My reading bounces around a bit and I had picked up The Blind Watchmaker (also here) on a whim. Evolutionary theory was a part of my former ecological training, but I had never read a book solely devoted to its history and competing theories. Reading it was a bit of a slog at times - wordy in the ways of an academic and contained a fair amount of “inside baseball” discussion over the various competing schools of evolutionary theory. Yet, I enjoyed much of the early discussion on genetics and the (infinitesimally small) probabilities of single-step evolution. I had never read such a layman’s approach to describing genetics and the evolution of complex organisms.
The overarching thesis of the book was the defense of Darwin’s Natural (Adaptive) Selection theory of evolution versus creationism. He did a fairly good job at demonstrating that if you believe in geology, physics and molecular biology (in other words – science and its finding), it is exceedingly hard to also believe in a 10,000-year history of the human species (the biblical timeline).
He struggled a bit with the more nuanced approach of creationism through guided evolution, aka Intelligent Design. I believe he struggled because Intelligent Design does not offer a real testable hypothesis with which to compare. You either believe or you don’t. And for many, the Big Bang Theory sounds a lot like “Let there be Light” (Genesis 1:3), and the initiation (creation) of the universe 13.8 billion years ago is still an unexplained phenomenon.
In addition, he describes that for evolution to begin, there needs to be the simultaneous creation of (precursor) RNA and RNA-replicator molecules out of the primordial chemical stew on a newly formed Earth. Once you have these molecules, evolution and everything that follows just requires time (and some mutations). However, the simultaneous creation and/or evolution of these 2 highly complex molecules sounds remarkably like the proverbial “chicken and egg” paradox.
I did not find his probabilistic arguments about how luck, lightning and the primordial stew could simultaneously create the RNA and RNA-replicators to be adequate. His frequent use of the term “luck” seemed to detract from his argument as much as it helped.
So we are back to – You either have the faith, or you don’t, when it comes to a divine creator.
What he explains very well is that an intelligent designer is not necessary to achieve the complexity in life forms that we see today. If you somehow create the precursor RNA and RNA-replicator molecules, all you need is the time necessary for natural selection to work its magic.
I found the most interesting chapter to be Ch. 5, “The Power and the Archives”, where Dawkins explains the power of the data storage capability of DNA. He describes the “conservatism of DNA” and the incredible precision by which DNA is successfully copied through billions of years. He goes on to state –
“…that living organisms exist for the benefit of DNA rather than the other way around… The messages that DNA molecules contain are all but eternal when seen against the time scale of individual lifetimes.”
I was a bit thunderstruck by the ramifications of this chapter. Our ability as individuals to “write a message” into our DNA is practically non-existent. Since the natural selection of genes operates on the species level at evolutionary time scales, any new genetic information must be – (1) created, (2) fit for reproduction and transfer to the next generation, (3) “win” the day relative to the competing code at the same gene location, and finally (4) propagate widely through the species. This time scale of evolutionary messaging is on order of 100,000s to 1,000,000s of years.
The dinosaurs left genetic records behind from their 165 million years of existence and dominance on this planet. After their reign ended some 65 million years ago, the genetic code of life (or our intelligent designer) rebooted the path of natural selection. This reboot has led to modern homo sapiens, who have been around for only the last 100,000 years.
Here is the thunder bit – We as a species are just getting to the point that we could write a message into the genetic memory of this planet. It will take another 100,000 to 1,000,000 years before that message is indelibly written.
We (or our intelligent designer) could reboot this world (e.g., via nuclear holocaust or some other apocalypse), and there would be no record of us or our accomplishments. Life on this planet will survive (see the previous dinosaur apocalypse). However, we would simply have been a failed experiment that ran too short to merit recording. Our only hope of being relevant to the recorded life on this planet is to survive as a species, for a much longer time period than all our written history to date.
Or put differently – we either survive cooperatively together as a species for the next 100,000 years or blink out of existence without record or memory.