Abstract
The question whether evolution is blind is usually presented as a choice between no goals at all (‘the blind watchmaker’) and long-term goals which would be external to the organism, for example in the form of special creation or intelligent design. The arguments either way do not address the question whether there are short-term goals within rather than external to organisms. Organisms and their interacting populations have evolved mechanisms by which they can harness blind stochasticity and so generate rapid functional responses to environmental challenges. They can achieve this by re-organising their genomes and/or their regulatory networks. Epigenetic as well as DNA changes are involved. Evolution may have no foresight, but it is at least partially directed by organisms themselves and by the populations of which they form part. Similar arguments support partial direction in the evolution of behavior.
Highlights
We again use our computer monkey, but with a crucial difference in its program
The computer examines the mutant nonsense phrases, the ‘progeny’ of the original phrase, and chooses the one which, slightly, most resembles the target phrase, METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL. (Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker)
We develop our case in stages: first, to show how multicellular organisms use targeted evolution of their cells to respond to environmental challenge; second, to show how populations of microorganisms achieve similar targeted responses; third, to show how epigenetic inheritance occurs in multicellular organisms with separate germ-lines; fourth; to show how the evolution of behavior can use similar processes that have developed agency in their evolution
Summary
We again use our computer monkey, but with a crucial difference in its program. It again begins by choosing a random sequence of 28 letters, just as before ... It duplicates it repeatedly, but with a certain chance of random error—‘mutation’—in the copying. The computer examines the mutant nonsense phrases, the ‘progeny’ of the original phrase, and chooses the one which, slightly, most resembles the target phrase, METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL. The computer examines the mutant nonsense phrases, the ‘progeny’ of the original phrase, and chooses the one which, slightly, most resembles the target phrase, METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL. (Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker)
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