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[Merendel]

Inspired by a paper I read about digital organisms and using said organisms to provide further evidence to support evolution

Sorry to be a bit off topic but I found this particular bit rather ironic.  Considering said digital organisms are by their nature designed (created) you'd think such a study would be providing evidence to support creationism more than evolution.  While you could study the natural selection or evolution of said organisms after the point of their creation the study itself is starting as a flawed test if you were looking to prove that evolution started it all.  Just seems like a logical disconnect between end goals of the research and the chosen research subject.

[wierd]

On the flipside of that, a system that is artificial with several possible configurations in equal proportions, that have different levels of reproductive fitness, allowed to just run, will simulate natural selection pressures over time, and the composition of the population will reflect that change over time. Meaning that even *IF* some divine being pointed its finger at the earth and shot out magical life force energy beams that turned inorganic substances into whole organisms, evolution *STILL* occurs, and what exists now is not precisely what was created then.

Whew. (I am the master of the run on sentence!)

Eg, some divine being may well have shouted "Pull my finger!" At the primordial earth, and expelled a monumental cloud of methanogenic flatulence that then produced the atmosphere, and put microbes all over, then just wandered off to go get coffee or something, and if enough time psses, complex life will slowly coalesce from that initial population under selection and speciation pressures.

[Morgorin]

Inspired by a paper I read about digital organisms and using said organisms to provide further evidence to support evolution

Sorry to be a bit off topic but I found this particular bit rather ironic.  Considering said digital organisms are by their nature designed (created) you'd think such a study would be providing evidence to support creationism more than evolution.  While you could study the natural selection or evolution of said organisms after the point of their creation the study itself is starting as a flawed test if you were looking to prove that evolution started it all.  Just seems like a logical disconnect between end goals of the research and the chosen research subject.

The hypothesis was that complex functions could evolve from simple functions.  They provided evidence to support this using avida software.  The article is right over here, if you want to read it.     The 'organisms' are rewarded for performing logic functions.  It's actually really interesting, even if the experiment was pretty biased towards favoring complexity, when that is not always an indication of greater fitness.  He provides the software that he used free of charge right over here. 

Lenski does a lot of interesting evolutionary research with E. Coli, as well.  He ran a decade long test, with 50,000 generations, to demonstrate divergence. 

EDIT: Back on topic, I ran a 2000 year simulation on the labrats.  I started a fortress with 40 labrats.  All of them were "gigantic."  This indicates that the natural pressures of the environment have culled those labrats that were not gigantic.  There is variation with musculature and fatness, so maybe those are not as big factors in survivability/battle-readiness as overall size.

[Merendel]

I'm not arguing against the existence of some level of natural selection occurring.  Most honest creationists will even admit to that much as we can see real world examples of traits that are beneficial to survival breeding true.   However even under your example (weird) the existence of that divine spark kicking off the process flys in the face of the more mainstream concept of evolution that states there was no divine being and its all random chance from the very beginning.  Either there was or there wasnt a creator that started the ball rolling, you cant really have it half way.  With a digital simulation you've got a clear creator starting the ball rolling so you've already got a flawed experiment if your looking to disprove the existance of a creator.

edit: I'll go ahead and read through that article morgorin.  I do try to take a broad view and look at the opinions of both sides even if some of the opinions have logical fallacies (both sides of this one do to a point depending on who's talking).

[Morgorin]

I'm not arguing against the existence of some level of natural selection occurring.  Most honest creationists will even admit to that much as we can see real world examples of traits that are beneficial to survival breeding true.   However even under your example the existence of that divine spark kicking off the process flys in the face of the more mainstream concept of evolution that states there was no divine being and its all random chance from the very beginning.  Either there was or there wasnt a creator that started the ball rolling, you cant really have it half way.  With a digital simulation you've got a clear creator starting the ball rolling so you've already got a flawed experiment if your looking to disprove the existance of a creator.

They weren't.  Evolution and creationism are not mutually exclusive principles.

[wierd]

It is important to note that evolution is not the same as abiogenesis.

The panspermia hypothesis is an alternative to abiogenesis for the origins of life on earth, and can extend the time table for self-replicating collections of organic molecules forming from clearly nonliving organic compounds by many billions of years. It allows for whole complex "critters" to be suspended in cosmic dust clouds and thriving on cometary ices and other exotic environments.

Neither of which really is joined to the hip of evolution. Evolution just says that "this kind of living thing turned into that kind of living thing, due to selective pressures and randomly introduced errors in the replication process."

Evolution doesn't defacto require abiogenesis. "God farting out methane and germs and walking away" works just as well for it, since it just says "the germs turned into people after a very long time."

Edit*

If you are interested in research concerning abiogenesis, there was a recent publication about cometary objects containing simple organic acids producing complex polymer chains (essentially, unfolded protiens) when a lab simulation of a planetary impact was conducted. Many such experiments have been performed, and some even yeilded simple replicating collections of molecules. 

Since simple replicators are essentially what the software based "lifeforms" are simulating, we have enough information to say that abiogenesis appears perfectly plausible.

[Morgorin]

It is important to note that evolution is not the same as abiogenesis.

The panspermia hypothesis is an alternative to abiogenesis for the origins of life on earth, and can extend the time table for self-replicating collections of organic molecules forming from clearly nonliving organic compounds by many billions of years. It allows for whole complex "critters" to be suspended in cosmic dust clouds and thriving on cometary ices and other exotic environments.

Neither of which really is joined to the hip of evolution. Evolution just says that "this kind of living thing turned into that kind of living thing, due to selective pressures and randomly introduced errors in the replication process."

Evolution doesn't defacto require abiogenesis. "God farting out methane and germs and walking away" works just as well for it, since it just says "the germs turned into people after a very long time."

Yep, this.  Many evolutionists support abiogenesis and are vehemently against any kind of divine hand being involved in the process.  Many creationists are equally against the idea that something that was created by their creator could have possibly been imperfect and need changing (kind of an old thinking, and it seems to be fading).  This is where the conflict arises.   Both sides being close-minded and, sometimes, irrational in the defense of their beliefs.

On topic: I accidentally made the labrats invisible.

Edit:
I examined the wild animals on the map out of curiosity.  They all are also "gigantic."  Clearly, after a couple of thousand Uristyears, the pressures in the game have culled out most smaller individuals.  I say most because I just realized that there is one "enormous" labrat, which I think is smaller.

[Agent of Avarice]

It is important to note that evolution is not the same as abiogenesis.

The panspermia hypothesis is an alternative to abiogenesis for the origins of life on earth, and can extend the time table for self-replicating collections of organic molecules forming from clearly nonliving organic compounds by many billions of years. It allows for whole complex "critters" to be suspended in cosmic dust clouds and thriving on cometary ices and other exotic environments.

Neither of which really is joined to the hip of evolution. Evolution just says that "this kind of living thing turned into that kind of living thing, due to selective pressures and randomly introduced errors in the replication process."

Evolution doesn't defacto require abiogenesis. "God farting out methane and germs and walking away" works just as well for it, since it just says "the germs turned into people after a very long time."

Yep, this.  Many evolutionists support abiogenesis and are vehemently against any kind of divine hand being involved in the process.  Many creationists are equally against the idea that something that was created by their creator could have possibly been imperfect and need changing (kind of an old thinking, and it seems to be fading).  This is where the conflict arises.   Both sides being close-minded and, sometimes, irrational in the defense of their beliefs.

On topic: I accidentally made the labrats invisible.

Edit:
I examined the wild animals on the map out of curiosity.  They all are also "gigantic."  Clearly, after a couple of thousand Uristyears, the pressures in the game have culled out most smaller individuals.  I say most because I just realized that there is one "enormous" labrat, which I think is smaller.

You may want to have a look at a younger world, compare your 2000 year world to a brand spanking new 2 year old planet.  Additionally why not create forts in each world and have a look at how genetics might vary from world to world. Also maybe world size, total civilized/mega beast population, temperature altitude etc. have some influence on genetics? Then again I'm not even sure how wildlife pops work during world gen/post world gen. Finally there is a bug in fort mode that causes all dwarves and wildlife to be smaller than they're cousins elsewhere.

[Merendel]

Yep, this.  Many evolutionists support abiogenesis and are vehemently against any kind of divine hand being involved in the process.  Many creationists are equally against the idea that something that was created by their creator could have possibly been imperfect and need changing (kind of an old thinking, and it seems to be fading).  This is where the conflict arises.   Both sides being close-minded and, sometimes, irrational in the defense of their beliefs.

That closed mindedness is exactly my objection to most of the mainstream arguments in the debate.  All through my high school and college experience Abiogenesis was synonymous with evolution in every course, lecture, and assignment that even touched on the subject.  Creationism was either not mentioned at all in the science courses or was passed off as a crackpot theory at best (and a few other less professional descriptions at worst)  It got more play in history and anthropology courses studying ancient cultures but even there it was primarily referred to as myth.  Its hard to argue that Evolution =\= Abiogenesis when all thats taught is that they are one and the same and that its a proven fact and that any experimental results that speaks to the contrary is either fabricated or inaccurate.  Ironic that considering that approach is contrary to the scientific method and is more approaching the level of religious dogma.

The creationists that are anti anything even resembling natural selection are almost as bad.  At least in their case they are honest about the fact that their views are steeped in religion.  The funny thing is a degree of natural selection can very easily be integrated into creationism.  Perhaps the creator made life so perfect that he designed in the ability to adapt to changing situations.  This does not deny a creator or the act of creation yet still incorporates the many changes and adaptations that have been documented even in recent history. (the peppered moth during the industrial revolution being an easy example)

That was a fascinating article morgorin.  While their findings are intriguing how the more complex functions can evolve even off the back of detrimental mutations hitchhiking on the back of beneficial ones there is still a very wide gap between that and some of the parts that make up the human body.   Too many systems require so many parts to all be present for even a rudimentary version to be of benefit to the organism.  While that study showed that said parts could potentially evolve independently and be carried along (hitchikeing) the odds still get rather long.  It would be facinating to see the results if they ran the experiment longer trying to get more and more complex systems.  Particularly ones where several complex systems of similar complexity to their EQU must come togeather yet each one does not provide any specific benifit on its own (although sub componants of those systems may be useful for other simplier systems).  The fact that EQU only evolved when several of its componant funtions were also useful prior to its evolution implies that the experiment may break down under those conditions.

Still enough offtopic for one post. To expand on Agents sugestion you may want to generate the same world several times with different lengths and see if you can spot changes as things run longer.   If you set a specific world and history seed the same events should happen on each world generated.  AKA if you use teh same setings in advanced generation and generate one world that stops at 250 and another that stops at 500, the 500 one should have the same history and events up to the year 250.  Compare a bunch of worlds at various lengths to see if you get the same trends.

[Morgorin]

To expand on Agents sugestion you may want to generate the same world several times with different lengths and see if you can spot changes as things run longer.   If you set a specific world and history seed the same events should happen on each world generated.  AKA if you use teh same setings in advanced generation and generate one world that stops at 250 and another that stops at 500, the 500 one should have the same history and events up to the year 250.  Compare a bunch of worlds at various lengths to see if you get the same trends.

I will be getting on this, perhaps this weekend or next week.  I, unfortunately, have two tests tomorrow (Evolution and Orgo), a test on Monday and one next Friday.  Studying my Urist off tonight.

[Snaake]

I started my fort in 250, and it feels like 80% of my animals are gigantic, with varying amounts of musculature and fat. A few are enormous, and some rare ones don't have a size descriptor (so I guess average?). I don't think the size descriptors are very useful, to be honest. Most gigantic animals are less than 10% larger than the nominal average adult size for their race, and skinny/weak ones can actually be smaller than said average.

Oh, and I've found that it's pretty easy to breed an all-gigantic strain (>90%) of livestock, but getting them all to be "incredible muscles" and/or "untold amounts of lard" or stuff like that is hard. Probably because those seem to be partly lamarkian traits, i.e. they get modified depending on what creatures do (most noticeable with military dwarves slimming down and developing muscle AFAIK), yet might only be stored with one "current" value (as opposed to a separate value for current fat/muscle, and genetic fat/muscle), and thus inheritable.

Previously, I haven't really found anything useful, but now I did! Seems the standard percentages for variation are 90:95:98:100:102:105:110, so not very much; realistically e.g. dogs have been bred for a FAR larger range. E.g. dogs (and apparently most domestic animals) have that variation with length, height, and broadness. Even before looking at the raws, I was starting to come to the conclusion that breeding for gigantic, muscular etc. animals mostly just isn't worth the time/effort. Either your livestock is so small you'll only get 1-2 extra meat etc., or it's so large (yaks and up) that you get so much food from them it doesn't really matter anyway. Also, feeding forts isn't difficult, and bones are a bit like stone in that you usually get more than you can really use... well, usefully.


P.S. Did you know cats can clean themselves and friendlies? Also, all MILKABLE animals (at least domestic ones) have the exact same milking frequency by default, when in reality, cows are the kings queens of milk production, probably followed by yaks etc followed by maybe goats etc. Argh.