Digital Life and Evolution

mrivorey writes "Discover Magazine has a story about The Digital Evolution Lab at Michigan State University. Scientists there have created virus-like computer programs that replicate, mutate randomly, and compete with each other... in other words, they evolve. Among such feats as learning to add and compare numbers, these digital life forms also once avoided scientists attempts at "killing" them, by playing dead. You can download the project yourself from SourceForge." We first mentioned this in early 2003, but it appears to have developed a good deal since then.

Comments

Re: Tierra

[Black Parrot]

> I've said it before and I'll say it again - the computer you're using, the chair in which you sit, the glass from which you drink all had an intelligent designer. What makes the planet and the universe different?

Uh, they don't have an intelligent designer?

That was too easy; ask a harder one.

> To be quite frank, I think the chances of so many different species of life forming on one planet from some primordial soup is pretty far out there.

And I think I'm good in bed, but that doesn't necessarily make it so.

> I think it takes more faith to believe in the (ever changing) beliefs of science than to believe in the Bible.

Surely you know the Bible changed a lot over the course of its history. To say nothing of its interpretations. (Do you have any idea how many "bible based" sects there are in the USA these days?)

At any rate, believe whatever you please, but if you argue bad arguments for your beliefs, don't expect a free pass from the people hearing them.