What advantages does this computer model have over doing research on the subject of evolution with biological organisms?
A. It has the advantage of speed primarily, and precision. It allows us to do what you really can do with natural organisms. Lenski’s work with E. coli lets one do experimental evolution so one can test hypotheses in that way. It’s taken fifteen years, E. coli are pretty fast replicators, but even so, four generations or so a day still is a long time, and your graduate students would never get out and get jobs if you had to wait for that whole process to go through, and what this does is let one watch it happen much more quickly, and then set up very controlled circumstances so that you can really do replications. A controlled experiment is now possible in a way that allows very precise comparison of groups and then statistically significant results. MR. ROTHSCHILD: Your Honor, at this time I’d like to move qualify Dr. Pennock as an expert in the philosophy of science, in the history of science, in intelligent design, the subject of intelligent design, and in his research on the evolut
