Safer And Faster

Survival machines which can simulate the future are one jump ahead of survival machines who can only learn on the basis of overt trial and error.  The trouble with overt trial is that it takes time and energy.  The trouble with overt error is that it is often fatal.  Simulation is both safer and faster.

-- Richard Dawkins (26 March 1941 -), British evolutionary biologist and author, known for his advocacy of atheism, The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989)