Computer Proves Evolution?

“Testing Darwin: Scientists at Michigan State University Prove Evolution Works.” So claims the cover of the
February issue of Discover magazine.

Catch a plane to East Lansing, Michigan (home of MSU), author Carl Zimmer recommends. There we will find
some aliens.
But these aliens aren’t made of carbon or water. They have no DNA. What are they? They are computer
aliens, organisms created by and in a computer!

Scientists at Caltech in the 1990s developed a clever software program called Avida which attempts to
simulate evolution.
Working with Avida, the MSU researchers say they have shown how random mutual and natural selection of
digital organisms can lead to evolution.

Zimmer’s article does indirectly contain a couple of interesting admissions. Why would evolutionists in the
21st century need to prove evolution? Isn’t evolution as much a fact as the law of gravity?

The Avida team also says that their software has been downloaded numerous times by creationists in hopes
of finding a fatal flaw in the program (it’s available free on the Internet). Yet, only “minor glitches” were found
they say.

What? Numerous creationist scientists capable of analyzing a complicated computer program? Haven’t we
been told all creationists are merely Bible-thumping fundamentalist preachers?

As for the “minor glitches”, Dr. Royal Truman from Germany found at least 10 serious flaws in the program
including programming for small population size, minuscule genome size, very little genetic material which can
be damaged by mutations, etc.

“Such assumptions virtually guarantee the evolution of novel logic functions,” Truman writes about Avida
(http://www.iscid.org )

In the April Discover, to their credit, the editors printed three letters regarding the Avida article, all critical.
One writer wrote, “It’s interesting that you assert that the Avida software program proves the theory of
evolution when, in fact, it does more to prove the theory of intelligent design.” And we all know the identity of
the Intelligent Designer. LSI

—Warren Krug, editor