Dawkin's weasel - it isn't that bad...

Richard Dawkins writes about his weasel alogrithm:

Although the monkey/Shakespeare model is useful for explaining the distinction between single-step selection and cumulative selection, it is misleading in important ways.

But it is useful is just another way: It helps to illustrate the importance of a sensible choice of the rate of mutation!
I calculated the expected number of generations for ten different rates of mutation per letter: 1%, 2%,..., 10%. As the graph - and the table - shows, the algorithm works best with a moderate rate of 4% or 5%.

	size of the population
	25	50	100
1 %	534	274	145
2 %	335	175	96
3 %	280	148	83
4 %	263	139	79
5 %	266	140	79
6 %	296	146	82
7 %	434	159	88
8 %	1394	179	96
9 %	15313	229	107
10 %	398,256	429	123

That's not much of a surprise, but contrasts with the algorithm W. Dembski declared to be the weasel: his version works best with a maximal rate of mutation...