What evidence could I present to you that would make you change your mind?

He emphasized that an open-minded person should be able to answer this. However, blind faith in something probably isn’t going to allow for one.

Personally, I find comfort in the scientific method and transient truths based on empirical evidence.  Why is it so bad to reevaluate beliefs based on new evidence?  Is it an issue of stubbornness?

The Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast is available on iTunes.

For quite awhile I’ve wanted to develop an evolution simulator. The problem is that there would be so much involved in this, it’d be nearly impossible for me. I try to ignore the fact that no scientist has done it, maybe it’s that no one has had the vision. Most likely it’s entirely impractical.

In the simulator, I’d love to to see a diverse existence of lifeforms that interact with each other and their environment. Below are a few features that I think would need to be part of the simulator:

• Inherited traits
• Mutation of the traits (or the “genetic” material)
• Natural selection (simulated, of course)
• Environmental factors like geographic isolation
• Speciation

Here are a few simulators that are interesting, but not nearly to the level of sophistication that I’ve wanted:

• Evolution Simulator-Java
• Evolites – not sure about this one, haven’t tried it yet.
• Spore – a game by Maxis which looks awesome, but I’m skeptical that it will actually involve evolution. To coincide with Darwin Day, today they announced a release date of September 7th, 2008.

Obviously, there’s a long way to go on this one. From my perspective, this application would need a lot of intelligence. Maybe I should start a SourceForge project and start recruiting!