Biomorph lab interactive

This is an online version of the computer game that Richard Dawkins supplied with The Blind Watchmaker.

There is one artificial “biomorph” in each square. At first they look like dots. But click on the board and they reproduce, based on the one you clicked. Soon, they start to show some length, breadth and colour. Click on your favourite–do you like red, tall, wide, branchy? They vary randomly from the parent that you chose.

The population rapidly tends in a direction guided by your selection of only one parent for the next generation. It’s a tiny lab demonstration of the power of selection to change a population quickly.

In fact, here are the results of selecting for “looks like a bird flying overhead” after only 11 clicks—in other words, the 12th generation.

Here’s another “looks like birds” I didn’t count the clicks but it wasn’t many:

Here’s “looks like pine trees” after ten clicks:

Here’s “looks like complex bugs” after eight clicks, and I think the previous generation was even more impressive:

Finally, here’s “looks like antlers” after only 7 clicks:

Some evolution deniers are fond of belabouring how improbable it is that random reproduction can resut in non-random outcomes under the force of selection: yet here is a demonstration. Of the 27 million million possibilities, it takes only a few minutes to select recognizable forms.

See also “Biomorphs and butterflies“.

UPDATE: The original link was dead, so I replaced it. Please see “Biomorphs re-visited” for many current links.

Tags: evolution, Biomorphs, selection, computer games, Richard Dawkins, Blind Watchmaker, artificial life, simulated life