Bike Evolution Program

Was sent this by a friend, with no explanation, but it's extremely cool:

http://www.wreck.devisland.net/ga/

Click the link and you'll see a program that generates bicycles to travel across a landscape. As far as I can tell, the grey lines are the tube, the blue circles are (obviously) the wheels and the red dotted circles represent the centres of mass of the rider (head and body). Each bike has variable geometry, variable dimensions, variably sized wheels and variable rider weight. Once a bike gets stuck, the distance it travelled is recorded and a new bike gets a go.

20 individuals make up a generation and after each generation the most successful individuals are used to make a new generation of individuals that are more likely to be similar to them.

Leave it running in a tab while you do something else and go and look at it every now and again. It's class.

So far I've got to an evolutionary era mostly involving low-pros and choppers - I'm guessing the 70s?

PS Obviously, this goes no way towards shaking my faith in Intelligent Design.

Quite a lot of them never make it past the first millimetre.

I seem to be getting things that look more like cars, though?

Very cool.
I'm waiting for it to comfirm my faith in 29" wheels.

Mine haven't evolved at all.

They still look exactly the same as when they started an hour ago.

And they don't look like bikes, they look like cars.

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it never managed to go past this point without tipping over;

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Stop the press! Evolution is happening as we speak!

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have it managed to get over the point where it kept tipping over?

have it managed to get over the point where it kept tipping over?

Mine all easily seem to get past that spot. I think yours looks really long--mine are all quite short. I haven't seen a single one topple over yet.

This little app uses genetic algorithms, which are a nerdy slice of computer science I could happily chat about for days and days. I wrote my MSc thesis on the topic, but I was using them to design more efficient conductors instead.

Basically, the solutions you have breed with each other, swapping traits and flaws, and you throw in a bit of random mutation, too. Quite fitting, what with Darwin's 200 birthday coming up.

MSc Dissertation - Matthew Sparkes

I got bored with this, as nothing seemed to evolve--they still look exactly the same as at the beginning. Proof that all bicycles were created at the beginning of time in the form in which we now know them, fner fner. Besides, I don't really want bikes to breed.

left mine on over the weekend, hipster spok'd out low-pro.

who'd have guessed.

How did that spokecard evolve? ;)

It can't be true that asm is somehow evolutionary superior can it?

Intelligent Design.

ha ha, surely you mean creationism?

god put spokecards on earth [ and dinosaur fossils ] to put us off the scent.

ha ha, surely you mean creationism?

Nonsense, how dare you. I am proud to call myself a cdesign proponentsist and I have nothing whatsoever to do with creationism.

god put spokecards on earth [ and dinosaur fossils ] to put us off the scent.

Yes, just imagine dinosaur fossils, or rational thought, as buckets of hellfire that God has humorously placed above the partially-ajar door to heaven. What a card!!

intelligent design:

*Handy Dandy Evolution Refuter*

The Creation Explanation

The Great Dinosaur Mistake

The Way it Was

Sadly the term intelligent design has been adopted as a pseudoscience by non-professional religious types and used to present it's version of creation as empirical facts, it is not. It is used as a semantical re-branding. It's a lovely phrase but i'd be hesitant to ally myself with a term so looked down upon by the intelligentsia for it's transparency.

Sadly the term intelligent design has been invented as a pseudoscience by non-professional religious types and used to present it's version of creation as empirical facts, it is not. ... It's a piece of disingenuous bullshit but i'd be hesitant to ally myself with a term so looked down upon by the intelligentsia for it's transparency.

Fixed.

The term ID was originally invented by creationists, not stolen from some reputable source.

It is extremely unlikely that God exists at all ( = as unlikely as any other impossibly unlikely thing you care to mention) and there is absolutely no way of arguing his existence while remaining within the boundaries of rational debate [try it, I'll win]. Creationism is based on wilful misunderstanding / ignorance of science, but in some way I respect its complete disregard for facts or thinking, relying solely on faith in a frankly laughable myth. On the other hand, ID is a disgusting attempt at misrepresentation, using a cynical, pseudoscientific facade to enter an increasingly politicised education system.

Read PZ Myers, he's fighting against the morons in America. And if you think it could never happen here, how about the news that half of Britons do not believe in evolution?

I hope that this clears up any possible sarcasm fails of mine earlier in the thread... :p

It has Seeds, thanks.

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