I recently stumbled across this video on YouTube, and I just had to share it! Basically it is a very impressive way of tearing down the horrible straw man argument the creationists insist on using; namely the Watchmaker analogy. They claim that something as complex as a watch couldn't have come about by pure chance... it is fit for a purpose, and so has clearly been designed. Therefore there must be a watchmaker. The term Blind Watchmaker was used by Richard Dawkins in his eponymous book, where he essentially argued that the watchmaker in the analogy was blind (perhaps more metaphorically so, in that he lacks foresight and the ability to plan), and that he just tried various combinations, and whatever works, he keeps.
The video linked below goes one step further - it uses a computer program to simulate basic clockwork organisms, and lets them evolve based on their ability to tell the time. After a few hundred generations, we see complex pieces of machinery evolve, even though there was no design involved - just random variation in the population, and a selective pressure to be as accurate as possible.
Watch, marvel and enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0
Sunday, December 13, 2009
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