Re: BIO: Help wanted explaining evolution to students

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Wed, 17 Sep 1997 11:18:22 -0500

Bart Troyan wrote:
>
> Max More wrote:
> Is there a compact source of such points that I can use,
> and perhaps copy for my students? There are a bunch of
> creationists in the classes, so the more solid examples
> I have at hand the better.

TIERRA, which demonstrates complex evolution in a completely known environment
(inside a computer), should be an integral part of any demonstration.

http://www.hip.atr.co.jp/~ray/pubs/tierra/tierrahtml.html

> I'm also curious about something--how can one justify having any sort of
> religious faith at all, if one takes a pancritical rationalist approach
> to existence?

Oh, come now, you should know better than that.
"How many legs does a dog have, if you call a tail a leg?"
"Four - calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."

If God exists, then a fully informed pancritical rationalist would have
absolutely no choice but to believe in It.

-- 
         sentience@pobox.com      Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
          http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/singularity.html
           http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/algernon.html
Disclaimer:  Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.