

To convince people of natural evolution, also teach them genetic programming? - amichail

Many people find evolution by natural selection as a rather implausible way of explaining the diversity of life.<p>But what if all students were required to learn genetic programming?  Would that improve the situation?<p>Example:<p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCXzcPNsqGA<p>http://www.karlsims.com/papers/siggraph94.pdf<p>http://www.karlsims.com/papers/alife94.pdf
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I do not think that teaching genetic algorithms will help. I think that the
question we ask has become so completely infected by politics and religion
right now, that it may no longer be a good question to ask. Currently, we ask
people whether they believe in evolution and I believe that a substantial
majority instantly translates the question in their heads to, "Do you believe
in God?" Then they answer no. Likewise, I think a great majority instantly
translate the question into something like, “Are you a democrat or a
republican?” Regardless of the agency, such as Gallup, posing the questions
and regardless of how carefully the questions were prepared, it just seems
that these type of questions have been biased beyond use. In short, I don’t
think that the rates for evolution’s acceptance are as low as they appear to
be.

Lastly, most scientists, programmers, and etc that I know already accept
evolution. If genetic algorithms were to be used to enhance the understanding
of evolution in the general public, you would also have to teach the general
public more about computer programming, algorithms, and math in general, and
none of those are trivial things to do.

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fburnaby
Presumably, your supposition is that the genetic programming route might work
because anyone with a "moral" aversion to learning about biological evolution
may not have a problem with learning genetic programming.

I think the answer is: "only if you're sneaky and don't tell them that that's
what it is". I'm pretty convinced that anyone who's thought about evolution
and "doesn't understand it" doesn't understand it because they want not to. If
they don't think their identity as a creationist is being challenged, then
presumably they would indeed be more receptive to the concept and "get it"
very quickly.

