Dawkins thinks there are evolutionary outcomes that are harmful. He dubs such an outcome as misfire.
“What natural selection favours is rules of thumb, which work in practice to promote the genes that built them. Rules of thumb, by their nature, sometimes misfire.”
“What is the primitively advantageous trait that sometimes misfires to generate religion?”
But Neo-Darwinism is based on two processes. Stochastic “Gene Mutation” and deterministic “Natural Selection”.
As it is accepted the outcomes of the majority of mutations – say errors during gene reproduction - are harmful to life and accordingly should fade away.
Therefore, it seems Dawkins has come to the opposite conclusion that the outcome of evolution is normally beneficial and misfire results in occasional harmful products, which in the case of religion has so far been going strong among all nations since time immemorial.
Alternatively, the misfire he is talking about may be happening in the deterministic phase of Neo-Darwinism i.e., natural selection, meaning that there is a second layer of misfire separate from harmful gene mutation. In that case, natural selection is also a random process not a deterministic one as it is claimed to be. The difference is that the probability of it being harmful is not as high as genes’ random mutations.
Can this be a paradox?
As far as I am aware, Dawkins is using the term "misfire" not as a unique evolutionary process, but rather as a shorthand to describe the outcome of an adaptation that has become maladaptive due to a change in environment and the consequence of other adaptations (for any one gene, the rest of the genome is "environment"). This isn't an unusual phenomenon. It is the essential explanatory factor behind continuous evolution (rather than directional evolution toward a deterministic final outcome).
Unfortunately, evolution of species is not possible since virtually ALL mutations (the driving 'force' of evolution) that have ever been observed in DNA are deleterious and result in loss of coding information. But why are you attacking religion? Christ is our only hope in this world and after - John 3:16 :)
Dear Gregory Burns
Many thanks for your comment. Your argument is completely in line with what I have proposed as the so called deterministic phase of Neo-Darwinism. This second process, which you rightly call "environment" activates on the stochastic process, i.e., gene mutation.
We are told the second phase is a deterministic one in which only beneficial mutations survive. Now, Dawkins says that this phase can also misfire and sometimes prefers a harmful traits. In that case it fails to be a deterministic process. Please read the first quote from Dawkins, which is from his book "The God delusion", in my main comment.
We know that natural selection is a random phase anyway as not all beneficial mutations can possibly survive in nature. But Dawkins accepts it only when he tries to denounce religion in his own way.
Dear Andrew Paul McKenzie Pegman
- I hold some reservations about aspects of the theory of evolution, part of which are detailed in:
Preprint SCIENCE IN THE SHADOW OF METAPHYSICS Part 1 -Gods of Science!?
- As previously mentioned in another RG thread, I do not aim to attack religion but rather to engage in a comprehensive examination of it. I have conducted an extensive study on this subject, which I have uploaded on ResearchGate.
Preprint Religion-The Triumph of Deceit
I invite you to take the time to read it and explore my perspective on why I believe that religion may not operate with complete transparency. I welcome any constructive critique and thoughtful feedback on my investigation.
I suspect, Ziaedin Shafiei, that nothing Dawkins says would agree with your rather poor understanding of natural selection. This is simply another attack on an obviously real process: natural selection.
And Mr. Pegman, your cannot maintain that natural selection is wrong simply because you say so. John 3:16 is in no way relevant although very beautiful prose. This is just another argument that is based not on empirical observation of the world as it is but on a source that is metaphorical and not verifiable.
Dear Patrice Showers Corneli
What are other readers supposed to learn from your response, which seems to be nothing but a personal attack? Please clarify the role and effects of misfires in natural selection. That was the original question.
Dear Patrice Showers Corneli
It is rather sad to see that the phoney and futile war between science and religion is always simmering, specially when it is used as a smoke screen to hide any shortcoming in both sides. With this excuse some scientists believe that they are entitled to say nothing about evolution but hurl abuse at anyone they fancy.
This issue of religion and evolution doesn’t make any sense to me at all. The evolution of DNA molecules has been going on for several billion years. Our species has been around for about 250000 years. The religions that most people say they “believe in” (or practice or identify with) have all been around for less than 2500 years, and everyone has a different idea of what religion is and what a god is. What else do we need to know ?
Within humans, the "mother's curse" effect is an example of evolution misfiring. Since mitochondrial DNA is maternal, evolution produces effects that benefit women, but these can be changes that disadvantage men.
I'm afraid that Andrew Paul McKenzie Pegman 's sweeping generalisation is not actually true. Covid evolved rapidly to become ever-more transmissible. In doing so it reduced its lethality, but this is not a disadvantage to a virus, quite the opposite. And, indeed, there are many more examples, but Covid gave us a huge global petrie dish in which to observe evolution first hand.
I do not think that hope in Christ is incompatible with science, by the way. Hope is the wish that forces and circumstances beyond your control will affect the outcome in a way that benefits you. Confidence is learning how to do this yourself. Or, as Claudius Ptolemy is said to have put it, sapiens dominabitur astris.
Dear Paul Gillen
My question is clear, is natural selection (NS) which is the second phase of Neo-Darwinism, also a random process or not. We are told that the first phase (gene mutation) is completely random but NS is a deterministic one. Now, with reference to Dawkins' writings it seems that he accepts NS can also misfire and thus is not a deterministic process as we are told.
I have no religious agenda here as it is clear from my writings uploaded to RG.
I, however, am not convinced that all Neo-Darwinists' claims are fool-proof science. Just as an example I can refer to the following IAI video.
Why Dawkins is wrong | Denis Noble interview - YouTube
Please find some of my concerns in:
Preprint SCIENCE IN THE SHADOW OF METAPHYSICS Part 1 -Gods of Science!?
Ziaedin Shafiei agree. the similarities and differences of scientific and religious knowledges are of considerable interest, but mixing them up causes a lot of confusio.
it seems to me that our brains are not well adapted to understanding randomness. quantum theory being another case in point, not to mention pharmaceutical statistics!
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