Hi ICdesign,
All you guys seem to be talking about survival of the fittest for up and running, fully developed creatures.
Yes. that's because we are talking about the ToE, which deals with extant organisms, not their first origins.
What I have been trying to get to is the construction process of creatures to begin with.
Two answers;
a) The "construction process" in the example you have been using is analogous to random mutation and the laws of chemistry.
b) We are talking about evolution, not the first origins of life, so the original "construction process" is not part of the analogy.
This whole "self-improvement" program the ToE adheres to is bogus in what would be an impersonal, purposeless and wholly material universe anyway.
I agree, you are quite right. In an unguided universe there would be no objective value that could be used to define "improvement". That's why evolution is not a matter of "self improvement".
Proponents of evolution don't regard the process as "progress". Descendant organisms are not necessarily any "better" or "worse" than ancestral ones; they simply pass through the test of natural selection, maybe with success (offspring) or with failure (no offspring). No value judgement need be made.
It should be mentioned here that even among evolutionary theorists there remains widespread disagreement.
There really isn't. There is no "widespread disagreement" amongst biologists on any important aspect of the ToE.
Because one offspring survives instead of another may not mean it has greater evolutionary potential. The lucky chicken that survived the hungry fox's nocturnal raid on the chicken coop may well have been suffering from insomnia on that night.
Leaving aside that the chicken might have a genetic cause for its insomnia...
You are right. Sometimes survival is a matter of chance. Sometimes you zig when you shoulda zagged and you pay the price.
Survival of the fittest thus becomes "survival of those that survive," which doesn't tell us a great deal.
But that's wrong. Just because chance plays a role, does not mean that natural selection isn't involved. Some organisms are, undeniably, better equipped to survive and reproduce than others. Natural selection can affect these organisms. It is not pure chance or luck. Luck is involved, but natural selection is involved as well.
But now lets paint a more accurate analogy of reality and take away Mr. Chances brain all together.
But that's because Mr Chance is just a character in an analogy. You are arguing the analogy, not the argument itself. You have broken your own analogy.
Humans can't exist without brains. The blind process of chance can and does. Therefore, your analogy breaks down here.
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE !!
Please stop shouting at people. It really doesn't help.
Mutate and Survive
On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
™ Version 4.2
(1)