>Brian writes
>
>>First, I agree that to leave out cumulative selection is either deceptive
>>or sadly mis-informed. At the same time I must also say that Dawkins
>>use of teleological selection as an illustration of natural selection
>>is also deceptive. Consider his typing monkey program. The number of
>>"generations" required to type "methinks it is like a weasel" is
>>tremendous if there is no selection. It drops by many orders of
>>magnitude when you run his nifty little program. But the program
>>represents the best-case scenario (teleogical selection) which in
>>no way resembles the actual process of blind watchmaker selection.
>
>Absolutely. Dawkins generates the phrase in 40 or so (as I remember)
>generations by applying a very strong, explicit, goal-directed selection
>process. Then he proceeds to claim that far more varied, dynamic,
>intricate behavior arose without any teleology at all. It seems to me that
>selection is a way in which teleology can be imposed on nature. Science
>can't properly say anything about what, if anything, is driving selection.
>On the other hand, no knowledge of what, if anything, is driving selection
>is necessary for studying selection itself.
>
One of the humorous things about this example is that Dawkins unwittingly
gives a good argument for the power of directed evolution.
As another humorous aside, Yockey compared Dawkins with one of the
professors at the Grand Academy of Lagado (_Gulliver's Travels_)
on account of this example. I re-read this part of Gulliver's Travels
to see what Yockey was talking about. One of the professors had
constructed a really clever device that would select words at random
from a huge vocabulary. Grad students would carefully monitor the
output looking for intelligible phrases. When found, they were read
aloud so another group of grad students could write them into books.
The professor hoped to put these together so as to produce great
works of poetry, philosophy, law and mathematics to fill the shelves
of the library of the Grand Academy. For a small fee, the unlearned
could also arrange to "write" a classic in their chosen field and
be published.
Yockey went on to say that the professors scheme was actually better
than Dawkins' since he had the good sense not to include a teleogical
target phrase ;-).
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Brian Harper | "Do not conclude from your apprenticeship |
| that you have nothing left to learn" -- Pascal |
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