Author: Lee Borrell
Company: Transharmonic Software

Richard Dawkins :  RI Lecture - 1991 - Waking up in the Universe - Programme 2

The rebuttal of the Fred Hoyle 747 made by a Hurricane argument

Richard Dawkins :  .....The principle of the lock and key is that there's something intrinsically improbable in the shape of the key.You need THAT key the open the lock.
In the case of an ordinary lock,that you open with a key,it's not easy to measure how improbable the key is.But here's a combination lock,and ordinary bicycle lock.

[For the inability of the public to deal with combinations and chance,let alone those concerned with DNA,see sci-mat3.html where Sue Blackmore shows that this leads to superstitious beliefs.sci-mat.html shows that the public don't even know what DNA is,let alone what the chances are of life. Note the RI is online at www.ri.ac.uk and the lectures at www.bbc.co.uk/rilectures -LB (The lectures are likely to have moved now 19/8/10)]

Here we know exactly how improbable it is,because there are 3 dials and each one has 6 positions,that means there are 6 times 6 times 6 possibilities,which is 216.There's a 1 in 216 chance of opening it by luck,and here's a model of the same combination lock,so we can see how it works.

[For bible bashers there is absolutely no significance to Richard using a combination lock with three wheels each having six digits,and thus rendering 666!  Whilst Richard is an evolutionist and doen't believe god myths,he's not the antichrist-LB]

You have to get all three of the dials into position.This one's combination is 6,5,1,and the lock opens.All three of the teeth have to be lined up.It isn't enough just to have one of them.But the lock is just a a parable.Let's get back to real life.If the Thorn Bug is a key,what this means is that just any old shape won't do,it MUST be the exact shape of a rose thorn.

[Richard is referring to the propensity of a Thorn Bug to imitate the appearance of a rose thorn and thus not be eaten through camouflage -LB]

A stick insect MUST be the exact shape  of a stick.An upper tooth,must fit - bite snugly against the lower teeth in your jaw.Yet the theory of evolution says that all these things evolved gradually, stage by stage.This means that they must have gone through intermediates when they were not a perfect key fitting a lock.The thorn but must have been half like a thorn,the stick insect must have been half like a stick.But whoever heard of a key that only half-fitted a lock? A key either fits a lock or it doesn't.

So how do real living creatures manage to evolve their perfection? How do they manage to survive the intermediate stages? How do they work when they're only half a key? Well let's approach the problem by going back to the combination lock.While I've been talking Bryson's been discretely doctoring his lock,so that it behaves in a different way.If you could imagine a lock where instead of having to get all the dials in place at once - supposing I was trying to crack a safe and their was money in their - as it is I can't do it,because I've got to get all the dials in place at once,and I've only got a 1 in 216 chance of doing that - in a real bank safe it would be 1 in billions - I can't do it.

But suppose that I were able to try the first one at random 

[For notes on "randomness" see sci-mat1.html under "Michael Baum" and watch out for "The coin of Tyche" at fortunecity coming as soon as I scan it -LB]

and eventually find how to open that,and then the safe door peeps open a little and a little bit of money drops out,I've done that one,now I can go on to the next one,and I find out where...how to open that one,I've only got a 1 in 6 chance - that's fine,and a little bit more money spills out,and now the final wheel - I've only got a 1 in 6 chance - that's easy,and I open the entire safe.

It's now become a "gradualistic" combination lock,whereas before it was an "all or nothing" combination lock.With this lock,the maximum number of tries that you need in order to open it by luck is not 216,but a mere 18.

[The gap gets disproportionately wider the more you increase the the chances because the "all or nothing" increases exponentially,and the "gradualistic" linearly,for example,the lock used by Sue Blackmore (see above) of four rings of 0-9 is 10^4 or 10,000 versus 4 times 10 = 40.This means that the absurdly large numbers posed by creationists against the chances of life evolving, are actually far smaller than supposed under the "gradualistic" scheme -LB]

So it's easy to open a gradualistic combination lock,and I call this "smearing out the luck",because we don't have to get our luck all in one ridiculously large dollop.Instead,we can get our luck in dribs and drabs,each drib being allowed to count before the next drab,and we go on  to wait for the next bit of luck - it accumulates.

[This "stratified stability" as Jacob Bronowski calls it,allows chemicals to become life in stages,perhaps passing through stages like crystals,which self assemble and grow in size (we can see this in nature with our own eyes),and perhaps on to viruses and chemical nanomachines,albeit viruses exploit and hijack more complex organisms.The machinery of RNA or the capacity of DNA to split down the middle and form two new chains perhaps is one of these chemical nanomachines created via the stratification,or the "smearing out" of the required circumstances over several stages,thus it is not like assembling a hurricane assembling a 747 -LB]

So what have we seen so far? Although an animal may look like a key fitting a lock,it's not a totally good analogy,because in this case half a key is better than no key.If Nature is a combination lock,it's a gradualistic combination lock,not an all or nothing one.

Now let's look at the same thing from another direction,it's been said that a monkey typing at random on a typewriter could eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare [see largeno.html] .Well I once did this experiment with my then 11 month old daughter Juliette,and this is what she typed,I let her go for a bit :-

[Richard tries to pronounce the combinations of letters as words]

and so on and so on,and I realised after a bit that I'd have to let her go on for at least a billion years before she got even a single phrase of Shakespeare.
[NOTE that evolution DID have billions of years available to it-not 10,000 or 4,000 -LB]

The eminent astronomer,Sir Fred Hoyle has pointed out that it's just about as unlikely that any complex living structure could spring into existence by luck alone.He said it's rather like taking a junk yard,at letting a hurricane blow through it,and the hurricane has the luck to spontaneously assemble a Boeing 747.So here's our junk yard,and the hurricane comes along and it blows like this.

[Richard pushes model 747 parts around to mimic a hurricane]

And Hoyle's point is that the luck that would be necessary to spontaneously assemble a Boeing 747,like that,is equivalent to the luck that you would need in order to get something like an eye or a stick insect or a Haemoglobin molecule,by sheer luck.

[This is similar to the William Paley argument of a watch recounted at The self organising cosmos
which also explains PANTHEISM and shows why God is not a tenable explanation for what we see around us. Paul Harrison also shows how science and religion can be worked into a single philosophy  -LB]

Well,my reason for mentioning Hoyle's 747,is that I'm going to take his name in vain in the next demonstration.We're going to have a computer monkey - or rather we're going to have TWO computer monkeys,one called "Hoyle" and one called "Darwin".

[We're going to "make a monkey out of Hoyle".Darwin already supposes that he is related to apes and therefore is already a primate to begin with -LB]

Both monkeys have the same task,both have to type not the complete works of Shakespeare,but one phrase from "as You Like It" - "More giddy in my desires than a monkey".
Hoyle types entirely at random,after every line that he types,the computer checks to see if he has managed to hit the target line,if he does the computer will stop,bells will ring,it will be the the most improbable coincidence in the history of the world,and I solemnly promise to eat my hat.

[The sentence Rick has chosen is like a combination lock having 31 wheels (38 including spaces) with 26 (27 inc space) symbols on each wheel. To get this by luck alone would be 26^31 to 1 against,which my calculator says is 7.314x10^43 to 1 -LB]

I'll go further than that,I bet you everything that I possess that it won't reach the phrase,let's shall we say in the next 10 billion years.I won't bet you -I'll undertake to give everything I possess to the Royal Institution and here's a legal document signed by me [murmurs of laughter from audience],which undertakes to make over everything I own to the Royal Institution,in the event that the monkey Hoyle reaches the target phrase.

[Two points : Richard's act is not one of "faith" anymore than his action with the cannonball detailed in "Breaking the Science Barrier" (see break.html).It is his knowledge that creates his confidence,it is not a sheer act of hoping that he's right,as it is with creationists and God. But oddly he could conceivably have come a cropper.The odds are very high against this event,but that doesn't mean it could happen in the next second,any more than 14 million to one odds stops people from becoming millionaires.The uncertainty is not in itself reason to suppose that such a conceivably rare event could not take place.For this reason,even if the Hoyle argument applied that does not mean that life cannot win the lottery,and it MUST have done,because we're here.However as far as wings,eyes,and camouflage are concerned,the "unlikely" argument may apply,so what follows is what defeats Hoyle's view -LB]

But of course,this is just to illustrate my confidence that chance on it's own could never make and eye or a 747. The real point of the demonstration is that the other monkey - Darwin, WILL get the target phrase.So what does Darwin do?
The same - but with a crucial difference - the Darwin monkey begins by typing a random phrase - so far it's the same as the Hoyle monkey.But now the computer BREEDS from that phrase [see algo.html],it breeds 50 offspring,which are identical to the first phrase,but with a tiny "mutation"  - a tiny random difference,in each of the 50 cases.

[We know that DNA is not 100% efficient,and that even in our own bodies,Telomeres give rise to our own finite lifetime because cells cannot reproduce indefinitely.In fact,cells that do last forever and grow without dying are called "cancer" and are detrimental to the body,and a body could not be shaped by "differentiation" if cells did not die.Similarly,brain cells die off in order to sculpt the connections between neurons.
So evolution seems to have honed us cleverly to avoid cancer by not having DNA be 100% efficient. Those cases where mutations are detrimental are called "diseases" or have led to forms that were untenable in Nature and so do not exist.Tumours are indicative of something that exists even if it is detrimental to the host which might be seen as support for Brian Goodwin's argument (see organism.html).They also show that Nature is not perfect,and so could not have been created by a "perfect" being - LB]

The computer then looks at those 50 offspring and chooses the one that most resembles the target phrase,however slightly,it resembles the target phrase.
[Note that the computer has a "teleology" -LB]
So the generations go by,and after generation after generation,it gradually becomes more and more like the target phrase.

Now,when I agreed to give these lectures,I was told that I should always call members of the audience out to assist,but I was also told that it was silly to do this,if all I was going to ask them to do was come out hand hit the RETURN button on a computer.However on this particular occasion,since so much is at stake,I though it would be better if I DID ask somebody who knows a lot about computers and is very good at pressing buttons to come out and perform this onerous task.So would anybody like to volunteer to...? Yes,right you there.
 Now,what's your name?

Andrew Sykes : Andrew Sykes.

Richard Dawkins : Andrew?

Andrew Sykes : Yeah.

Richard Dawkins : Well you understand what's at stake Andrew do you?

[Andrew nods]

Richard Dawkins : Okay.Here's the target phrase "More giddy in my desires than a monkey", there's the box where the Hoyle monkey is going to type and there's the box where the Darwin monkey is going to type,and unless Bryson's been messing around with the program, in order to deprive me of my worldly goods (murmurs of laughter),that's the way it's going to be,so are you ready? Go.
 Now you see the Hoyle monkey typing away entirely at random,the Darwin monkey is down here,and I think we can begin to see something appearing in the Darwin row.

[The Darwin monkey has got the word "monkey" by 16 generations,"giddy" by 63,and "desires" by 100 -LB]

"More if giddy in my idesires than du" -BANG and it's got there.

[The whole phrase was generated by the Darwin monkey in 158 generation,whilst Hoyle was still producing gibberish,but then - that's Hoyle for you. In terms of billions of years 158 generations is a very tiny amount of time,and contrary to the mocking of the likes of Fobb James (see  break.html) this feat shown here could even be fitted into his farcically foreshortened time scale,assuming a generation was 25 years,and even into the 4,000 presumed years of the bible,since 25 x158 = 3950.However real life is a tad more complex,even so the Darwin monkey has beaten the 7.314x10^43 to 1 against odds,because it's not using sheer luck and blind chance,but "natural selection" where here, "nature" is the target phrase -LB]

How long did that take,did anyone time it? Not very long I think.Anyway,than you very much (applause).
So I don't have to east my hat,and my worldly goods -  such as they are - are safe.But the point really is not that Hoyle failed to reach the target,the point is that Darwin DID reach the target,and astonishingly quickly.

Well there's a lot wrong with that as a demonstration of Darwinian natural selection,for one thing it has a distant target in mind,which natural selection does not have.

[IE There is no distinct teleology or purpose.The "target" if one needs one is the prevailing circumstances of  the environment,ie the physics of the universe,which maybe subtly changing, and indeed the environment may be subject to the alterations by an organism (eg man),and habitats may change and require new ploys and adaptations from creatures.In this sense real organisms are faced with the fixed target of the universal laws or the environment of the planet they live on,which is modulated by the moving target of the current status of that planet's ecological or meteorological system.In this way there can be no perfect form to which any creature aspires,only the ability to be suited to your niche.Various birds for instance have conquered flight,but subtle habitat variations make them have altered features such as long wings for soaring or exploiting thermals (eg condors) or short,wide stubby wings, for staying in one immediate locale (eg sparrows),so there needn't be one design of bird,or even one type of flying creature (eg bats can fly too).
 If one is looking for "why things are like they are" then the notion of an "attractor" maybe useful,where complex systems have certain predispensations that are a by-product of the system (see Ian Stewart "Does God Play Dice?" Ch6)
 -LB]

But it does,once again show us the key to the way out of the problem of mammoth improbability.Things like eyes and 747s,that couldn't possibly spring into existence in a single lucky shake of a dice,CAN come into existence if the luck is smeared out in many tiny steps and is accumulated.

[Note : If an eye's arrangement was associated with say the number 6 coming up on a dice,it has as much chance as any other configuration.The problem is not one of the propensity to give 6,but the fact that the other 5 configurations are not an eye,or not a working eye. But in sheer chance terms,a fully configured 747 certainly DOES have as much chance as any other configuration shaken out of a bag at random.Just because there are a myriad other permutations all as likely as the 747,does not mean that the 747 cannot be shaken into existence at random just by sheer freak luck. The numbers applied to this, detail it's rarity,and should it happen it would no doubt "defy belief". Even if Hoyle was right,you could still say that if life or an eye HAD been shaken into existence purely by chance,given billions of years of shaking the bag or rolling the die,a positive outcome is not AS likely as a negative one by a long chalk,but it is a NON-ZERO probability,and just as people win the lottery,even though the odds are stacked against them,this does not mean that WHEN they win we need to invoke an supernatural explanation for why they have,because the potential TO win is written into the 14 million to one odds.However unlikely it is - they can still win.
 We do not need to invoke divine intervention to explain why someone is able to throw a 6 on a dice! It is because there is a presumed idea that say a run of a billion 6s is nigh on impossible that the "747 from a hurricane argument" appears to have substance.This is because all outcomes of each throw are presumed to be equally likely,and therefore the expectation is that if concurrent 6s happen then the dice must be loaded ie that as Ian Stewart puts it coining Einstein's reference "Does God Play Dice?". Ian ends his book by saying that if God played dice,he'd win,and quotes Anatole France as saying,"Chance is the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign".
 But who is to say out of all the events needed to conspire to make an eye,that there was equal likelihood at each stage? What if the dice were skewed in favour of making crystals,and thence polymers,on to cells,and then larger structures,each stage requiring a 6,and having a loaded dice in favour of this outcome? The laws of physics bend things over in favour of these stages,and the accumulation of their outcomes is not an individual event requiring a billion 6s concurrently,but as Richard points out a process whereby the outcome of the previous stage feeds into the next,such that if the outcome of the first die is 6,the outcome is more likely to be 6 next time around,in this way one might see that an "attractor" towards 6 might be created,and thus sheer chance on its own - is irrelevant.
Even if chance was operating alone,a rare event is not an impossible event. Quantum physics suggests that in principle,unseen events could happen,and the reason we see the world as we do is that those events are just very rare,not impossible. Thus we don't see hands passing through solid objects or tables jumping 1 metre to the left,that doesn't mean it can't happen,it's just highly unlikely.Nevertheless if it DID happen we wouldn't need to invoke a deity and call it a "miracle" or "divine intervention" since in principle - anything is possible. Theoretically a hand could pass through a solid object exploiting the statistical provision for matter not to know where it is,but it would take an inordinate amount of time.Such a rare event isn't impossible.Given enough time rare events can and DO happen.
If you throw a single dice a 6 isn't that rare.If you throw three die - three 6s is a rare event,but it WILL occur-given time. (Richard for instance could have solved his lock in 216 moves,by systematically trying all permutations,randomness suggests some permutations maybe repeated,and be out of sequence,and if you were trying the lock at random,it would be perhaps harder.Having a memory of a human being,and the capacity to count allows us to minimise it to 216.It maybe that life's systems can try myriad ploys in parallel and thus reduce the requirement to test all possibilities systematically.Or if quantum physics is behind it,in some sense test out all conceivable opportunities at once,and fall like water finding the lowest point,into the one that renders the desirable outcome.)
However unlikely an eye is,it still could have arrived by chance.Just because it defies the incredulity of creationists and their absurd number games,doesn't prove God. However,as Richard has shown the likelihood of such things is not as long as one might imagine,and via natural selection one can attain a complex object in a series of stages,each of which is more functional than the last -LB]

And that's what this lecture's about - "smearing out the luck",accumulating it,turns out to be an immensely important process.It's the process that makes it possible for us to be here,and by "us" I mean all stick insects,lions,elephants and bacteria - everything that's here.

[For those who have been convinced the rebuttal ends here,but the analogy of "Climbing Mount Improbable" follows,the basis of Richard's book of the same name -LB]

And now let's look at a physical parable for this "gradualistic" solution to a difficult problem. This is a mountain,it's called "Mount Improbable".Sitting on the top of the mountain is equivalent to being very well designed - to being an eye that works very well for example. Being at the bottom of the mountain is equivalent to being a distant ancestor,that is not yet very well designed - that hasn't yet acquired its good fitness to the environment. Looking... facing you now,is a precipice,a cliff,which is called "sheer luck" (murmurs of laughter),it's a sheer cliff. Jumping from the bottom of the cliff to the top corresponds to assembling a 747 by means of a hurricane,or it corresponds to getting a complete eye in a single lucky mutation. It can't be done. You can no more do that than a mountaineer could leap from the bottom of a cliff to the top,but this isn't the ONLY route up Mount Improbable. We have to go round the other side.

[Richard rotates the model]

And you'll notice that round here is a gradual sloping path,steadily inching [?? Perhaps that's easier than saying centimetre-ing! -LB] up the mountain,and if you follow it round,you'll find that even though some bits of it are a little bit steep,you can get from the bottom to the top without ever having to jump up a step. It's a gradual inch by inch path up.

Anybody who didn't know about the "ramp evolution" - which is what that's called,would - if they saw,an animal perched on the top - a beautifully designed animal and only saw the cliff - they would assume that it HAD to be the result of a miracle.

But in fact,the only way up Mount Improbable is the slow gradual climb up the ramp evolution, you have to add all the little steps together,and after a very large number of steps,you can climb very,very high indeed.but we're still talking in parables.How in practice do living things climb Mount Improbable? Well of course individuals don't climb it.It's lineages - groups of animals - species,that climb it,and they do it in evolutionary time.They and their descendants,and their descendant's descendants.They do it by going through an extremely large number of generations,and we do have the time for an extremely large number of generations,because we have geological time at our disposal.

This generation by generation accumulation works,only if there is reproduction with true heredity,to carry the message through,and I must explain what that means,because just plain reproduction without heredity won't do,it's not enough.It's possible to imagine reproduction without heredity. Fires,for example,have a form of reproduction without heredity.
If you imagine that this is a savannah,a dry savannah,with dry grass all over it,and a fire suddenly starts in one place.

[Spontaneous ignition is possible as those who witnessed the recent outbreaks will know.Certain species of planet and animal even rely on cycles of burning to take place,and perhaps before man existed,seasonal variations of temperature have ignited fires once the ignition threshold is reached.Those organisms exploiting this cycle to spread seed etc are thus well adapted to the dry zones of the Earth.Those who know of Ray Bradbury will know of "Faranheit 451" the novel taking it's title from the combustion point of paper.Make no bones this happens SPONTANEOUSLY via the laws of physics and requires no intervention.For similar reasons accounts of SHC may possibly have foundation -LB]

Sparks fly up,and are carried in the wind and suddenly a spark lands there,and a new fire starts. Both these fires are now flaming up,and sparks are going off,and another fire starts up,which maybe the daughter of this.One starts up here which maybe the daughter of that one.These fires are propagating,these fires are having children.The sparks are causing this fire to be the parent of that,and in the next one,we can see that you can have,both - not mother and daughter - but grandmother - grandchildren fires.
Now the fires may differ a bit,in this picture,we've represented them by red,green and blue. Fires may indeed differ,but they get their qualities NOT from their parents and grandparents. A fire gets its qualities from its surroundings - from its environment.A fire gets its qualities from the direction of the wind,where it happens to be,or the chemistry of the soil,or from the dampness of the vegetation. Fires DO NOT get their qualities from the spark that comes from their parent fire.

Now we're going to do the same thing with a Bryson special [The RI term for a physical demonstration-LB] ,and I'm going to stand well back I think. Where do I have to stand? Here?
Right.
We always have to have fireworks at the Royal Institution,so go ahead Bryson please.

[Sound of firework igniting]

Right,there's the first fire - the parent fire - the sparks are flying up. It's started another one there,that's the daughter fire,and a granddaughter,and a second daughter of this one.
But the point is,that to the extent that there are any differences between these fires,they do not get their qualities from their parents.There are sparks that flow from fire to fire,that...all that the sparks do though is to start a new fire.Nothing is carried in the spark,there's no information carried in the spark.
(applause)

And this of course,this is where rabbits and humans and stick insects differ from fires. Don't be misled by the way,by the fact that rabbits and human have a mother AND a father,stick insects only have a mother,like fires,in this particular respect,stick insects are like fires.
But in the important respect that I'm talking about,stick insects do not resemble fires.Because unlike fires,stick insects have true heredity.At least some of their qualities - colour, shape, size, spinyness and so on,they actually get from their mother,not only from their surroundings. Something travels from mother to daughter,something in the spark that travelled from mother to daughter there IS information.

[Upon this premise alone,even the most uneducated creationist must be able to see that the mere fact that there is information carried in DNA,means that essentially it has the attribute to defy sheer chance,since there are characteristics dependent on what attributes are carried in the DNA that shape the creature,and thus the environment can shape which of those attributes survive,the phrase "natural selection" fits admirably. The scheme that Fobb James mocks (see break.html) of man moving from from hunched over ape to modern man,is an oversimplification.As fires are essentially the same from parent to offspring,so organisms are necessarily different,however much similarity they share with their progenitor. Genetic identification would not be accurate were this not true. Lines of descent are thus possible and obviously seen to exist even in man via the Negroid/Caucasian/Asian differences. But these are still the same "species". What categorises are species may have some basic reflection in DNA that perhaps a biologist or geneticist would know,but organisms have been placed in the wrong category before now,and some seem to defy categorisation.Slime moulds for instance seem to defy classification into even the major category plant/animal,which indicates that the idea of "species" is really a ploy of a brain to understand what it sees,rather than any real aspect of the DNA system.It might be that species is defined by a procreationary boundary, in that an organism has become sufficiently unlike another line of descent that it can no longer mate. The idea amongst creationists that "no new species" have been created is rendered entirely unworkable by strains of micro organisms that regularly create new strains that defeat our attempts to stop them .Creationists also fail to appreciate (as Dawkins shows in see break.html) that man hasn't lived in geological time to appreciate the emergence of a new species. As he says if you stretch out your arm,and the distance from the centre of your body to fingertip is geological time,man has been alive in the shavings of fingernail dust from one strike at the nail from a nail file.It is thus impossible to witness the emergence of a new species in this way,during anyone's lifetime.
 We do know however,from fossils,that the line of descent "dinosaurs" existed,and that some large scale event killed them off,leaving our line of descent to be from small mammals,or possibly sea mammals depending on which view you take.The point being that at the time of the dinosaurs no "men" existed,and so if we're looking for a "new species" then in the dinosaurs terms - we are it.Given such long periods of history and this information carrying system it is obvious that humans share a common ancestor with apes,since every creature on this Earth today,owes it's heritage to those creatures that survived the dinosaur demise.The fact that we share 99+% of our DNA with chimps shows the we are related.
 Creationists accept DNA paternity testing,and yet this same testing shows we are relate to apes! There is thus (contrary to the Alabama insert) plenty of evidence that suggests Darwin is correct,and also plenty of reasons as to why a creator scenario is wrong,thus only unreasonable people accept a deity -LB]

So what is this mysterious information that eggs contain and sparks don't? Well it's DNA this astounding molecule which contains in the sequence of its bases,all the information,or almost all the information that you need to build a stick insect or a rabbit.

[Note that the "information" content is actually somewhat abstract and cannot be literally related to the bases themselves,since the propensity to produce creatures and their attributes works in a non-reductionist developmental way.Thus the bases are "data" and the information is not the raw data.This is why geneticists say that they have decoded the human genome but that doesn't mean they can read it's language.The information in some sense "emerges" from the data,and in this way the whole is more than the sum of the parts,and thus it looks like you get something from nothing,ie our humanity,spirit,or mind is not in the DNA,but nevertheless exists,it is these kinds of area that the subject of biomathematics is shedding light on (see natsums.html ) - LB]

DNA comes like an ever flowing river,down the generations. The river of DNA that flow through us to the future is a pure river,that leaves us exactly as it finds us.With one exception,there are occasional,very occasional random changes,called "mutations".
Because of these there IS variation - genetic variation - in the population,and that opens the way for natural selection.
Those varieties of DNA that just happen to be good at building ancestors - at building bodies that have good eyes,good legs,good anything else -survive.
So the world automatically,becomes filled with good DNA,this means good at making bodies that are themselves good at surviving.This is the Darwinian explanation for  why living things are so good at doing what they do.They're good because of the accumulated wisdom of their ancestors.But it's not wisdom that they have learned.It's wisdom that they chanced upon by luck - lucky random mutations - which were subsequently selected,and each generation the amount of luck was very small,but because the luck has been accumulated over so many generations,we are impressed by the end product.

[Richard goes on to demonstrate how this works for eyes,wings and camouflage,which he says are particularly hard,and are perhaps the areas that creationists seize upon. To follow this up I suggest getting hold of the RI video tape,or reading "Climbing Mount Improbable" or "The Blind Watchmaker" -LB]

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