Algorithms
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Dave Thomas Volume 34.3, May / June 2010 How an intelligent design theorist was bested in a public math competition by a genetic algorithm—a computer simulation of evolution. In the summer of 2006, a different kind of war was waged on the Internet—a war between computer programs written by both evolutionary scientists and by intelligent design (ID) advocates. The war came to a climax in a public math competition in which dozens of humans stepped forward to compete against each other and against genetic ("evolutionary") computer algorithms. The results were stunning: The official representative of the intelligent design community was outperformed by an evolutionary algorithm, thus learning Orgel's Second Law—"Evolution is smarter than you are"—the hard way.
