A question about evolution

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Elhanan asked 9 years ago

Hello Rabbi
The rabbi uses the notebook on the physico-theological evidence in Gould’s example of the drunkard and the wall and the example of the software that randomly writes a meaningful sentence, and rightly attacks them that the law itself needs an explanation. But natural selection is not really similar to these examples, the law that those who reproduce more/die less will survive longer than those who reproduce less/die more, seems like a logical law, isn’t it a law that one can think of a world in which it does not exist?

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מיכי Staff answered 9 years ago

Indeed. And as far as I remember, I explained there that natural selection is a logical law and certainly true. But without genetics/heredity and without the laws of law and chemistry and biology (and without the constant formation of mutations) none of this would have happened. Perform natural selection processes on virtual creatures (so-called cellular automata, see Wikipedia) and you will never create living creatures, nor creatures that do not return from complex to simple. This is in contrast to the widespread demagogy of neo-Darwinists who so deny the special nature of life. The component of natural selection in evolution is indeed purely logical, but without the scientific framework it would not have led to the emergence of life.

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ג replied 9 years ago

It should be added that natural selection selects but does not create. Once you have a creature without the ability to see that suddenly develops the ability to see - it is clear that natural selection will favor the new ability and take action. But in order for the ability to see to be created, a large number of mutations are needed in a specific order. If we say that only about 100 new mutations are needed for minimal vision - then you have no benefit at any stage in between on the way to the complete system and natural selection will never be able to develop eyes (unless you believe in an astronomical jump of 100 mutations simultaneously and in a specific order). This is the essence of the debate between intelligent design scientists and evolutionary scientists.