Scott_Aaronson comments on Natural Selection's Speed Limit and Complexity Bound - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 November 2007 04:54PM

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Comment author: Scott_Aaronson 05 November 2007 06:26:38AM 0 points [-]

Wiseman, if it's true that (1) copying DNA inherently incurs a 10^-8 probability of error per base pair, and that (2) evolution hasn't invented any von-Neumann-type error-correction mechanism, then all the objections raised by you and others (and by me, earlier!) are irrelevant.

In particular, it doesn't matter how capable a species is of coping with a few detrimental mutations. For if the mutation rate is higher than what natural selection can correct, the species will just keep on mutating, from one generation to the next, until the mutations finally do become detrimental.

Also, your idea that sections of DNA can become more robust once they've "proven themselves" violates the 10^-8 assumption -- which I'd imagine (someone correct me if I'm wrong) comes from physics and chemistry, not because it's favored by natural selection.