Tag: Weasel program

^{Type
post

Eric Holloway
Date
May 23, 2022

Categorized
Biology, Information Theory

Tagged
Blind Watchmaker (book), Blind Watchmaker thesis, Darwinian evolution (and information), Epigenetics, Epigenetics (and information), Featured, Mad Libs, Richard Dawkins, Weasel Libs (Holloway), Weasel program, Weasel quote from Shakespeare}

Dawkins’ Weasel Program vs the Information Life Acquires En Route

_{To demonstrate what is wrong with fully naturalist assumptions like those of Richard Dawkins’ Weasel program, I developed Weasel Libs, modeled on Mad Libs} _{Eric Holloway
May 23, 2022

6

Biology, Information Theory}

In his famous Weasel program zoologist and philosopher Richard Dawkins shows that the simple combination of random mutation and natural selection (Darwinian evolution) can produce the English sentence, “Methinks it is like a weasel”, in a short time period. The point of his program is to demonstrate that evolution can generate the complex, pre-specified DNA sequences we find in biology before the heat death of the universe. His argument sounds persuasive because both English sentences and DNA sequences are made up of symbols. Both can be randomly modified anywhere, and by cumulative selection, they can plausibly adapt to the environment in reasonably short order. Writers in English can learn to pen best-selling novels through trial and error and audience feedback. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Eric Holloway
Date
March 28, 2022

Categorized
Biology

Tagged
Evolution, Hamlet, Natural selection, Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, Weasel program}

Dawkins’ Dubious Double Weasel and the Combinatorial Cataclysm

_{Dawkins has successfully reduced a combinatorial explosion to a manageable problem...or has he?} _{Eric Holloway
March 28, 2022

6

Biology}

In Richard Dawkins’ book, The Blind Watchmaker, he proposed a famous (and infamous) computer program to demonstrate the power of cumulative selection, known as the “Weasel program.” The program demonstrates that by varying a single letter at a time, it is possible to rapidly evolve a coherent English sentence from a string of gibberish. The way the program works is as follows: First, a sequence of characters is randomly assembled by drawing from the 26 English letters and the space. Then, one character is randomly reassigned. The resulting sequence is compared to the phrase from Hamlet, a quote uttered by Polonius: “methinks it is like a weasel.” For every character that matches, a point is scored. If the new sequence Read More ›