Blind Watchmaker

Rating:
Summary: Creation and Modeling
Review: For the skeptics of the Biomorph experiments:

When you try to model a system, you always have to intervene to define the parameters of the model! With nature, the parameters are defined by the physical world (melting point of water etc...) In a computer model, these parameters have to somehow be defined by human intervention. This is the "creation" that is taking place and it doesn't detract from the validity of the rest of the experiment. (Of course the rest of the experiment MAY be flawed, but then this would be a different issue.)

Rating:
Summary: Creation and Modeling
Review: For the skeptics of the Biomorph experiments:

When you try to model a system, you always have to intervene to define the parameters of the model! With nature, the parameters are defined by the physical world (melting point of water etc...) In a computer model, these parameters have to somehow be defined by human intervention. This is the "creation" that is taking place and it doesn't detract from the validity of the rest of the experiment. (Of course the rest of the experiment MAY be flawed, but then this would be a different issue.)

Rating:
Summary: Screw Up
Review: Hey Amazon, you screwed up. This is software, not a book. It has the same name as a related book, though.

Cliff Soon:

This is not a book (see above).

Dawkins' intent with this program was to demonstrate how an extraordinary amount of variation can be attained through random mutation combined with simulated natural selection, not to accurately model any biological or ecological system.

In "Climbing Mount Improbable," Dawkins states that he knows what a poor simulation this is; he also describes how incredibly difficult it is to simulate a complex ecosystem with respect to reproduction and natural selection.

Rating:
Summary: Tainted experiment
Review: Many are familiar with Richard Dawkins and his famous "Biomorphs". These are computer generated creatures that supposedly are the result of the natural process of evolution as simulated by Dawkins. Type into your search engine his name and the word biomorph for more information on his research. The point of the research of course was to prove that God does not exist. This is somewhat of a life quest for him. He has even been nicknamed by some, "the evangelical atheist". In light of the results of his erroneous conclusions I must publish this article.

Here is a quote from Richard Dawkins as he viewed his computer screen as the program was running:

"Nothing in my biologist's intuition, nothing in my 20 years experience of programming computers, and nothing in my wildest dreams, prepared me for what actually emerged on the screen. I can't remember exactly when in the sequence it first began to dawn on me that an evolved resemblance to something like an insect was possible. With a wild surmise, I began to breed generation after generation, from whichever child looked most like an insect. My incredulity grew in parallel with the evolving resemblance. . . Admittedly they have eight legs like a spider, instead of six like an insect, but even so! I still cannot conceal from you my feeling of exhultation as I first watched these exquisite creatures emerging before my eyes."

Dawkins made the same error that has become quite common in the field of evolution and abiogenesis (the supposed natural beginning of life) and it is perfectly understandable. The error in this instance is seen in the phrase, "I began to breed...". Where is that "I" in real life? It cannot logically be assumed to be nature itself in view of Dawkins' personal intervention into the experiment. Also I might add here that it does not matter at what point he intervened. The point is that HE intervened. Intelligent life intervened and tainted his experiment that set out to prove that intelligent input is unnecessary in a natural process that concludes with life. Now, regardless of anything else we must all admit here that in this experiment intelligent life intervened. Agreed? Anyone who cannot see this does not need to go on until he does. I am talking about the above experiment and nothing else. Did intelligent life intervene? Yes___ No___

So then it was Dawkins himself who decided which creature or beginning life form was to receive the mutation. Where is this intelligent input in real life?

Furthermore how did Dawkins know which was the better choice as he selected from some images and chose to reject others? (e.g. whichever child looked most like an insect ) Did he know what he was looking for? (I am not suggesting dishonesty here). Where is this knowing in real life? Who or what knows what is in the future in the natural world? Dawkins knew what was best and tainted the experiment with that knowledge which is unknown in the natural world. According to the theory, creatures adapt to the present environment, they have no knowledge of the future. Dawkins does have knowledge of the future because he already sees the product of evolution. Remember we are reconstructing the past not the future. Did Dawkins have knowledge of the future before he intervened? Yes, of course he did, just as we have knowledge of the future of our children after they are grown and we look back in time as Dawkins did. "Hindsight is 20-20". So the question is where is this foreknowledge in the real world?

Dawkins directed this experiment from beginning to end. Where is this overall direction in the real world?

Maybe Richard Dawkins would be better nicknamed a Creation Advocate.

Rating:
Summary: Blind Faith
Review: Perhaps this quote from Richard Milton will suffice to demonstrate the blind faith espoused in this book:

"Dawkins not only calls his computer drawings 'biomorphs', he gives some of them the names of living creatures. He also refers to them as 'quasi-biological' forms and in a moment of excitement calls them 'exquisite creatures'. He plainly believes that in some way they correspond to the real world of living animals and insects.

"Why is this an example of pseudoscience?

"In reality, the biomorphs do not correspond in any way at all with living things, except in the purely trivial way that Dawkins sees some resemblance in their shapes. The only thing about the 'biomorphs' that is biological is Richard Dawkins, their creator. ...

"The program he wrote and the computer he used have no analog at all in the real biological world. Indeed, if he set out to create an experiment that simulates evolution, he has only succeeded in making one that simulates special creation, with himself in the omnipotent role.

"His program is not a true representation of random mutation coupled with natural selection. On the contrary it is dependent on artificial selection in which he controls the rate of occurrence of mutations. Despite Dawkins's own imaginative interpretations, and even with the deck stacked in his favour, his biomorphs show no real novelty arising -- no cases of bears turning into whales.

"Most important of all, it is Dawkins, not blind fate, who chooses which are the lucky individuals to receive the next mutation and of course he chooses the most promising ones ('I began to breed ... from whichever child looked most like an insect.') That is why they have ended up looking like recognizable images from his memory. If his mutations really occurred randomly, as in the real world, Dawkins would still be sitting in front of his screen watching a small dot and waiting for it do something."

Does a Sighted Watchmaker exist? The difference with me is: I really don't care one way or another. But it happens that the evidence supports his existence.

The problem with Dawkinism, of course, is described by Behe: we humans tend to think that the contents of "black boxes" are simple: imagining that a system as complex as the first living cell could arise complete, by accident, for example. Dawkinists dare not go any further, as it would imperil their beliefs. But I don't have as much faith.

Rating:
Summary: Another small piece in the jigsaw
Review: This program succeeds in it's aim - to demonstrate that randomly occurring mutations in generations of breeding organisms can, in a sequence of small steps represented by artificially selecting from a range of descendants, eventually result in significant "designoid" transformations. Unfortunately, because of the element of "artificial" selection, it will certainly be taken out of context by creationists by claiming that this is the current state of evolutionary theory, whereas if fact it provides only one limited view of half the theory! The theory also requires that the randomly occuring mutations be selected strictly on the basis of breeding success, which is about as far as you can get from random!

Unfortunately I think that Richard Dawkins has shot himself in the foot by choosing to issue something that only demonstrates the (relatively insignificant) random element of evolution, not the more important "selection by fitness". Get ready for a torrent of desparate creationists jumping on this opportunity to mis-represent the facts and convert the never ending supply of gullibles to their superstition.