A week ago, I found out that I had actually misunderstood something as important as evolution; which is sort of sad because my personal philosophy hinges on it being an accurate description of how and why life exists as it is.
There’s a chapter in The Blind Watchmaker (Chapter 3: Accumulating Small Change) that beautifully showcases the elegance of Darwin’s seminal theory. I’ve been told many times that evolution was only a theory and that it could never be proven or even justified by observation. This chapter, if understood properly, should change people’s minds.
Dawkins takes a rather straightforward approach in explaining Cumulative Selection and goes on to describe (what is now my favorite algorithm ever) The Weasel Program. With this, he illustrates how the common notion that evolution is ‘random’ is wrong and that a given target can be achieved in fewer steps through cumulative selection. All very exciting stuff.
After a very animated discussion with this guy last evening, I managed to put together a very shoddy program in Python that mimicked The Weasel Program (very crudely) only to be sent a much simpler program (in Matlab) by my brother this morning.
It’s sad that despite the beauty and elegance of Darwin’s explanation, an overwhelming majority of people still choose to buy into myths and superstitions espoused by some guy in a silly hat who thinks condoms increase chances of STD contraction.
Strange times, these.
