The magical power to simply create information:
Here, commenting on Does anyone remember Richard Dawkins in the New York Times mocking Mike Behe’s Edge of Evolution, a Darwin stalwart huffs:
So in nature NS is also a non-random force (the weak, sick and old are always selected against), it is the very antithesis of random, as we can usually judge who in the heard will not live to breed. It is of course slower than human selection but still incredibly powerful.
If the NY Times explained this, then well done the NY Times.
Just think of it: “(the weak, sick and old are always selected against)”
This guy actually believes that. I sure hope he doesn’t teach somewhere—and fail, in both senses of the word, students who don’t shout the shot back at him.
Yes, Darwin’s followers convince themselves that life is that simple. But of course it isn’t. For one thing:
1. The male who breeds may be the one who stayed out of the fight (too small), and was just standing around with the females, looking on. (Hey, girls, I have a GREAT idea! Let’s go for a stroll … )
2. The offspring who survive may be the ones who have an immunity to a common viral or bacterial disease, irrespective of other factors that would recommend them in any way.
Or else they were just not standing on the cliff edge when it broke off. Or something.
3. Old? Well, if “old” doesn’t link up with 1) or 2) , what does it mean? It isn’t clear that all life forms even age, the way humans do. Many seem to just live until something kills them, and produce whatever offspring they do, sometimes at a century old.
The Darwin scam has always depended on classroom teachers reinforcing the idea that “survival of the fittest” means “survival of the best” – in order to inculcate the idea that such survival increases genetic information.
Of course that isn’t true. The genes of those who happen not to have been killed by the ambient conditions before they produce fertile offspring survive. And pass on whatever they pass on. The question of how all that information got embedded in these life forms is still open. But the Darwin scam has sure cost a lot of time and careers
Follow UD News at Twitter!