The myth of the blind watchmaker
Richard Dawkins is widely regarded as the leading popularizer of the Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution today. His books on evolution are widely praised, both by evolutionist scholars and the news media. The Economist called his book The Blind Watchmaker (1986,1996), "As readable and vigorous a defense of Darwinism as has been published since 1859," and a prominent evolutionist called it, "the best general account of evolution I have read in recent years." Not surprisingly, Dawkins is also a radical atheist who gives lectures on British television bearing such provocative titles as "The God Delusion" and "The Virus of Faith."
The Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution is, of course, the modern theory that all life evolved by purely naturalistic mechanisms with no supernatural involvement or intelligent design of any kind. According to the theory, all life on earth originated from a single living cell. How that first living cell came to be is a continuing mystery but is technically outside the scope of evolution. The theory says that random mutations of DNA occur, and the mutations that happen to be beneficial are effectively "selected" by nature because they improve the organism's chances of survival. Thus, harmful mutations tend to culled out by death and extinction, but beneficial mutations are propagated through the eons to produce increasingly complex life forms. That, in a nutshell, is how the Theory of Evolution explains all life beyond the first living cell.
Chapter Three of The Blind Watchmaker is called "Accumulating small change." In this chapter, Dawkins attempts to explain how the amazing complexity of living organisms could have evolved by purely naturalistic mechanisms with no design. Obviously it could not have happened in a few large mutations. What is needed is a long series of small mutations.
To illustrate that point, Dawkins starts with a simple analogy of generating a short sentence by typing randomly. He chooses the sentence, "METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL" from Hamlet, which contains 28 characters. If we consider only upper case letters and the space, we have 27 characters to choose from. Now, if 28 characters are typed completely at random, the chances of getting exactly this sentence in one try are one in 27 raised to the 28th power (approximately one in 10 to the 40th power). If we keep trying, but start over from scratch each time, the chances of typing even this short sentence are virtually zero.
Ah, but that is not how evolution works, of course. It does not keep starting over; it builds on what is already established. So Dawkins refines his model to reflect this difference. The resulting simulation procedure is to start with the first random try, then produce copies, with a small random error introduced in each copy (i.e., a different error in each copy) to simulate mutations. The simulation then selects from each "generation" the mutated copy that matches the target sentence most accurately. Lo and behold, the simulation now converges on the target sentence after only a few dozen "generations."