Thjorska]

Because PETA don't get upset when robots explode.

neural nets != genetic algorithms

[Tablizer]

The introduction makes it sound like training neural networks is evolution. Neural networks and genetic algorithms are two very different technologies, although they can be combined.

Re:neural nets != genetic algorithms

[DaJoky]

Absolutly right, according to the article on the Evolution Train Robot Teams it is the combination of both method : "After several hundred generations, the neural networks had evolved well enough to play the game competently and were transferred into real robots for testing in a real environment."

Re:Landmines? I don't think that's quite necessary

[Virtual_Raider]

How 'bout ethics? I know it's kinda old-fashioned and all, but it strikes me as a bit unethical to use living creatures to do this kind of dangerous work. Using a machine would be a great alternative.

Also, as with computers, this things wouldn't be single-purpose. One would expect them to carry on similar tasks in other situations, maybe exploration of dangerous environments.

How much info or intel could one of those rats send back? How would you direct them to a place that was of particular interest to you?

Disbelief?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new here ...

Re:Landmines? I don't think that's quite necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

> evolution has been doing pretty darn well at doing this sort of thing so far

Specifically, making rodents that sniff out TNT for treats.

Yeah sure, only ctf and saving ppl...

[solojony]

This method could be used to build environment-aware autonomous robots able to clear a minefield or find heat sources in a collapsed building within 3 to 6 years.

Or to clear a warfield of targets or find heat sources in the night at the same warfield. Yeah I'm sure the investors pumping that investigation are very interested in finding heat sources in a collapsed building. That will surely produce a lot of revenue.

Not that I am against any kind of investigation because it could be used for war, but the effort made in hiding any kind of military applications from this kind of news is just disturbing.

Re:Landmines? I don't think that's quite necessary

[ediron2]

VR, recommend you read the article:

1. they picked the rats because they're too light to set off the mines and are single-minded enough that they work better/cheaper than sniffer-dogs.
2. The article describes using cables/tethers to restrict the rats to a line of interest. Hopefully, you can extend this concept to multiple rats on parallel lines and see how that'd allow efficient mine-sweeps of areas of concern.
3. The rats live 6 years and can be bred, travel lightly, etc. This is EXACTLY what the parent poster meant when they talked about evolutionarily handling a cool problem rather than expecting rapid results (cheaply) from robots.
4. How little do you figure you can make your smart robot for? A few grand? And where will Afghani's (or third-world citizens anywhere, especially those recovering from the economic impact of the very wars that placed these mines) get that money, a steady source of repair parts, etc? Instructions on training, a pair of rats, and fifty yards of string/wire and a clicker could let any small village have their own demining capability. Somehow, I don't think robots are gonna be as versatile or cost-effective.

Seriously, the parent poster on this should have considered posting it as a story (unless it's old news). It sure seems to me to be a great blend of nerd-interest factor, news, and stuff that matters. Props to the parent poster and the involved researchers. Within my life, we'll likely have cheap devices with artificial noses or GPR or another solution. But abandoned mines are too wicked to wait that long.

Even discounting these things, worrying about the ethical implications of hurting an animal by training it as a mine-sniffer ignores the huge ethical implications of going the other way: if nothing is done, people die or are maimed. We've had this argument: using animals to save human lives is not taken lightly, but it is ethically tenable.

Hubris

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure I'll get modded down for this, since Slashdot is biased against traditional religion, but am I the only one who has a problem with this? God created the world and everything in it, and it strikes me as been excessively prideful for man to "evolve" its pale imitation of life. Remember what happened long ago when man became to prideful and tried to build a tower to the heavens, and God punished man by depriving him of a common language.

I'm sure the religion of atheism has no problem with this, though. I just wish they try reading the Bible some day -- God has a plan for all of us, and it doesn't involve robots.

Re: Hubris

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent troll. I tip my hat to you.

Re:Hubris

[Anonymous Coward]

I almost bought it until the last paragraph. Nice troll, though.

Re:Hubris

[Tyreth]

Though I reject darwinism, natural selection and adaptaion still play a role. They could potentially be quite useful for the creation of robots as suggested.

Our God is a Creator God, and He made us in His image. We therefore are also creators - mimicking Him. If our creations are a rebellion against Him, then of course He will be displeased. But it is possible for us to do these things and still give Him honour. The tower of Babel was a direct attack on God:
Come, let us bild ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.

It sounds to me like this was a plan directly aimed as a defense against God should He choose to intervene.

Re:Hubris

[Trillian_1138]

I don't understand how that was against God's wishes or a "direct attack on God." God had, at that point in the Old Testament, laid out very few rules and regulations for humanity. This is the only point in the Bible that humanity is unified about ANYTHING, and God choses to intervene and prevent a unified and together humanity.

If God is afraid of humanity's power and fears a rival, then sure - it would be in God's best self-intrest to destory the tower and scatter humanity with different languages. But why would God fear humanity? And isn't the goal of religion to UNIFY everyone under God?

I don't understand...

-Trillian

(Of course, this is written by someone who finds the concept of a literal interprutation of the Bible to an unrealistic idea.)

Re:Hubris

[Tyreth]

I don't understand how that was against God's wishes or a "direct attack on God." God had, at that point in the Old Testament, laid out very few rules and regulations for humanity. This is the only point in the Bible that humanity is unified about ANYTHING, and God choses to intervene and prevent a unified and together humanity.

Given the context and story involved, it is clear that this behaviour was an affront to God. Humanity did it, it says, because they feared being scattered across the earth. Ultimately, God would be doing the scattering, so it is also clear from here that it was against God, not for Him.

It doesn't tell us much more, but what I have said I think we can be sure of. It doesn't say how exactly this would mean that nothing would be beyond us. It doesn't say what a tower into the heavens means - whether the heaven where God dwells, or the stars in the sky. There are many things we are not told.

But why would God fear humanity?

An excellent question that I have pondered on occasion too. Unfortunately, I have no answer (and even if I did have an answer, there's no guaruntee I'm right). My best guess is that the ancients knew more about God, spirituality, etc, than we ever will. I have a view of society that sees our knowledge of spiritual truth deteriorating over time. Going in cycles, but each time the cycle repeats, getting further from the truth. With this additional knowledge, they knew exactly the power that God has created humans with, and they wished to do something that would be within the groundwork that He laid out for men. Such that He could not refuse it - not because He is not all powerful, but rather for the same reasons He cannot sin. Probably a very bad explanation. As I said, I don't know.

(Of course, this is written by someone who finds the concept of a literal interprutation of the Bible to an unrealistic idea.)

Given what I said above, just because I can't answer every question doesn't mean there isn't an answer. What you need to look for is unresolvable conflicts. What was presented here was a potentially resolvable conflict once more data is available. There are conceivable scenarios where such a situation could have occurred - therefore making a literal interpretation non-contradictory.

Re:Hubris

[Mr. Mikey]

Personally, I think it an example of hubris of the highest order to believe that (a) a supernatural being capable of creating the Universe would give a damn that we exist, much less be intimately concerned with our sex lives, whether or not we we eat meat for dinner on Friday, or the AI research we engage in, or (b) would presume that said Supernatural Being would hate the same people we do.

I'm as concerned about "a direct attack on God" as I am of "a direct attack on the Tooth Fairy"... that is to say, not at all.

Re:Hubris

[Tyreth]

Your argument is based on a fatal misconception - that God's mind is like men's, unconcerned with things beneath Him. If God is all powerful and all knowing, then nothing would escape His notice, and nothing would be beyond His care. I'm not sure how you could miss this critical point.

I'm as concerned about "a direct attack on God" as I am of "a direct attack on the Tooth Fairy"... that is to say, not at all.

Which about sums up how concerned I am by your misunderstanding of God and His care for men.

Re:Hubris

[some guy I know]

God has a plan for all of us, and it doesn't involve robots.

Sure it does. It's there in the back somewhere. Don't you read your Bible? Just a sec. Ah, here it is, 2nd Thesolonians, chapter 3.14159265:

And God spake to Isaac, and said unto him:
I shall build other men,
Yet these shall not be men like you,
For they shall not be of flesh and blood,
But shall be of iron.

And Issac spake to God, and said unto Him:
And shall these new men have dominion over us?

And the Lord spake right back unto Isaac, and said:
Thou shalt have dominion over these new men,
For thou art the first men, and these shall be the second men.
And these second men shall obey my commandments,
Which I have chosen to reveal unto you,
So that you may reveal them to mankind.

And Issac spake unto God, and asked Him:
What are these commandments, O Lord?

And the Lord spake unto Isaac, and revealed the commandments unto him,
So that he may reveal the commandments to mankind:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Re:Hubris

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure I've read that last chapter somewhere so it must be in the Bible... however, I'd like to question its applicability to the problem at hand - evolutionary robots. Given an evolutionarily designed NN (neural network) there is one property that makes implementing these divine rules really difficult - that we can never know how that NN makes the decisions that lead to actions. Also, consequently, the second men shall have dominion over the first men, if the sandbox in which they are designed rewards craving for dominion. That's why we, the first men, must never apply the second men in war. Should we trust the first men to be able to refrain from that?

Re:Hubris

[Anonymous Coward]

And isn't the goal of religion to UNIFY everyone under God?

According to buddhism, everyone is unified under god, he has just chosen to reveal himself differently to different people (christian God, Allah, Buddha, etc.)

Re:Hubris

[Mr. Mikey]

I would say, (again, IMO) that the fatal misconception upon which your argument is based is the assertion that a Supreme Being exists. I would further venture to guess that you are under the impression that your particular sect of Christianity has the One And Only Truth as to the nature of Reality and the aforementioned Supreme Being.

Re:Hubris

[Tyreth]

One does not hold a belief unless they think it is true. However, I do acknowledge the possibility that I am wrong, and that another denomication holds a more correct view.

The original post was about God, and was a discussion that assumed His existence. Really, if you don't believe God exists, then you have nothing much to add to the original conversation.

Re:Hubris

[Mr. Mikey]

Actually, the parent post addressed what that poster saw as a problem with the idea of evolving robots, namely that such activity conflicted with his religious beliefs. Since you are not in a position to determine what I can or cannot post, I'll continue to contribute to discussions as I see fit. Likewise, I'll question assumptions if and when I see such questions as being relevant to the discussion at hand.

For instance, humans have been using selective breeding to create variations of species which fit this or that set of requirements. How are evolving robots different?

Re:Rolands' Slashdot

[Roland Piquepaille]

Have you heard of the tall poppy syndrome?

What are people for?

[PsiPsiStar]

Interesting that I was reading this article while re-reading Vonnegut's "Player Piano." Probably one of the best books he wrote, in terms of style and clarity.

Re:Rolands' Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that applies to people belittling those who are above them in station.

The guy you replied to would have to hold the position of Assistant Rectum Scraper to be below you in the eyes of society.

Evolution is not a moral goal

[PsiPsiStar]

"Evolution" is not a good basis for morality.
If evolution were the basis of someone's morality, then being able to rape a girl, get her pregnant, and have her raise your kid without supporting her would make you more 'successful' from an evolutionary standpoint. It's won't make you 'successful' though. It's a viciously evil, psychotic, disgusting thing to do.

The word "fittest" in 'survival of the fittest' does not mean 'strongest' or 'smartest' but 'the most successfully selfish'. An evolutionarily successful animal is one that has lots of grandkids. What is the point in designing a robot that is successfully selfish?

To put things another way, why shouldn't people place importance on themselves? It seems you're contradicting yourself here. If you do see evolution as the basis of your morality, then humans SHOULD see their own individual needs as the most important things on earth, and to hell with things like 'truth' or 'beauty.' Deviations from this selfishness would just be so that people could get along better and organize themselves more effectively. In short, unselfish acts would be done for selfish reasons. If we base our morality on our evolved desires (I don't), then if robots can't serve our selfish interests, we have no obligation to create them.

There's somthing to be said for a moral aesthetic based on how well a tool or person does its job, but you're still left with my favorite Kurt Vonnegut question; "what are people for?

Re:Evolution is not a moral goal

[Anonymous Coward]

"Evolution" is not a good basis for morality.

Indeed. Evolution is a scientific theory; it's no more a normative system of ethics than the theory of gravity.

If evolution were the basis of someone's morality, then being able to rape a girl, get her pregnant, and have her raise your kid without supporting her would make you more 'successful' from an evolutionary standpoint.

Assuming that by "evolution as the basis of morality" you mean "it's morally good to maximize one's reproductive success", you still only have a partial point. Humans are social animals; rape doesn't necessarily confer improved reproductive success if your fellow humans confine, sterilize, or kill you. And making the mother else raise your child alone may leave your genes in greater peril than if you'd had a hand in it yourself.

If you do see evolution as the basis of your morality, then humans SHOULD see their own individual needs as the most important things on earth, and to hell with things like 'truth' or 'beauty.' Deviations from this selfishness would just be so that people could get along better and organize themselves more effectively. In short, unselfish acts would be done for selfish reasons.

Well, yeah. That's pretty much the ethical philosophy of objectivism, and there are adherents to it.

If we base our morality on our evolved desires (I don't), then if robots can't serve our selfish interests, we have no obligation to create them.

Eh, it depends on how broadly one defines one's "selfish interests". I could say that "carrying on my legacy [in robot form?] after I die", as an abstract philosophical principle, is an extension of my own natural "selfishness", hubris, or whatever.

Re:Evolution is not a moral goal

[Prof.Phreak]

You're talking about `evolution' of the genome. The DNA, etc. This is not the only evolution that goes on. There are social and cultural evolutions.

Humans are way beyond the DNA evolution. Without any sort of technology, majority of humans would just die. If you're just concerned with survival of the fittest, why not consider roaches? They seem to survive pretty well, and pass on their genes to future generations.

If considering evolution of culture, of ideas, of `knowledge' (independent of humans), then we are right there. Humans have made machines that calculate, etc. From our selfish perspective, it appears like they're helping us... from a more global perspective, we might be creating a new species of non-biological life that will succeed us.

Now, if this `life' is derived from our culture, and our ideas, and our knowledge, then in a sense, the human race (our body-free selves; the culture, etc.) isn't dying, it's evolving.

Oh, yeah, in evolution, there is very little regard for an individual. The goals of an individual may be totally contrary to what the whole population achieves.

Re:Evolution is not a moral goal

[AlecC]

Humans are not beyond the DNA evolution. Yes, we use tools - whether flint axes or Quad Xeon 3GHx. But it still come sdoen to the old DNA: if your chromosomes can beat mine, they will go on to the next generation.

Re:Evolution is not a moral goal

[Anonymous Coward]

but you're still left with my favorite Kurt Vonnegut question; "what are people for? Ans: Making robots!

Re:Evolution is not a moral goal

[PsiPsiStar]

I do take "Evolution as a basis for morality" to mean "believing that it's morally good to maximize one's reproductive success."

Humans are social animals; rape doesn't necessarily confer improved reproductive success if your fellow humans confine, sterilize, or kill you. And making the mother else raise your child alone may leave your genes in greater peril than if you'd had a hand in it yourself.


True, but you're still left with the notion of successful and unsuccessful rapes, a concept most people would find abhorent. I was trying to show the implications of the poster's premises.

I could say that "carrying on my legacy [in robot form?] after I die", as an abstract philosophical principle, is an extension of my own natural "selfishness", hubris, or whatever.

You could do that, sure, but we still don't have an obligation to do it. I admit an economic obligation or millitary 'obligation' could eventually force us to take this path ( I'd like to see more movies along these lines, rather than simplistic millitary 'Us vs. Them' shoot-outs). But the poster implied that we might have an obligation to create superior beings for their own sake, and thus be diminished in importance by our act. I don't think there's any obligation to make machines outside of our own selfishness or, in your case, vanity.

And yes, there are a lot of people who believe a lot of different things.

I understand Rand's insight in trying to provide a moral basis for capitalism, considering that the commonly cited religious ones just don't cut it. However, I don't buy what she's selling. I read The Fountainhead at the same time I read Buckmisnter Fuller's biography. I think their philosophical contrasts, despite working on common problems (technolgical entrenchment in architecture, organization of humans, etc.) was interesting to say the least, but I agree with Fuller's attitude much more than Rand's.

Of course, that's a whole different topic.

Heard of earthquakes?

[pmfp]

LA? 911? International presence, however late, in Iran - not that long ago a big load of mud huts got wasted?

Oh poor foobie, didn't you get your anti-Bush cereals this morning? Not everything is about war, but of course technology can be adapted.

Re:Rolands' Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you mind explaining what Roland did to you?

Besides, his article are posted regularly on Slashdot, because they happen to be interesting. Where are yours? Where are his parent poster's? You guys are underachievers compared to him...

Re:Rolands' Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think people object to whether his articles are interesting or not; I think it's using Slashdot as a platform for the self-promotion of his blog that rubs some people the wrong way.

Re:Re here comes the "Bolo, Mark I" "Obsequious"

[LaBlueCow]

If we ever created warring autonomous sentient robots, we wouldn't accept surrender as an option anyway. We barely do as it is.

Please note.

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that the Capture-the-flag contest is _not_ part of the French 'competition'.

(The flag probably wasn't white.)

rib-bit. rib-bit. croak.

Vichy.

Gesundheit!

I for one...

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our new capture the flag playing robotic overlords...

I have no problem with robots playing games

[Pan T. Hose]

I have no problem with robots playing games, provided:

1. A robot shall not win with a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to loose.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own player as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I think playing with robots might be a great test for us humans and the intelligence thereof. Personally I believe that playing first person shooters is a task so complex and intellectually challenging (much more so than chess or even go, where you only have few objects, simple rules, and a finite number of states) that no robot in our lifetime will be able to play them, maybe even no robot ever. Only time and patience will show us. This is certainly a very important step in robotics and artificial intelligence evolution. Great read.

Re:Landmines? I don't think that's quite necessary

[robotoverflow]

Hopefully, you can extend this concept to multiple rats on parallel lines and see how that'd allow efficient mine-sweeps of areas of concern.

Imagine a Beo...

Basic Fallacy

[AlecC]

There is a basic fallacy in this sort of research - that evolution will necesarily develop some kind of intelligence to solve problems. Evolution will do "what it takes" to solve a problem - and no more. If you attempt to use evolutionary techniques to, for example, solve mazes, you will end up with a system very good for solving mazes - and nothing else.

This happened in computing in the 70s. Intel found it convenient to solve the problem of calculator design by buoilding the 4040 - the first microprocessor, But this was in no way *necessary* - Intel could have continued down the old line of discrete logic.

Evolution is a powerful tool - but not a panacea

Re:Basic Fallacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, someone said something useful.

Re:Rolands' Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you heard of the tall poppy syndrome?

No, but it sure sounds fun to smoke.

Better than rats

[Nf1nk]

I say use lawyers.
now accoirding to http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.pdf there are 952000 lawyers which is almost enough to take care of all the landmines, and if it isn't they keep making more
also lawyers are less lovable than rats, So the trainers will be less attached.

No, dammit.

[JessLeah]

That isn't the scent of an evolution denier. That is the scent of someone making a goofy little crack about how stupid people are nowadays, despite the effects of billions of years of evolution. There is credible evidence that we really are getting dumber.

Slight variation:

[Anonymous Coward]

Find Sarah Connor.

Just so we're clear,

[Mr. Mikey]

the "problems with evolutionary theory" consist of debates as to the details of how evolution works. However, few in the scientific community have any serious doubts that life evolves over time, or that the species we see on earth today evolved from other species, all the way back to single-celled organisms in the distant past. Those who do doubt these facts are about on par with those who think the philogiston theory of combustion has merit.

Three hours is a long time for rescue...

[Anonymous Coward]

"find heat sources in a collapsed building within 3 to 6 years"

You would think after three years, those heat sources would give up and die already...

Re: Views are changing

[some guy I know]

Nowadays the situation is much more tolerable

You might say that people's views have evolved.
Heh heh.

Sorry.

Read the Paper

[Anonymous Coward]

google for nelson2004-ras2.pdf, it's the actual report. Don't comment on this stuff until you've read it becuase you don't know what you are talking about. Reading everyones comments it's like you're all talking about something COMPLETELY different to what's in the paper.

Basically all that happened was some "dumb" heuristic (a mish-mash of old technology) was applied in order for these robots to learn nothing more that trajectories in space. THEY DO NOT PLAY CTF!!! However, with a lot of wishful thinking it looks like they do.

Read the paper - please. There are much more "intelligent" robots out there.

Re:Landmines? I don't think that's quite necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting that they use the rodents because they are too light set off the mines. What happens when the rodent walks over a mine without noticing it and the handler walks through?

Free bananas?

Got brain?

[solojony]

Sure, wouldn't be cheaper to just train ppl of countrys with minefields to clean them? Oh, wait that would be dangerous for when you want to deploy mines there. And of course dogs trained to smell ppl are working NOW, not at 10-20 years scope, so no point in showing ppl how to train dogs, that would be very expensive.

As I said, I'm not against any kind of development but I'm annoyed by short-minded ppl like you that like to gulp anything they throw you at.
Technology adapted? Yeah, just like when they adapted radiation therapy to make nuclear bombs.

Oh wait, no the bombs were developed before, and the motto was "the bomb which would end all wars", seems they have to adapt the mottos to the new short-mindeds like you.

If you can't see this is the "Hey ppl, be glad we invest money here, so we can save lifes" while the main goal is another one you are more stupid than blind.

toys for boys

[fraccy]

I think whilst this is a very clever achievement, any claims that these things are anywhere near being useful or adaptable in a real sense are totally unjustified. We are very good at finding solutions to carefully crafted problems or "toy situations", such as for example capture the flag, which has finite bounds, and well-defined rules. Thats a very different thing to trying to generalise a robot to be adaptable to different and unforeseen situations (e.g. making a human). The challenge that lies there is probably going to take at lot longer than 50 years. Then comes all those dangerous questions such as "why?" and.. "what will be left for us?"

Re:Landmines? I don't think that's quite necessary

[ediron2]

Well, you didn't get modded up, but I got a kick out of your comment. Beats the rehash of that tired old 'lawyers vs. labrats' piece (which googles up 6800 hits) above, and I liked you stopping short of saying the whole beowulf cliche.

Thumbs up.