Role of accumulating small changes in the emergence of complex designs

The beautiful and complicated designs of organisms have evolved over generations, by accumulation of small changes that occur randomly. This is how Darwin’s theory of evolution explains the existence of complex designs within different organisms. There is a common misconception among the people who oppose Darwin’s idea of evolution. The evolution is not a random event.

Randomness is just a small element of the whole idea. It is the selection of the random changes that accumulate over generations, in a time scale of millions of years that bring about evolution. Each successive change (random mutation) in the evolutionary process is so small, relative to its predecessor, that it can take place by chance. A common argument against the Darwinian vision was that even if it was believed that random changes accumulate over generations and cause species to change, these changes cannot transform one species into another. The answer to this argument is that, the organisms if given a large time to evolve, accumulating small changes over millions of years the species can actually transform. Only then we can say that a new species is formed when there is reproductive isolation. Natural selection is guided by the environmental conditions. The organisms have to adapt to the changing environmental conditions and the changes that are favourable with respect to the environment are selected. Therefore the species that suit more to the environment originate over time. Evolution of species is so slow a process that no-one can feel it happening. So Richard Dawkins created a few simulations to prove the point. In his book ‘The Blind Watchmaker’, Richard Dawkins talks about the monkey/Shakespeare model of generating a meaningful sentence. The model works as follows:

A monkey is made to type random strings on a computer and there is a certain probability of it typing the desired string.

Dawkins took the string “METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL”. Since the string is 28 characters long, the odd of generating the string randomly is 1 out of 27²⁸ which is nearly impossible. But by accumulation of small random mutations in the string, the string can be generated within a few generations.

27²⁸= 11972515182562019788602740026717047105681

Then he tried evolving different shapes on his computer by artificially selecting (by eye) the most insect like biomorph. After a few generations weird insect-like shapes started emerging. Dawkins has given the pictures of the biomorphs (that he evolved on his computer) in his book. He did this by randomly mutating 9 genes, and selecting the most desired of them.

So, it is evident from the computer simulations that such complex designs can be made to evolve from simple dot like structure. I re-created the evolving string program that Dawkins talked about, to check his claims. The string that I took was:

'i have just evolved from a random string’.

First I generated a 40 character random string and then left it to evolve. The below written strings was the result of program after equal intervals of 20 generations each:

1) utygjthgukqxpntiarkoofn sakhhlm wmjzbupx
2) u igja gukq pntiofkaofnlda hhlmnw jzwgpi
3) i iata guvq dztiufg bqnlaa qaldnn wvwgpi
4) i iate jutt dxokufe frnl a saldnm tvrhpi
5) i iaue just dvolvee from a samdnm ttring
6) i gave just evolved from a sandom string

After 106 generations the desired output ("i have just evolved from a random string") evolved.

The difference between the 1st guess and the evolved string is humungous.
Initial guess: utygjthgukqxpntiarkoofn sakhhlm wmjzbupx
Final output: i have just evolved from a random string

This is enough to motivate us to create our own program that evolves a meaningful string from a random string. So let's start making our program (The evolving string program).