Appendix 5.3 Richard Dawkins Verifies

This is actually by way of answer to Dr J (a keen supporter of Mr Dawkins) on Twitter.. It falls under this heading however as it is still in that sphere of simple probability modelling of supposed evolutionary processes oft referred to by Richard himself.

First the model Richard re-tweeted [tunartphoto.com].. Yes he's a photographer.. Title

Understanding Evolution With A Handful Of Dice

Take a handful of dice throw them.. select all but the 6's throw only them.. repeat.. voila all 6's = evolution..!  Really.. The end state is known and the probability of getting it = 1..!!

I think all this serves to demonstrate is an appalling state of ignorance.. undeserving of one who held the seat of Professor for Public Education in Britain..!

Dr J commented something very similar..

Repeat audience guessing of a coin toss.. kill all that get it wrong (about half) each time replace with 'descendants' = copies of those who got it right.. toss again replace those who got it wrong etc.. and repeat..

So by 2nd audience all are parents or 'descendants' of those who guessed right once..

By 3rd audience all are parents or 'descendants' of those who guessed right twice..

By nth audience all are parents or 'descendants' of those who guessed right n-1 times..

Firstly we must decide what Mr DJ means by 'breed'.. is that like a clone of a person who guessed right implying they have inherited the 'gene' for guessing coin tosses. If so how does this 'gene' work.. are they more likely to guess right.. Well in Dr J's own words "about half" will be eliminated each round.. so NO they do not have any greater chance of guessing the next toss right. Which all means you end up with exactly what you started with after each round.. About half get it right and half get eliminated.. In other words ITS GOING NOWHERE..!

Secondly the implication each successive half that guess right are also those who guessed right previously is clearly incorrect so in the end you cannot say how many any one of that audience guessed right in a row..

Here's A BETTER EXAMPLE.. Evolve a 100 coins into a HTHTHTHT.. pattern.

(The end result is only improbable because of the order not the count of Heads)

Take a population of 10 'genes' of 100 coins.. Toss all for starters..

1 - Score and Kill the 5 groups with least total runs of HTHT.. etc.

2 - Duplicate the top 5 so we have 10 with longest runs of HTHT..etc

3 - Randomly toss 1 or more coins from each gene. [no protected areas]

4 - Go back to 1 and repeat. [Top 5 mutated groups (genes) are retained]

What do you think happens..?