Re: A question on Dawkins
michael farley (mifarley@indiana.edu)
Wed, 24 May 1995 11:37:25 -0500 (EST)Murray Hogg asks if Richard Dawkins is making a very obvious mistake by
claiming that evolution can produce enormously improbable complex changes
by proceeding through a large number of intermediate stages, each of
which is far more likely to obtain compared to making the end product all
in one step. Murray, I think that Dawkins would accept your dice example
with one caveat. He would argue that one is more likely to obtain one
hundred sixes by rolling a single die one hundred times IF one can keep
the sucessful results when you obtain them. That is, every time you get a
six, you set that die aside and roll another die until you get another
six and so forth. You should obtain one hundred sixes on one hundred dice
in a relatively short time by this method.
Dawkins is good at using everyday analogies to explain
evolutionary concepts. However, I think that this example is highly
oversimplified. The necessary caveat (that you can keep the successful
result) is a questionable premise. In order for Dawkins' scenario to
obtain, all of the intermediates produced in the process of effecting a
large scale change must be functional and better adapted than the
previous one. I still fail to see how this can happen with complex,
interdependent biological systems. I don't see how 2% of an eye is more
beneficial than 1% of an eye (what is 1% of an eye anyway?) if you need
something like 99% of an eye (at least) in order to have a functional
organ at all. Michael Denton raises some good objections is his book
'Evolution: A Theory in Crisis' which highlight the difficulty of even
imagining (let alone obtaining evidence for) such large scale changes
(e.g. the avian wing and lung).
Hope this was helpful!
In Christ,
Mike Farley
Dept. of Biochemistry
Indiana University