What I meant to say is survival of the strong(est)
Doesn’t make for ‘fitness’ though - just ‘strongest’. For the strongest might not be ‘fit’ to survive.
The strong lion might have the cubs, but the weak lion might have the mutation that would have allowed them to survive better in drought. And the whole pride die in the drought.
Take another example…
When baby turtles make their way down the beach to the sea there’s gulls and other birds that are waiting. The gull doesn’t weed out the ‘weakest’ baby turtle. It goes for the one closest to it. It’s more ‘luck’. Survival of the luckiest.
That’s why Darwin’s basic premise is so dumb. That which survives survives. Or, as Behe put it; “Survival of the Surviviest”.
It’s sooo dumb in fact that in order to illustrate ‘natural selection’ he used examples of pigeon breeders. Thus he used ‘artificial/directed selection’ to show how a directionless system might ‘select’ what animals survive.
And, even today brainiacs such as Richard Dawkins continue to push models to demonstrate evolution that don’t demonstrate evolution; such as bio-morphs! (these are computer models)
Here’s what Richard Milton says about computer modelling…granted this is referring to whole creatures like Dawkins did…but hopefully you’ll get the point…
“In his book “The Blind Watchmaker” Richard Dawkins describes a computer program he wrote which randomly generates symmetrical figures from dots and lines. These figures, to a human eye, have a resemblance to a variety of objects. Dawkins gives some of them insect and animal names…Dawkins calls these creations ‘biomorphs’ meaning life shapes or living shapes…He also refers to them as “quasi-biological’ forms and in a moment of excitement calls them ‘exquisite creatures’. He plainly believes that in some way they correspond to the real word of living animals
(Dawkins says of his biomorphs) “With a wild surmise, I began to breed generation after generation… my incredulity grew in parallel with the evolving resemblance… Admittedly they have like a spider…” (However) The only thing about the biomorphs that is biological is Richard Dawkins, their creator. The program Dawkins wrote and the computer he used have no analog at all in the real biological world…his program is not a true representation of random mutation coupled with natural selection. On the contrary it is dependent on artificial selections (conducted by Dawkins) in which he controls the rate of occurrence. There is also no failure in his program: his biomorphs are not subject to fatal consequences of degenerate mutations like real living things. And most important of all, he chooses which are the luck individuals to receive the next mutation.” quoted from “Shattering the Myths of Darwinism” pp168-9.
Anyway, if you want to make your own biomorphs, go to
rennard.org/alife/english/biomintrgb.html
(Which says “The third chapter of the blind watchmaker is dedicated to the biomorph program developed by Dawkins that points out the power of micro-mutations and cumulative selection.”
All it means is that micro-mutations of a computer program, and cumulative selection by the programmer!)
From Dawkins’ book
“‘Nothing in my biologist’s intuition, nothing in my 20 years experience of* programming computers, and nothing in my wildest dreams, prepared me for what actually emerged on the screen. I can’t remember exactly when in the sequence it first began to dawn on me that an evolved resemblance to something* like an insect was possible. With a wild surmise, I began to breed**** generation after generation, from whichever child looked most like an insect.* My incredulity grew in parallel with the evolving resemblance. . . Admittedly they have eight legs like a spider, instead of six like an insect, but even so!* I still cannot conceal from you my feeling of exhultation as I first watched these exquisite creatures emerging before my eyes.’“
He talks of ‘generations’, ‘breeding’, ‘evolving resemblance’, ‘evolved resemblance to something like an insect’, ‘child’, ‘exquisite creatures’.
He urges you to act as Natural Selection, in finding out how easy small mutations can lead you.
But again from that web-site
“** According to those who believe in alternative theories, this chain merely does not exist : it is impossible to consider the simultaneous evolution of each component of the eye, always respecting a growing evolutive advantage. For Darwin, who examined the example of the eye in the Chapter dealing with the difficulties of his theory, this chain must exist, even if the fossil archives do not permit its reconstitution3.
*** Dawkins has always fought for evolution., for him this chain exists. Furthermore its main steps can be reconstituted”
rennard.org/alife/english/biomintrgb.html
I thought I’d get back to this before it was closed
