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Just because you disagree with Dawkins's theology doesn't mean you should reject everything he says. He is, first and foremost, a genetic/evolutionary biologist, and his scientific work and popular science books (particularly the early ones) are excellent and a good primer for how this 'magic' can actually work.
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I do not disagree with everything he says, it is the vitriolic approach he takes to all and sundry who dare suggest he get's off his high horse that I dislike. Basically a holder of a Ph.D. in being a [DELETED]. 
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H
OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre
I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer
Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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Someone has to be a loud obnoxious atheist to stand up to all the loud obnoxious religious types 
I'd rather it wasn't him though because lots of the religious fundies use his outspoken theological approach as an excuse to discredit the whole of evolutionary biology, and while it's silly that people believe what those people say, lots of ordinary people are fairly silly.
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I agree completely.
He is at least as annoying as those he rails against.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
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CDP1802 wrote: The point was to show how quickly it could arrive at the solution, compared to pure chance.
Now what are the chances of that happening?
Henry Minute
Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain
Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?"
“I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
I wouldn't let CG touch my Abacus!
When you're wrestling a gorilla, you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is.
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Henry Minute wrote: Now what are the chances of that happening?
A million to one?
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H
OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre
I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer
Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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- but still they come!
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
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Nagy Vilmos wrote: A million to one?
But they happen 9 times out of 10!
Iain.
I am one of "those foreigners coming over here and stealing our jobs". Yay me!
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once a letter is correctly placed it is never changed so it will always produce the required result
That particular 'criticism' is debunked in the very same Wikipedia article that describes the problem. Yes, the correct answer has been determined beforehand, the 'result' is how fast it can get there with directed randomness.
You are, however, correct that this isn't what the thread starter is proposing.
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For source code, at least in most languages, you'd have to have a clever fitness function, because the number of reported compiler errors doesn't correlate that well with the number of actual mistakes. Miss out a semicolon, or a curly bracket, and you can generate tens of errors for one actual character. Similarly, with a standard spell checker, there would be a strong tendency to just eliminate all spaces, resulting in one extremely long word (one error) from which there would be no escape.
GAs and evolutionary algorithms (GAs are a subset, I suppose, or a method of implementing an EA) work well when the problem space has a smooth fitness surface (or volume or etc depending on the number of dimensions), and does not have a number of 'false maxima' where the fitness is quite high compared to the general space but unable to improve further and much worse than the desired solution. Both of those criteria are likely to cause problems for natural language or computer code.
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Mother nature does not care very much about the fitness surface and false maxima. It counters this by having many enough candidates in the race at any time. And, of course, the environment constantly changes, keeping up a high 'pressure' to adapt. In our case, this would imply to have very large generations, so that we cover the fitness surface better and don't let those candidates trapped in a local maximum 'take over'.
Your remarks on using simple lexical tests or a compiler to determine fitness are correct. A better solution would be to test semantics as well, but this will be extremely hard.
And from the clouds a mighty voice spoke:
"Smile and be happy, for it could come worse!"
And I smiled and was happy
And it came worse.
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and my shirt keeps coming untucked.
Bearing in mind I am skint should I;
a) eat more to try to put the weight back on that I have lost
b) attempt to puncture another hole in my belt
c) buy a smaller belt
d) buy smaller trousers
e) get some braces (can you still buy these or do you have to rob an old person?)
f) just give up on the trousers
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
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Suspenders! So trendy and so ... err sorry, images of my father in law just popped into mind, hope you find a solution. 
It was broke, so I fixed it.
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ChrisElston wrote: b) attempt to puncture another hole in my belt
This is the cheapest, safest, quickest and the most futuristic solution.
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g) stop wearing trousers. They are not needed anyway.
regards Torsten
I never finish anyth...
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Yes, Togas have been out of style far too long 
Toga! Toga! Toga!
And from the clouds a mighty voice spoke:
"Smile and be happy, for it could come worse!"
And I smiled and was happy
And it came worse.
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g. Use black shoe polish instead of trousers.
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nice - but wouldn't lycra attract women more?
regards Torsten
I never finish anyth...
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I am (or was when the trousers fitted me) 19 and a half stone.
I'm not sure lycra is that stretchy, and it is certainly not what anyone, male or female, wants to see me in.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
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ChrisElston wrote: e) get some braces (can you still buy these or do you have to rob an old person?)
I suspect that you would find that braces obtained in that manner would be too short for your purposes, even allowing for the inbuilt adjustment, since old people habitually wear trousers with the waist-band at nipple level.
Henry Minute
Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain
Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?"
“I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
I wouldn't let CG touch my Abacus!
When you're wrestling a gorilla, you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is.
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Henry Minute wrote: since old people habitually wear trousers with the waist-band at nipple level.
The voice of experience
------------------------------------
I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave
CCC Link[ ^]
Trolls[ ^]
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Stop drinking tequila. Link.[^] 
Chris Meech
I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar]
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
posting about Crystal Reports here is like discussing gay marriage on a catholic church’s website.[Nishant Sivakumar]
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There's only one answer. BACON - and lots of it.
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And if you eat so much BACON your throat gets dry, just add gin!
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H
OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre
I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer
Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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I did the Atkins a number of years ago.
Bacon and gin were both good to go on that, so I cannot see how this is going to help me fill out my trousers again.
I tended not to eat that much bacon whilst actually on the diet, pork chops on the other hand, usually with a poached egg atop. What a wonderful breakfast.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
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