https://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=3736
Computer Puts Evolution In “Jeopardy”
| by | Kyle Butt, M.Div. |
Science fiction writers have been portraying the face-off between
computers and humans for years. Ever so often, what once was science
fiction becomes a reality. Such is the case with the upcoming television
showdown between the two most-winning contestants from the popular game
show “Jeopardy” and a new supercomputer named Watson (Fitzgerald and
Martin, 2011).
On February 14-16, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter will be challenged by
the latest in computing technology. The humans in the contest are
certainly no slouches. Jennings won 74 “Jeopardy” games in a row. And he
and Rutter combined to amass over 3.3 million dollars in prize money.
Their challenger, Watson, an IBM supercomputer
named after the founder of the company, can store the equivalent of over
200 million pages of information, is “the size of 10 refrigerators,”
and is the “result of four years of work by IBM
researchers around the globe.” In a practice round with the human
champions, Watson outscored its opponents $4,000 to Jennings’ $3,400 and
Rutter’s $1,200.
As enjoyable as contests like these are to watch, they bring to light a
very serious truth that needs to be underscored. Would any person who
was thinking correctly look at a supercomputer like Watson and conclude
it did not have an intelligent designer (or several) behind its
construction? To suggest such would be absurd. And yet it challenges
brilliant humans, who are much less physically bulky, and who have
proved their mental prowess repeatedly on “Jeopardy.” Does it make sense
to suggest that Watson was the product of thousands of man-hours of IBM’s
most brilliant researchers across the globe, but the human contestants
were the products of blind chance and random evolutionary processes that
lacked any type of intelligence and had no goal in mind? Certainly not.
If Watson is the product of intelligence, then the IBM
technicians who built it and the “Jeopardy” champions competing against
it must have been designed by an even more impressive Super-intellect.
As Hebrews 3:4 says, “For every house is built by someone, but He who
built all things is God.” One could express that sentiment in another
way and just as truly state that every computer is built by someone, but
He who built all things is God. Supercomputer Watson adds one more
piece of evidence that puts the theory of evolution in “Jeopardy!”
REFERENCE
Fitzgerald, Jim and David Martin (2011), “Computer Could Make 2 ‘Jeopardy!’ Champs Deep Blue,” http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110114/ap_on_hi_te/us_man_vs_machine/print, January 14.