Evolutionary algorithms now surpass human designers

I read this news article a while back, and I decided to save it till I had some more time to enjoy it.

Evolutionary algorithms now surpass human designers

Instead of pitting God against science, the emerging spat centres on evolutionary algorithms (EAs), which mimic the processes of natural selection and random mutation by "breeding", selecting and re-breeding possible designs to produce the fittest ones.

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Proponents of EAs say they could replace traditional methods in many fields from designing exotic new types of optical fibre and USB memory sticks to more aesthetic computer-generated art. Critics argue that the technique may lead to designs that can't be properly evaluated since no human understands which trade-offs were made and therefore where failure is likely.

A couple points about the article.  First off, I don't understand the constant reference to 'God' when discussing evolutionary evolution.  Evolution exists, just like gravity, just like air (ether).  You can argue about where it all started till your blue in the face.  It started, and it exists.  Get over it. 

Second, evolution in the context of natural selection is not random, and neither are evolutionary algorithms.  Mutations may be random, but there is nothing random about natural selection.  It is simply cause and effect, the most capable of survival survive. 

As a proponent of EA's, I don't say they can replace traditional methods of design, I say they enhance existing methods of design, and will greatly enhance future methods.  EA's are an extension of our capabilities.  I cant sit at my PC and run a 1000 simulations an hour for three days at a time, measuring the efficiency of my simulation and propagating the strongest virtual organisms.

And as far as developing techniques that cant be understood? Hogwash.  Who wrote the algorithm that created the intelligence?  Just because I dont see every node fire in neural net, and set its individual weights, does not mean I dont understand the technique. This is like saying that because I dont understand the process of how stocks are traded, I dont know economics.

The article goes on to say how EA's are nothing new, and how they have yet to gain much acceptance.  I think this has more to do with types of EA's that have been written, and the limited availability of large parallel processing systems.