Vision and Evolution (A Critique of Dawkins)

[John 6IX Breezy]

assuming anything happened in a single step is the easiest way to get the entirety of evolutionary theory wrong.

The same is true of assuming all-or-nothing development.

Right, that's one of the struggles I have with evolution. It flattens staircases into gradual inclines.

As to your knife response above, the issue here would be that I see the "half an eye" analogy as a necessary step towards a "whole eye." In other words, perceiving knives as an edible fruit would be a necessary step on the path of progression, before the necessary hardware evolves to that can perceive knives as inedible. When you say those organisms won't be well represented, that to me is a hurdle that the entire species needs to jump over to keep going. But it seems as if you see it as a side issue that only some members of a species will have, while the rest are able to get around it.

So it seems to me, if I can use an analogy to represent our different ideas, that you view evolution kind of like a bridge. Organisms can get to their destination as long as they travel on the path laid out by the bridge, and those that fall don't. Whereas I see evolution more like stepping stones on a river, organisms can fall to the sides like a bridge, but they also need to jump to the next evolutionary step if they are to move forward at all. Jump too short an they end up in the river.