So there's a thread at EvC today about one of those little computer-generated models of evolution and some of the guys there have become addicted to it. I almost wish I could play with it but I have other things I have to do today and really, even though I can get caught up in this sort of thing it is primarily A Guy Thing. Some video games have been known to preoccupy me for days though. Good thing I broke the habit, deleted them all, try not to notice the online versions.
ANYWAY, these models that purport to be demonstrations of evolution, such as the one that Dawkins constructed some time ago, are just silly little echoes of the evo belief system rather than anything that could ever prove it. Genetics doesn't work like that as I've been at pains to show time after time. It is not open-ended, they simply believe it is because it MUST be if evolution is to work. But it isn't. Genes get USED UP in a sense in the making of new variations. After a long string of such variations developing each from the previous (a real-world example is ring species) you finally reach a last variety that simply doesn't have the genetic potential to change any further. It's a slow process in ring species but a bottleneck will take you to the same place a lot faster.
Of course they postulate -- term chosen advisedly -- that mutations just keep on producing genetic material to fuel the changes. Too bad the actual evidence for mutations that could accomplish such a feat is pretty much nil. All mutations do is interfere with normal genetic processes.
I wonder if they'll figure this out before the Lord comes back?
Thursday, February 17, 2011
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