# Evolutionary Algorithms and ID

**URL:** https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/evolutionary-algorithms-and-id/7668
**Category:** Side Conversation
**Created:** [September 3, 2019, 5:43pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/evolutionary-algorithms-and-id/7668 "2019-09-03T17:43:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 41

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### Author: ![Giltil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Giltil](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/Giltil)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2019, 4:27pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/evolutionary-algorithms-and-id/7668/41 "2019-09-05T16:27:07Z")

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> [@Jordan](#):
>
> My question is, is this “500 bits” criteria (which at this point seems completely arbitrary to me, but that’s probably for another post) for intelligent design a cumulative thing or for each individual step? So if @Mercer is calculating 26 bits of FI in a single recombination event, will 20 recombination events “make it” or would we have to find a single “thing” that has 500 bits of FI?

I’ve already answered you at 29 but I thought you might be interested by @gpuccio’s insightful analysis of this issue below:

> [@Gpuccio: Functional Information Methodology](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/gpuccio-functional-information-methodology/7549/189):
>
> OK, let’s clarify this. 10 objects with 50 bits of FI each are not, in any way, 500 bits of FI. 10 objects with 50 bits of FI each are 500 bits of FI only if those 10 exact objects are needed to give some new defined function. Let’s see the difference. Let’s say that there is a number of possible functions in a genome that have, each of them, 50 bits of FI. Let’s call the acquisition of the necessary information to get one of those functions “a success”. These functions are the small safes in my example. The probability of getting a success in one attempt is, of course, 1:2^50. How many attempts are necessary to get at least one success? This can be computed using the binomial distribution. The result is that with 2^49 attempts we have a more than decent probability (0.3934693) of getting at least one success. How many attempts are necessary to have a decent probability of gettin at least 10 successes, each of them with that probability of success, each of them with 50 bits …

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