From: riggs@descartes.tec.army.mil (Bill Riggs)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Virtual Nature (was Re: Son of Creationist Crapola.)
Date: 3 Oct 92 01:20:36 GMT
Followup-To: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Organization: LNK Corporation, Riverdale, MD

In article <1992Oct2.152841.29703@m.cs.uiuc.edu> mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>In article <1408@tecsun1.etl.army.mil>, riggs@descartes.tec.army.mil (Bill Riggs) writes in part:
>|> 
>|> 	5. On the other hand, I predict that we've just scratched the
>|> surface. On the road to making Riggs a believer in evolution, I 
>|> firmly believe that we'll have virtual nature within 10 years. As 
>
>Not bloody likely!  The efforts to predict something simple like
>whether it's going to rain or what the effects of greenhouse gasses
>might be is straining both theoretical knowledge and, more significantly,
>computational power.  For that matter, the efforts to simulate simple 
>moleular processes such as protein building are also straining
>computational resources.  (By this I mean that the largest and fastest
>existing technology is not even close to fast enough to do these compuations.
>Even with projections of 1000-fold or more increases, these problems
>will still be too compilcated.)  There's like zero probablility that anything
>other than a toy will be available in 10 years.  And, as you note,
>toys are already available.

	Noted. One of our problems with "virtual reality" is it is easier
to put on a good show than to represent ground truth. Still, the
technical pieces are coming together, and as long as one does not have
to reproduce the entire ecosystem, QED. So we'll do what everybody does -
to artificially bound the problem and just do a little ecosystem first.
Dung Beetles would be fun, don't you think ?

	Oh, before I let this go, I would like to point out that real-time
graphics is a long pole in the tent. But that is what makes "virtual
reality" virtual. Sounds are important, as well.

>
>|> It is just a matter of time before science finds more
>|> PC (excuse me - politically correct, not personal computer) domains to 
>|> demonstrate the "evolution of created objects."
>
>Right.  Sure.  Notice how successful computer simulations have been
>in the fields of strategic defense and climate change.  Zilch.  True
>believers will never be swayed by a model.  And they can always fiddle
>up their own model to show something different.  And anyway, I hadn't 
>noticed "science" (whoever that might be) spending a lot of time seeking 
>out politically correct (by which you surely mean pinko, anti-christian) 
>domains to do anything.

	I don't know what is so very Christian about SDI research.
I guess there must be some Christians working in the program, but that
doesn't make it a Christian program. But see here, all you are really
talking about is a funding problem, and I would expect that the smart
folks who teach biology these days would be able somehow to figure
out how to use these tools to serve their ends. That is, of course,
unless the forces of Creation Science beat them to the draw. Call this - The
Virtual Nature Gap. :)


	Bill R.

	"My opinions do not represent those of my employer or any
government agency."
-- 
Bill R.