Richard Dawkin's big blunder
March 25, 2014 at 12:19 pm
(This post was last modified: March 25, 2014 at 12:21 pm by Rampant.A.I..)
Heywood is making the classic blunder in thinking natural selection chooses the traits an animal "needs," a gross misunderstanding based in simplistic thinking.
"Second, it's more accurate to think of natural selection as a process rather than as a guiding hand. Natural selection is the simple result of variation, differential reproduction, and heredity — it is mindless and mechanistic. It has no goals; it's not striving to produce "progress" or a balanced ecosystem."
![[Image: furcoat.gif]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=evolution.berkeley.edu%2Fevolibrary%2Fimages%2Fevo%2Ffurcoat.gif)
"Evolution does not work this way.
This is why "need," "try," and "want" are not very accurate words when it comes to explaining evolution. The population or individual does not "want" or "try" to evolve, and natural selection cannot try to supply what an organism "needs." Natural selection just selects among whatever variations exist in the population. The result is evolution."
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_32
"Second, it's more accurate to think of natural selection as a process rather than as a guiding hand. Natural selection is the simple result of variation, differential reproduction, and heredity — it is mindless and mechanistic. It has no goals; it's not striving to produce "progress" or a balanced ecosystem."
"Evolution does not work this way.
This is why "need," "try," and "want" are not very accurate words when it comes to explaining evolution. The population or individual does not "want" or "try" to evolve, and natural selection cannot try to supply what an organism "needs." Natural selection just selects among whatever variations exist in the population. The result is evolution."
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_32
