Differential survival, (inclusive) fitness, selection and evolution

In my last post about Multi-level selection and The Selfish Gene, I neglected probably the most famous and important aspect of the "Group Selection" debate: "inclusive fitness", which (along with its specific form, "kin selection") can potentially give rise to counter-intuitive adaptive behaviours such as altruism and self-sacrifice. To understand inclusive fitness and how/why (a) it works, and (b) it is important, we have to revisit the importance and meaning of heritability in selection.

The key point is that "fitness" and selection are about more than just differential survival. Differential survival is sufficient for evolution - the population will change with time - but without the heritability aspect, this is not selection and there can be no adaptation.

It's easiest to think about this in terms of purely random events. Imagine two populations of beetle (there sure are a lot of beetles!) living in two trees who, by chance founder effects have different frequencies of an allele that causes melanism (a dark colour morph). Now imagine that one of those trees experiences a rare catastrophic event - perhaps a meteor-strike, or it is on a cliff-top and collapses into the sea - that wipes out its entire beetle population. The frequency of melanic colour morphs in the beetle population has changed - there has been differential survival - but because it was totally unrelated to the causal reason for the differential survival, this is not selection.

Evolution without selection happens all the time and can easily lead to certain traits becoming fixed in a population, even if they have no direct (or only a very weak) fitness effect on those with the trait relative to those without. (Fitness is always relative.) Most changes at the molecular level, for example, are neutral changes occurring through random genetic drift. This is still evolution, it is just not selection - it will not give rise to adaptation. (Although a change of environment - and the environment for genes is never static - could render a previously neutral trait as good or bad.)

So where does kin selection and inclusive fitness come in? Well, a key - and sometimes confusing - point about fitness and selection is that the individuals expressing the heritable trait and the individuals benefiting from the heritable trait do not have to be the same individuals. This is critical because it reinforces the special place that genes have in multi-level selection.

In the last post, I wrote:

Yes, selection can potentially act at some of these different levels - the collective properties of the family, tribe, species or ecosystem can affect the fitness of the genes therein - but only the genes make copies of themselves. Only the genetic information is passed on - all of the physical aspects - the DNA, the chromosomes, the cells, the bodies, the tribes, the ecosystems - are transient vehicles for this information. Only if this genetic information gives rise (in an appropriate background) to the trait that influences fitness - whatever the level that fitness is manifest - will that trait be heritable and selection happen.

This is the difference between "replicators" (in Dawkins parlance) and mere reproducers. The crucial thing about genes is that they make copies of themselves, which are then carried by different members of the population. A particular genetic variant will increase in frequency if the sum total of all its effects is to the collective benefit of carriers of that genetic variant, even if some of its effects are detrimental to some of its carriers. Hence altruism can still spread if it has a genetic basis and the net product is increased survival/reproduction of carriers of the altruism "gene(s)".

There are two more important points about inclusive fitness:

1. Kin recognition is not required. Crucially, there does not need to be a conscious awareness by the altruistic individual; it does not need to be able to recognises its kin or fellow gene-carriers. (Although, clearly, if it can then it will be even more successful.)

2. All fitness is inclusive fitness. Inclusive fitness is one of the few unifying principles of biology that, as far as I can tell at least, applies across the board. Whether you are talking about Artificial or Natural Selection, Individual or Group Selection, it all comes down to inclusive fitness. Even when all of the phenotypic effects of gene are limited to its carrier - pure "Individual Selection" - inclusive fitness comes in to play: as long as it benefits more individuals than it impairs, it will still spread. (The same gene can have different effects in different individuals.)

The nice thing about inclusive fitness is that it works irrespective of the nature by which the sum total of its effects benefit its carriers. These effects can occur at any level of biological organisation and may, indeed, have effects at multiple levels; thanks to inclusive fitness, far from being in conflict, multi-level selection and The Selfish Gene are one and the same.

Multi-level selection and The Selfish Gene

Yesterday, I attended a seminar run by the University's Institute for Complex Systems Simulation by Samir Okasha, a Professor of Philosophy of Science from the University of Bristol and author of the book "Evolution and the Levels of Selection" (among others). The talk was entitled 'Individuals versus Groups in Evolutionary Biology' and Prof. Okasha gave a very interesting presentation about some of the history and issues surrounding the discussions (and sometimes arguments) about "Group Selection" and its modern incarnation, "multi-level" selection.

It looks like an interesting book too and is on my ever-growing reading list. I'd particularly like to ponder some more his thoughts on emergent group properties - something I do not currently have the time, space or philosophical nonce to explore further in this post.

There was one key aspect of the debate that, in the interests of time, was not covered in detail in his talk: the issue of heritability and what that means for "Units of Selection". The more I think about it, the more I think it is a real barrier for people understanding the problem and, in my opinion, leads to all sorts of confusion about how evolution and selection work.

This is a quote from an Amazon review of his book that sums up the key issue quite nicely:

So often we are bombarded with 'scientists' giving us their metaphysical views as if they were 'scientific fact'. It is therefore refreshing to find a philosopher looking at a science and seeking to clarify the various concepts in that science.

Okasha observes that the various life forms are arranged in a hierarchy:
Ecosystems
Species
Colonies
Organisms
Cells
Chromosomes
Genes.

Generally reproduction occurs at the same level in the hierarchy: organisms reproduce to give organisms; chromosomes divide to give chromosomes; colonies divide to give colonies, and so on. According to the logical formulation of the theory of `natural selection' a) variation, b) differential fitness (different rates of survival and reproduction) and c)heritability (parent - offspring correlation) are required to produce evolutionary change. All these may be present at each of the levels in the hierarchy so there is nothing that necessarily restricts selection to any one level, say at the level of the gene. To claim that selection always occurs at the level of the gene is to confuse the result of selection (the proportion of the various genes in the gene pool) with the process of selection (where in the hierarchy the winnowing actually occurs). [My emphasis]

This is an argument that I have come across a few times on internet forums and like - often by non-biologists. (I'm not sure why the reviewer puts quotes around 'scientists' - perhaps this is an unfair dig at Dawkins. When these arguments appear, they are often accompanied by a barrage of anti-Dawkins nonsense about dogmas and how our old, flawed understanding of evolution is being overthrown etc. At best, this is a gross exaggeration. In my opinion, it is utter hogwash.)

Quite simply, I don't think this argument works because it overlooks something very important. I have highlighted the key phrases in bold. This review has the matter utterly backwards. To say that selection is occurring at a level other than the gene and not the gene (and "gene" in this context must have the correct evolutionary meaning not the biochemical meaning) is to confuse the agent of selection, which can be gene, cell, organism, family, whatever, and the target of selection - the "gene". This is because, for selection to work, there has to be heritability and this heritability is not simply "parent - offspring correlation".

(At this point, I would like to make it clear that I do not think Samir Okasha makes this mistake. I've not read his book yet but in his talk he was very clear to make the distinction between causality in selection - what we call direct and indirection selection, which correspond to causal and correlative changes in gene frequency. He also pointed out that there is no conflict with multi-level selection and "The Selfish Gene".)

For selection to work, there has to be a causal link between the heritable trait and differential fitness. Mere correlation is not enough. It is enough for evolution - there will be a change over time - but it is not enough for natural selection. And this is where genes are special. Yes, selection can potentially act at some of these different levels - the collective properties of the family, tribe, species or ecosystem can affect the fitness of the genes therein - but only the genes make copies of themselves. Only the genetic information is passed on - all of the physical aspects - the DNA, the chromosomes, the cells, the bodies, the tribes, the ecosystems - are transient vehicles for this information. Only if this genetic information gives rise (in an appropriate background) to the trait that influences fitness - whatever the level that fitness is manifest - will that trait be heritable and selection happen. Reproduction in the important sense - heredity - does not occur "at the same level in the hierarchy".

Has anyone actually demonstrated non-genetic inheritance of any higher-level trait? I'm not aware of any and whenever I have raised this in online discussions, I am normally just met with a barrage of anti-Dawkins nonsense or some vague notions about epigenetics, behaviour and "emergent" properties (which I advocate in general, by the way,) without any specific demonstration or model as to how these higher levels reproduce and pass on their traits to the next generation. Crucially, you have to do more that demonstrate that it could work mathematically or in a computer simulation - you have to demonstrate that there is a corresponding biological reality.

Which brings me to another important point. I would also question the notion of "fitness" at some of these higher levels. Ecosystems do not reproduce at all. There can be competition between groups of organisms, certainly, and long-term differential survival, which will result in evolution - just as random events such as floods and meteor strikes can influence long-term evolution through differential survival. But this is not selection. The ecosystem is changing because of individual success or otherwise and individual success is being influenced by the environment - the changing ecosystem - but an ecosystem is not directly spawning a new ecosystem that inherits its properties and goes off into the world to compete with different ecosystems. (It seems to me that there is one higher level entity capable of non-genetic inheritance - something championed by Dawkins himself. The cultural replicator, or "meme". This is not what multi-level selection is about, though, as far as I can tell.)

A final problem for non-genetic multi-level selection is that many of these "levels" don't really exist in a fashion that makes selection possible - they are part of continua rather than discrete entities. An ecosystem, for example, does not really mean anything specific. I am an ecosystem from the perspective of my gut microbes. The whole planet is an ecosystem. It is useful to drawn the boundaries at different points for specific study but we should remember that these distinctions are arbitrary. Even an "individual" is a woolly concept thanks to symbiosis - and we are probably all symbionts at the end of the day.

The only thing that is absolute is that you can break everything down to genes (genetic information) and their environment. The flow of information is one way. Genetic information is modulated - but not created - by the environment. (Even accounting for epigenetics, which modulates the environment but not the genotype, though this is for another post.) The Selfish Gene (and its Extended Phenotype) still wins.

Or does it...?

There is one problem that remains for the "Selfish Gene" and it is the same one that plagues almost all of biology. Just like all the levels above it, a "gene" (in the evolutionary sense) is just a mirage. In many ways, there is no such thing as a gene. There is just genetic information. We like to talk about a "gene for X" but really what we mean is "heritable genetic information that has a causal but environment-dependent tendency to produce X". This is just a problem of conception and language, though, not the underlying mechanism and theory. Selection is still ultimately acting on genetic information, and it is still selection at this level that gives rise to adaptations, but how you package this genetic material up into genes is, again, context-dependent and (thanks to recombination and mutation) can be complicated.

It fascinates me how we love to try and split continua - life, species, development, genes - into discrete packets even when no such packets exist and then tie ourselves up in knots because we can't let go of those arbitrary (and false) divisions we have made. Ultimately, I think the issue of Individual versus Group Selection might just be this problem, taken to another level.

The Life Scientific of Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins is one of my personal heroes. Although I do not always agree with everything he says, I usually agree with most of it and he has been a source of inspiration at many points in my life. Reading his classic book on gene-centric evolution, The Selfish Gene, was like having a light switched on. I was fascinated in evolution and genetics before then - I was in the first year of a degree in Genetics at the time - but suddenly it all just made sense. It's still a book I recommend.

Another one of my favourite books of all time is The God Delusion. It sums up the position of a rational agnostic atheist incredibly well. A lot of people argue against it, and vilify Dawkins because of it, but I have never actually seen a good argument against what he writes. (Usually, people are arguing against something that he didn't write. I sometimes wonder whether any of the anti-Dawkins crowd have actually read anything by him.)

If you are one of those people - or a fan, like me - then I strongly recommend downloading this week's episode of The Life Scientific and listening to his half hour interview with presenter Jim Al-Khalili. I am always impressed about how calm and rational he is, and not at all strident as his detractors proclaim in ignorance. This is a man who clearly loves nature - the magic of reality - and loves science - the "poetry of reality". Another great BBC podcast.

I'm an agnostic atheist - and I don't need faith for that

Following yesterday's assertions about needing "faith" to believe in the Higgs boson, today I read another article espousing the old chestnut that atheism is a position of faith. I've already laid out in brief why I consider my atheism to be neither faith nor a religion. I think it worth revisiting though because this particular piece nails what I perceive to be the common misunderstandings, albeit from the position of apparently holding those misunderstandings as a self-evident truth on which to base an argument.

In a piece entitled "Dear atheists...", Francis Spufford lays out his case for "mutual respect between believers and atheists" because we are all "wild romantic creatures" that "rush instead [of pragmatic agnosticism] to positions of faith on the subject [of God's existence]."

The problem is, as he lays out at the beginning of his piece, he bases his whole argument/appeal on an erroneous caricature of what an atheist actually is - or, at least what most atheists probably are. (There are a lot of convincing arguments that the current rise in self-reported atheism is at least partially due to more people being willing to call themselves atheists rather than the actually losing their faith.) Atheists are not necessarily not agnostics. Some may not even be adeists. We are atheists. We reject a theistic god even if we cannot ever know for certainty that no kind of possible god exists.

This is further compounded by the other common error among religious apologists - the argument of evidence: there cannot be evidence that god does not exists ergo we cannot know whether god exists (agnosticism) ergo it is equally likely that god exists as he doesn't ergo atheism is faith.

But agnosticism does not mean that it is equally likely that a god exists as it doesn't. And if we define "faith" as anything for which we do not have 100% certainty then essentially everything becomes faith and it becomes a useless term. Crucially, even if ultimate (dis)proof evades us, there is still legitimate evidence that one would expect to see if god existed, and the absence of that evidence makes a theist god's existence less likely - to the point of near certainty.

They are both arguments that are covered quite thoroughly (and most excellently) in The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Francis Spufford obviously hasn't read it (or hasn't understood it) and says this:

"We believe there is a God. You believe there isn't one. Meanwhile, nobody knows, nobody can know, whether He exists or not, it not being a matter susceptible to proof or disproof. The most science can do is to demonstrate that God is not necessary as a physical explanation for anything, which is very much not the same thing as demonstrating that He isn't there. So the natural, neutral, temperate position would be a agnosticism: a calm, indifferent not-knowing."

I would agree with the last line - with the caveat that it depends exactly what you mean by "indifferent". This is a statement that sums up many atheists, including myself, when it comes to the objective question over any god's existence. I am indifferent to the existence of 1+ gods. What I am not indifferent to is people being encouraged to behave in particular ways on the basis of ideas about said god(s).

Science can actually do more that "demonstrate that God is not necessary as a physical explanation for anything". It can provide compelling evidence that God is not a physical explanation for something. If, in turn, god is expected to be a physical explanation for that something, voila, you have evidence against god. This is a similar question to whether science and religion are compatible. Just as certain types of religion are incompatible with science, certain types of god would be expected to produce visible evidence and the lack of that evidence is indeed disproof. For example, if you believe that your god has a human(ish) form, literally rides around on a cloud and hurls lightning bolts, we can test this. If you think they live at the top of a specific mountain, we should have evidence of that mountain and their abode. (It is interesting how the gods of fables are always so much more visible and interactive than modern deities.) For me, there is no evidence of any theist god and there should be if they existed.

Neither is there any evidence for a deist god. There can't be. Nor can there be any evidence against one. That does not, however, mean that my failure to believe in one is an act of faith. Were I to be insistent that there definitely was no deist god then, yes, I would be demonstrating faith. I have never met an atheist that would insist that. When it comes to deism, we are mostly agnostics. There is no contradiction. (And who really, honestly, cares if there is a god out there who does essentially nothing?)

Agnosticism does not mean, however, that you have no opinion on whether god exists, it just means that you think it is something that, ultimately, no one can know. That is, we can conceive of deities that would be impervious to detection. But not knowing with certainty is not the same as thinking that the two possibilites are equally likely. We can never know anything. We can, however, reach a certain level of certainty where the tiny amount of doubt is effectively zero. (Again Dawkins explains this well.) Perhaps atheism is an opinion rather than a belief? In my opinion, there is no god. I do not believe that there is a god. I'm not sure that is the same as actively believing there is no god - just that the kind of god there could be (in my opinion) is not worth considering as, for all practical purpose, they are the same as no god.

The important thing is that the necessary agnosticism regarding deism does not extrapolate to theism. We would not expect evidence of a deist god. We would expect evidence of a theist one - at least, all the popular theist ones that I know about. Yes, you can contrive reasons why a god would hide themselves or remain deliberately undetectable but (to me) it just seems so much more plausible and consistent that there is no god.

If I expect to see evidence that something existed and I see no evidence then it follows that I am not going to think it exists. I am not really sure how you can call that faith.

[Edit: This post originally included the statement that I was not an adeist. I don't actually think that's true, even though I am much more ambivalent about the matter (it still seems to contravene Physics as we know it) so I have since removed those claims.]

A great intro to Humanism by the BHA

Continuing this month's celebration of things that make me proud to be British, here is a lovely (and short) video by the British Humanist Association explaining (a) what Humanism is, and (b) why you don't need religion to have morals or to give life meaning.



I particularly like the quote from Richard Dawkins:"Science is the poetry of reality."

What is a gene?

In addition to complaints about a lack of peer-reviewed publications, one of the frequent complaints and/or sources of misunderstanding regarding the arguments of Richard Dawkins is his use of the word "gene". Much like his use of the "God" in "The God Delusion", Dawkins has a specific meaning for "gene" in "The Selfish Gene" and the gene-centred view of evolution. Just as many of the objections levelled at "The God Delusion" ignore (or are ignorant of) his definition of "God", many of the objections levelled at gene-centric evolution ignore (or are ignorant of) his definition of "gene". So, what is a Gene? And why is there so much confusion?

Part of the problem is that gene means different things to different people and I think that this can be traced right back to the word's origins. The term "gene" was coined by Wilhelm Johannsen in 1909 as "special conditions, foundations and determiners which are present [in the gametes] in unique, separate and thereby independent ways [by which] many characteristics of the organism are specified” [quote taken from "What is a gene, post-ENCODE? History and updated definition" (Gerstein et al. 2007)], which has subsequently been paraphrased by others as "the fundamental physical and functional units of heredity". The problem, I think, stems from physical and functional.

Physical is fairly obvious and we now know that DNA is the genetic molecule of heredity. Molecular biologists and biochemists tend to fixate on this aspect of the "gene". A gene is a specific locus of the DNA that encodes a particular function. Even here, there is much debate and confusion over what constitutes a gene, which is unfortunately (and perhaps ironically) fuelled by a tendency for lower level biology textbooks to only talk about protein-coding genes to the extent that First Year undergrads seem to insert a silent (and invisible) "protein-coding" in front of "gene" whenever they see it or use it. Many genes do not encode proteins and a strong case could be made that things we frequently call "genes" are not fundamental units of heredity due to recombination etc. (See Gerstein et al. 2007 for more on this aspect of the problem.) The reason we have the words "cistron", "locus", "allele" etc. is because "gene" does not do well as a catch-all term for all situations. Although important, it is not the physical aspect I want to focus on, though.

Functional is not so simple due to the gene's (unique?) status as an information-carrying replicator - the essence of The Selfish Gene. Both the physical copy and the information contained by it can (rightly) be described as "the gene" depending on the situation. In terms of evolution rather than molecular biology, the emphasis is clearly on the information and not the physical molecule. It is this latter carrier of information that evolutionary biologists (including Richard Dawkins) are generally referring to with the term "gene". (Explicitly, Dawkins uses definition of George Williams, whose ideas formed the basis of The Selfish gene, as "that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency.") There just happens to be a lot more molecular biologists than evolutionary biologists in the world (including a subset with an explicit objective to erode the importance of the gene as a driver of evolutionary change and adaptation - a physical gene does not challenge Creationism in the same way that a heritable unit of information does.) The biochemist's physical definition might be winning the war for popular definition but this other term is still a common meaning if you think for a moment of the meaning of the phrase "gene pool", which is still used quite frequently.

The problem with the word "gene" is the same problem that always arises when we have a word for a useful concept that translates poorly into the real world as a set of explicit and consistent rules. "Gene" is a bit fuzzy because the physical reality of a fundamental unit of functional importance is context-dependent and hard to define, as is the functional reality of a fundamental unit of heredity.

The best solution, in my opinion: (1) unless it is blatantly obvious, make it clear what definition of "gene" you are using when making an argument on which it depends, and (2) be damn sure that you know what definition someone else is using before you start attacking their arguments. Semantics is a killer that isn't going to go away.

You don't have to publish papers to be clever (or read)

There's a bit of a spat going on at the moment between Richard Dawkins and Ed Wilson (and their respective followers) about Kin Selection and Group Selection. I will wade in with my own inconsequential opinion at a later date if/when I understand what the current understanding of "Group Selection" really is. (Group Selection to me is something so blatantly wrong that I suspect there is an updated definition since the "for the good of the species" days. Certainly, Dawkins is being accused of not understanding Group Selection whilst giving convincing arguments against what I was taught Group Selection meant. I'll add the links when I get the chance.)

One thing has cropped up, though, that made me cross enough to write a quick post. Apparently, in a video kicking around somewhere, E.O. Wilson dismisses Dawkins as someone who doesn't understand the theory and should be ignored in part because "he does not publish in peer reviewed journals". Ignoring the potential irony that one of Dawkins' criticisms of Wilson is for ignoring the peer-reviewed criticisms with his (Wilson's) peer-reviewed Nature paper, I think this is arrogance in the extreme. (If he said it - I am yet to watch the video myself. If not, I have heard similar remarks in the past and so the point still stands but Wilson is not guilty of it.)

As a published scientist myself, I have no hesitation in saying that not being published in peer-reviewed journals neither makes you intellectually inferior nor unable to read/understand scientific theories. In fact, I might even go as far as to say that if you are not encumbered with the need to actually do science, you probably have a lot more time to read and think about science. Dawkins is not stupid. He is also retired. If he doesn't "get it", it is nothing to do with his lack of peer-reviewed publication. There are plenty of peer-reviewed scientists who agree with him. (Besides, Dawkins has published in peer-reviewed journals - including Science and Nature - just not for some time. How shocking that a Professor for Public Understanding of Science might publish popular science books rather than peer-reviewed papers.)

I still cannot work out whether this particular argument is just semantics and confusion over definitions, or whether there is more substance to it than that. The fact that clearly intelligent people can be found on each side implies that it is either a subtle argument or a misunderstanding fueled by some big personalities (and fans thereof). Whoever turns out to be right, though, it will be down to the strength of their argument, not the length of their publication record.

The beauty of The Magic of Reality

Poor old Richard Dawkins has been getting a bit of a hard time recently by clueless journalists. More on that when I have the time but I thought I'd do my little bit to counter these bad vibes (not in a woo way) with a brief pro-Dawkins post. (Well, probably more a pro-Dave McKean post but I'll get to that.)

After flicking through a copy in a bookshop whilst on holiday, I recently got myself a copy of The Magic of Reality. I've not read through much of it yet but I've enjoyed the first few chapters (despite not really being the target audience). The thing I have loved most, though, has been the visual impact. Every page is stunningly illustrated and not just in a "here's a few nice relevant photos" kind of way; instead, the text and illustrations weave around each other with a greater-than-the-sum-of-the-parts impact.


Of course, Dawkins has Dave McKean to thank for the amazing illustrations but it is hard to believe that the images and text could work so well together if he has not also had some input.

I've also found out that you can get it for the iPad for £9.99. Even though I have the book, I must admit that I am sorely tempted.

The Origin of Life - interesting but not a problem

I've just read an article by a Rabbi Moshe Averick attacking Dawkins for focusing on evolution rather than the origin of life and, essentially, having no evidence against "Intelligent Design" as a result. The original ancestor of all extant (evolved) life is itself incredibly unlikely, therefore needs an explanation, for which a deity (an "Intelligent Designer") is the best, or so the argument goes.

Rabbi Averick is entirely right that the issue of the origin of life is different from that of evolution. Dawkins and others argue about evolution because Creationists and IDers attack evolution, though, not because they are trying to create a smoke-screen. Dawkins acknowledges that we do not know how life arose, only that it did. Throw in a few chemists who calculate the probability of self-replicating molecules arising to be vanishingly small and the Rabbi considers his position solid enough to proclaim as if it is some new and revolutionary truth that will have atheists ducking for cover and/or converting to ID in their masses. It isn't and it won't.

We have no scientific explanation for the origin of life. (Yet?) True. This does not make ID right, though. Any derivation of probabilities are hand-waving in the extreme – this is a one-off (as far as we know) event that happened over 3 billion years ago in conditions very different from our own. It may well be that we never know how it happened. Does this mean it could not have happened? No. Does this mean that I need faith to believe that it did happen? No. It is simple extrapolation from current experience. No life that we have encountered needed divine intervention as an explanation. Nothing in the modern world makes more sense with a deity than without. Why should the past be any different?

By the way, the Bayesian probability of life spontaneously arising is 1.0 because we know that life exists, so all scrabble-board arguments are pointless. They only work if you are outside the system. (The fact that we are here taking about it alters the probability that it happened in our Universe/timeline to be a certainty.) Unless you know how many planets, galaxies and universes there are, it is impossible to say that a one-off event is so unlikely that it could not have happened by chance. In fact, as the number of planets and universes tends towards infinity, so does the probability of anything happening.

You also have to ask yourself the question: so what if a deity kicked everything off 4 billion years ago and then watched? This is fundamentally different to a deity-free universe how, exactly? There is no need to invoke such a being in the first place and, if you do, their existence is pointless. (And then there is the boring old chestnut of where did THEY come from and what is the probability of THEM spontaneously arising?) Is an ageless ever-existing deity REALLY more likely than an infinite number of universes? Not to me.

Hopefully, Creationists and IDers will read the Rabbi's article and leave evolution alone. (They won't - Young Earth Creationists need evolution to be wrong too.) Until they do, he cannot expect Dawkins and others to stop writing books about why evolution is a fact, irrespective of life's origins.

Location:Southampton, UK

Dawkins & Darwin - a missed opportunity

I've just watched the first part of Channel 4's "The Genius of Charles Darwin", presented by Richard Dawkins, with decidedly mixed feelings. It had a lot going for it but I can't help thinking that it was a missed opportunity.

Although he doesn't spend much time saying how religion is no longer necessary, Dawkins still wastes a few minutes that would be much better spent, in my view, demonstrating the evidence for evolution. As an evolutionary biologist, I am well aware of the overwhelming evidence for evolution - I deal with it every day at work - and Dawkins mentions it several times but I feel that he dumbs it down too much and refers to it in general terms rather than really giving good examples, of which there are many. I wish he had removed a few interviews with people - trying to get school children to think for themselves, for example, - and shown a few more examples of anatomical, developmental and genetic similarities between organisms and evolutionary transitions.

There is nothing in biology that we have yet discovered that makes more sense in the light of some "design" theory than in the light of evolutionary theory, and there are plenty of things that we have discovered for which the "design" theories flounder while evolution makes perfect sense, but this does not really come across in the program. He talks about DNA but does not show any actual alignments of sequences and explain how they fit the family-tree structure
predicted by evolution but not the independent-origin structure predicted by independent creation - the competing hypothesis of the time. He talks about fossils but doesn't actually show any of the classic examples of form changing through time. He shows animal limbs and a few embryos in a few seconds but could have gone so much further with far more examples of anatomical similarities that simply make no sense without evolution. Ditto developmental genes. And the genetic code. And biochemical pathways. Etc. etc.

Oh well. Maybe the next episode will hit the mark.