RE: What do scientists say about existence?
June 20, 2017 at 1:40 am
(This post was last modified: June 20, 2017 at 1:40 am by Astreja.)
(June 18, 2017 at 11:50 pm)snowtracks Wrote: In the book - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blind_Watchmaker = “The Blind Watchmaker” Richard Dawkins demonstrated that natural selection requires intelligence; thereby completely invalidating the theory that the universe is not directed.
He uses a computer program to generate the Shakespeare phase “Me thinks it is like a weasel” to simulate how random mutations and natural selection could generate new functional information...
Snowtracks, I think you missed the point of Dawkins' computer programming experiment. IIRC (it's been a while since I read the book), he demonstrated two different algorithms. One was completely random, and the other operated under an additional constraint: If the correct letter lands in a slot, it stops changing while incorrect letters continue to mutate until they, too fit.
Similarly, evolution does not cause everyone's genes to randomly change to something else with each reproductive cycle. Perhaps in the early days of DNA there was a lot of trial and error, and a lot of "experimental" genomes that appeared for a single generation before dying out, but over many generations the genomes that achieved a good fit with their environments achieved stability and a decreasing number of mutations, evolving into distinct and relatively unchanging forms.
(Disclaimer: I am not a geneticist but I occasionally hang out with one. This is strictly my own interpretation of what Dawkins was trying to say in The Blind Watchmaker, and is subject to correction and elaboration by real geneticists.)