Educational video!

:shock: wow, that was cool. best educational video i've ever seen

Yup...education isn't always a bore. It just takes the right teacher to show you the cool stuff...

by the way, is that oasis playing in the background?

i think so

i think so

wow, thats a punch in the face for creationists. ecxellent movie

wow, thats a punch in the face for creationists. ecxellent movie

Scared to click on a link without more explanation. Too many keyloggers makes a boy paranoid.

The link is pretty cool. Basically somebody made a computer program that could simulate evolution in clocks. He defined a few basic clock parts and relaxed how they could be configured (number of teeth on a gear, where they could be attached, etc), basically the DNA of a clock. He then made rules for how existing clocks could be combined, think clock sex. He then made a metric for determining how good a clock was, think of this as evolutionary pressure.

He setup an initial pool of clocks, he then ran a simulation of the clocks competing and mating. The simulation shows that using a genetic model and applying selective pressure working clocks would evolve from random combinations of clock parts. He ran the simulation a number of times and each time ended up with clocks that could produce at least hours minutes and seconds. Some of the clocks also did weeks, half days, etc.

There are a few other neat things in the video that draw parallels between his simulation and observations of the evolutionary process in living things. For instance multiple runs showed that for clocks there are several evolutionary periods.

His initial goal with the video is to disprove a common false argument against evolution known as the blind watch maker argument. The argument goes that god had to have created life because if you take a bunch of watch pieces and shake them up in a bag you won't get a watch out of it. The maker of the video has a lot of fun debunking that claim by showing that shaking parts in a bag isn't a good abstraction for evolution / a life cycle. So he makes his own blind watchmaker who really can produce working clocks.

Scared to click on a link without more explanation. Too many keyloggers makes a boy paranoid.