Quote:
Originally Posted by NotReady
I once was a fairly competent self-taught amateur Windows programmer though I haven't done any for years. I can tell you categorically that even changing one letter or number can easily totally crash a program. And I can't think of any random change that would improve it, far less a series of random changes.
I am a very prolific programmer -- ~a couple of millions of lines of code over tens of different computer languages and a dozen or so different computing platforms -- and I have several times seen random changes / random bugs cause entirely unsuspected effects that were then somehow "beneficial", in the sense that they were adopted and fine-tuned into new features.
It's very rare, but it happens -- which is exactly what one can also say about DNA mutations. You're FOS, and so is obviously Berlinski.
Quote:
Berlinski's analogy is a good one.
...but even if what I describe above never happened, his analogy is awful.
Biological entities aren't enough similar to computers that you can take that analogy as far as he does, likening computer code to DNA, because cells and bodies have all sorts of fault-tolerant sub-systems, backup mechanisms, etc. Mainstream computer software is just not made that way.
The analogy could perhaps work better if he made a comparison with e.g. the software that rides onboard the NASA Mars rovers, as they are built to handle random errors due to radiation -- in a somewhat similar fashion to what natural selection most likely has done over millions of years to biological systems.
Which takes me to this point, which really shows the level of ignorance and idiocy Berlinski is on compared to what
real scientists are involved in:
There has already over many years been lively debate about to what degree, and by what mechanisms, natural selection has "tuned" radiation-robustness -- and thereby also mutation rates -- in various organisms. Because not only are too many mutations bad, too few might also be bad, as it lowers the accumulative adaptability of the gene carriers, and so other species are more likely to outcompete them.
See e.g.
Deinococcus Radiodurans
Radioresistancy in organisms
So, if he is so damn smart, why haven't Berlinski educated himself about these matters before mouthing off? It's not like this is a very obscure corner of the scientific world. He is either dumb, or he is an arrogant prick fighting hard to save face where he has no left (a la sunk cost fallacy), or he is just a contrarian shuckster as suggested by the poster Voltaire earlier in the thread.
After having had the nauseating displeasure of watching him in a couple of debates, I'm not sure where to put my money in that regard. All three alternatives seems plausible.