Let's schedule an early dinner at your office, get some sandwiches and you
and I can watch these things run and I will explain the hows, whys and the
recent developments in this area. I will give you a call tomorrow.
You wrote:
"Second, and most importantly, I am very
skeptical as a biologist of mathematicians and physicists trying to claim
that
their computer simulations have much to say about the biological world. The
biological organism contains a level of complexity (poorly defined word I
know)
not present in physics and chemistry. Biological populations bring in a
greater
level of complexity and uncertainty beyond the organism. In my population
genetics courses, mathematical models were used only as theoretical
approximations of the real world. If you want to know how real populations
act,
you have to go out and get real observations from real populations. I have no
problem understanding that airplanes can be tested completely on computer
without the necessity of wind tunnels. The observations are repeateble
enough,the calculations precise enough that effective computer simulations
are possible. This is just not true of biological populations."
Two things, you are thinking of physics as it was taught when I (and I guess
you) were undergrads. The laws discussed were always linear or if they were
not, they were linearized by use of certain approximations and then
proclaimed as truth to the unsuspecting undergrad. When they do that to the
laws of physics, they remove the complexity from it and this makes physics
much more dull than it actually is. The motion of a pendulum in reality is
very complex under certain conditions. Laws were derived to eliminate that
complexity because complexity brought with it unpredictability. And if
physicists dislike something more than unpredictability, I don't know what it
is.
You are wrong if you think that the modeling of wind around an
airplane is
non-complex. The turbulence generated by the control surfaces are quit
complex and interact with the airframe in unpredictable ways. If the model
really matches reality, it may be non repeatable. By this I mean that the
exact set of numbers which one run produces is different from another run.
And in nature, that is the way it really is.
You wrote:
""Numerical models work particularly well in astronomy and physics because
objects and forces conform to their mathematical definitions so precisely."
Not true of a forced double pendulum. Its motion is quite unpredictable, and
quite complex.
You wrote:
"P.S. Thanks for the kind review of my encounter with Eugenis Scott on our
local Public Radio station. I was pleased with the outcome. Glen Mitchell,
the host asked for more info about Probe. we may get further opportunities to
appear on his show. Thanks for listening and praying. Your review was beter
than I could have done. It was helpful to read your perspective."
My pleasure. It was a good debate.
glenn