Robot Tadpole Sex Sheds Light on Intelligent Design
Scientists studying the evolution of vertebrate physiology at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. have designed swimming robots to demonstrate how evolution might have produced such efficient vertebrate swimmers (see Live Science). Swimming abilities of each robot were tested by measuring its ability to swim toward and follow a light suspended above the surface of a pool. After each round of testing, the characteristics of the robots that swam the best were combined into a new design, simulating natural selection of beneficial vertebral characteristics.
“The fossil record shows vertebrae evolved independently at least four separate times. That shows they must really be functionally important,” said vertebrate physiologist John Long.
The swimming robots are called Tadros, because they are robots simulating tadpoles. Further tests will explore the effects of predators on the development of Tadro backbones:
In addition, the researchers plan on adding a “predator” into the tank during the swimming competition to see how Tadro tails evolve under those circumstances. The hunter will attempt to collide with the robots, while the Tadros will try to avoid it. This next generation of Tadros will detect the predator using infrared sensors that mimic the pressure-sensitive organs of fish known as lateral lines. “We also plan not just on making the backbone stiffer, but on putting in vertebrae, to make them bend, to have joints, and see how that changes things,” Long said.
Long’s paper will appear Nov. 17 in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
Another example of the equivalent of dog breeding (microevolution) being passed off as macroevolution. If you want to increase the ability of a dog to hunt, how would you do it? How about get a bunch of dogs out in the woods and see which ones hunt the best. Then breed those dogs together to produce offspring that hunt better than the last generation. Have you introduced new genetic information? No, you have just selected from what was already there. Have you explained where the dog’s hunting ability came from in the first place? No; as far as this experiment is concerned, Tadros and their simulated backbones appear magically out of nowhere, fully formed.
Predators in this experiment are intended to put selection pressure on Tadros in the same way cats put selection pressure on mice. Tadros respond by evolving pressure-sensitive organs. No, wait! Pressure sensitive organs just appear magically, having been intelligently designed by the researchers. Nonetheless, now that we have these organs, we will spend lots of money playing in our pond, making other things magically appear, such as more vertebrae, intelligently selecting which features we want to select for, and which features must go. So much for the mindless, random forces of evolution.
—DK