Although I would still encourage you to contact Walter about this, I
would like to add that I did ask him about the program recently. He
stated very clearly that he did in fact post on t.o. that the source for
the simulation is described in his book. So I went back and checked his
book. On chapter 8 on Haldane's dilemma, from pp.231-236, the simulation
is described. Since Dawkins' original program is claimed to be lost, a
simulation by David Wise of the National Center for science Education
was used, and Walter claims that it is functionally equivalent. Given
the same parameters, the program yielded similar results. Walter goes
on to dscribe problems with the parameters, and according to the book,
using non-determinstic mutation and a reproduction rate of N=6, the
simulation goes into error catastrophe. By exploration, Walter found
that the mutation rate that produces the fastest rate for evolution was
1 in 56. Given this, the average time it takes to reach the target is
1663 generations. This figure is still pretty optimistic, since the
simulation assumes a number of things which favors evolution.
> WE>ReMine did not produce the name of the simulation that he had
> >claimed showed the problem, nor any indication of how one
> >recognized the problem in a simulation. It seems to me that he
> >missed a great opportunity to try out his idea.
>
> ReMine actually names one in his book, ie. Dawkin's "Methinks it
> is like a Weasel" simulation:
>
> "Thus, the simulation-with its numerous unrealistic assumptions that
> favor evolution-is less than five times faster than Haldane's estimate
> of 300 generations per substitution. Ironically, this suggests that
> Haldane was too optimistic about the speed of evolution.' (ReMine
> W.J., "The Biotic Message: Evolution Versus Message
> Theory", St. Paul Science: Saint Paul MN, 1993, p236).
>
> ReMine's failure to produce this simulation is hardly his fault - Dawkins'
> claims he has lost it:
>
> "The computer simulation that Dawkins used for his book is lost
> (Dawkins, 1991, personal letter)" (ReMine W.J., "The Biotic Message,
> 1993, p235).
Does anybody know of anyone at the National Center for Science
education, or know of any way to get a hold of the program? I tried
searching the web for the home page, but was unsuccessful.