Tuesday, July 22, 2008 | Reason : In the News | print version

Good Science Writers: Richard Dawkins

by Sandwalk

Thanks to Mike Haubrich for the link.

http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2008/07/good-science-writers-richard-dawkins.html

Good Science Writers: Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins was not included in Richard Dawkins' book: The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing. The reason for the omission is obvious, so I rectify the "oversight" by including him in my list of good science writers.

I don't always agree with what Dawkins writes but there's no controversy about his ability to explain biology to the general public. He has a clear, crisp style that's easy to read and his arguments are well constructed. Part of his success is achieved by simplifying difficult concepts but this is also part of the problem since, in some cases, an over-simplification leads to misinterpretations.

Dawkins is also a master of metaphor but, sometimes the metaphors are misleading and can give an incorrect view of evolution (e.g. Climbing Mt. Improbable). I've chosen an excerpt from The Ancestor's Tale to illustrate Dawkins' skill at writing about science. This book is somewhat less polemical than his others, although it still has its fair share of strongly voiced personal opinions about evolution.

The passage below addresses "convergence," a favorite topic of theistic evolutionists such as Simon Conway Morris and Ken Miller. Dawkins has his own spin on the subject. He begins by addressing a question posed by Stuart Kauffman in 1985. Kauffman asked whether there are certain features of life that are easy to evolve. If so, we might expect these features to appear whenever life evolves. On the other hand ....

Those biologists who could be said to take their lead from the late Stephen Jay Gould regard all of evolution, including post-Cambrian evolution, as massively contingent—lucky, unlikely to be repeated in a Kauffman rerun. Calling it "rewinding the tape of evolution," Gould independently evolved Kauffman's thought experiment. The chance of anything remotely resembling humans on a second rerun is widely seen as vanishingly small, and Gould voiced it persuasively in Wonderful Life. It was this orthodoxy that led me to the cautious self-denying ordinance of my opening chapter; led me, indeed, to undertake my backwards pilgrimage, and now leads me to forsake my pilgrim companion at Canterbury and return alone. And yet ... I have long wondered whether the hectoring orthodoxy of contingency might have gone too far. My review of Gould's Full House (reprinted in A Devil's Chaplain) defended the unpopular notion of progress in evolution: not progress towards humanity—Darwin forfend!—but progress in directions that are at least predictable enough to justify the word. As I shall argue in a moment, the cumulative build-up of complex adaptations like eyes, strongly suggests a version of progress—especially when coupled in imagination with some of the wonderful products of convergent evolution.

Convergent evolution also inspired the Cambridge geologist Simon Conway Morris, whose provocative book Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe presents exactly the opposite case to Gould's "contingency." Conway Morris means his subtitle in a sense which is not far from literal. He really thinks that a rerun of evolution would result in a second coming of man: or something extremely close to man. And, for such an unpopular thesis, he mounts a defiantly courageous case. The two witnesses he repeatedly calls are convergence and constraint.

Convergence we have met again and again through this book, including in this chapter. Similar problems call forth similar solutions, not just twice or three times but, in many cases, dozens of times. I thought I was pretty extreme in my enthusiasm for convergent evolution, but I have met my match in Conway Morris, who presents a stunning array of examples, many of which I had not met before. But whereas I usually explain convergence by invoking similar selection pressures, Conway Morris adds the testimony of his second witness, constraint. The materials of life, and the processes of embryonic development, allow only a limited range of solutions to a particular problem. Given any particular evolutionary starting situation, there is only a limited number of ways out of the box. So if two reruns of a Kauffman experiment encounter anything like similar selection pressures, developmental constraints will enhance the tendency to arrive at the same solution.

You can see how a skilled advocate could deploy these two witnesses in defence of the daring belief that a rerun of evolution would be positively likely to converge on a large-brained biped with two skilled hands, forward-pointing camera eyes and other human features. Unfortunately, it has only happened once on this planet, but I suppose there has to be a first time. I admit that I was impressed by Conway Morris's parallel case for the predictability of the evolution of insects.

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1. Comment #215970 by rev on July 22, 2008 at 3:54 pm

first post oooo yes carry on.

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2. Comment #215990 by mordacious1 on July 22, 2008 at 4:23 pm

I do not see "Climbing Mt. Improbable" as a metaphor that gives an incorrect view of evolution. I think that the odds of one particular organism existing is improbable. Look at the platypus, a very improbable animal, and yet it climbed the mountain and exists. That's what makes evolution and natural selection cool. Remember when Richard programmed his, I think, 486 to put out possible computer organisms evolving from one. The end result was improbable at the beginning, a good metaphor I think.

Other Comments by mordacious1

3. Comment #215991 by gyokusai on July 22, 2008 at 4:24 pm

The article reprint's topsy turvy.

^_^J.

Other Comments by gyokusai

4. Comment #215996 by thewhitepearl on July 22, 2008 at 4:29 pm

Ok who started this first post competition? It's getting rather annoying. If you have this itching desire to point out the obvious to everyone, please include something relative to the article. Or at least state something worth reading.

I wonder what metaphors and incorrect views of evolution the author is refering to.

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5. Comment #215999 by Steve Zara on July 22, 2008 at 4:32 pm

Comment #215990 by mordacious1

I have never really liked the "mount improbable" metaphor. I have tried to re-cast the idea in a different way:

http://zarbi.livejournal.com/124211.html

"Descending mount probable"

Other Comments by Steve Zara

6. Comment #216003 by 82abhilash on July 22, 2008 at 4:40 pm

4. Comment #215996 by thewhitepearl on July 22, 2008 at 4:29 pm

Ok who started this first post competition? It's getting rather annoying. If you have this itching desire to point out the obvious to everyone, please include something relative to the article. Or at least state something worth reading.

I wonder what metaphors and incorrect views of evolution the author is refering to.

I think I understand the 'Climbing Mt. Improbable' metaphor gives the impression that the process of evolution is so contingent that if the tape of evolution is replayed we won't reach the same place. While the notion of convergence and constraint posits that very similar outcomes will repeat.

Now I am going to try reading Richard Dawkin's mind. He may say something to this effect - there is convergence and there are constraints, but their impact is not significant enough to remove contingency from the process of evolution. So evolution remains largely contingent, though perhaps not the extent that Gould claimed.

Other Comments by 82abhilash

7. Comment #216005 by mordacious1 on July 22, 2008 at 4:46 pm

Steve

You have an interesting take on this, and I see your point. I'll have to give it some thought, as you did, and see where I land. I've always liked the metaphor, so it may be difficult to change my mind. We shall see, I'm pulling Richard's book off the shelf....now.

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8. Comment #216006 by Steve Zara on July 22, 2008 at 4:49 pm

Comment #216005 by mordacious1

I am not saying Dawkins is wrong - that would be silly. I just thought it would be fun to turn the metaphor upside down, and see where it led.

Other Comments by Steve Zara

9. Comment #216016 by mordacious1 on July 22, 2008 at 4:59 pm

82abhilash

Are you saying that if the planet started today, everything being the same, we'd still end up with something similar to a platypus? I'd be shocked. Not that there would be a we.

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10. Comment #216025 by 82abhilash on July 22, 2008 at 5:08 pm

9. Comment #216016 by mordacious1

82abhilash

Are you saying that if the planet started today, everything being the same, we'd still end up with something similar to a platypus? I'd be shocked. Not that there would be a we.

Not at all. I cannot see how anyone could imply that from my comment. Quote me where I appear to imply that please.

Other Comments by 82abhilash

11. Comment #216042 by mordacious1 on July 22, 2008 at 5:23 pm

82abhilash

I misunderstood your comment. I thought you were supporting, "While the notion of convergence and constraint posits that very similar outcomes will repeat." When I re-read it, I see you weren't, sorry.

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12. Comment #216044 by Nails on July 22, 2008 at 5:25 pm

I think mount improbable is a sound metaphor; if you re-run the planet's evolutionary history it would be easy to see how things could change quite dramatically.

Climate change has obviously been a big factor in shaping the destiny of a species - you would only have to alter the timing of these events to change the course considerably.
Just imagine how a change in climate circa 6 million years ago could have inexhorably altered our development - had the African landscape become too dry our ancestors would have perished. Had the trees given way to open plains sooner, we may still be bipedal apes without the intelligence to wonder why.

Extra-terrestrial impacts have had big err impacts as well, if these happened at different times the balance of power may still be with reptiles and not mammals.

There are so many factors I feel it would be foolish to consider it cut and dried.

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13. Comment #216055 by 82abhilash on July 22, 2008 at 5:36 pm

5. Comment #215999 by Steve Zara on July 22, 2008 at 4:32 pm

Comment #215990 by mordacious1

I have never really liked the "mount improbable" metaphor. I have tried to re-cast the idea in a different way:

http://zarbi.livejournal.com/124211.html

"Descending mount probable"

I guess the metaphor of 'Climbing Mt. Improbable' has its limitations. Well all metaphors have their limitations and must not be over-extended.

For example, the metaphor of a pump is useful to understand the working of a heart, but if you keep comparing part by part anatomically, then the metaphor begins to collapse.

In the case of the 'Climbing Mt. Improbable' it is the notion of a fixed peak that all organisms must strive for. Well it may not be too far off. There is a notion of local fitness, local peaks if you may, which are sort of evolutionary dead ends. Mutations may temporarily decrease fitness unless you move away from that locale.

Also climbing up Mt. Improbable seems to make better sense because it implies a heavy bottom populated with simple organisms and indeed most life on earth are microscopic.

Besides you have not solved the problem that you set out to solve, because going up a mountain implies that a highest peak exists. However easy it is to think of a mountain peak, it is much easier to think of mountain base. So saying ' It is a largely inevitable drift down mount probable, but to who knows where?' poses at least as much problem as we initially hoped to solve.

Also the 'Descending mount probable' gives the idea that complexity is an inevitable outcome of evolution. I am not sure how true that is, given that most life is still microscopic (in a sense simple). I could be though. Does that make evolution directed? Perhaps in the sense that a directionless process can create beings with a sense of direction. But that in itself does not give the process any direction, direction (or more precisely directed behavior) becomes just one outcome of the directionless process.

Now if we say that the highest peak on Mt. Improbable is not visible, because of fog or something that may help reinforce the idea that evolution is a process without goals. Metaphors are good places to start, but eventually we must outgrow them. As for Creationists, they are willfully ignorant.

This is the episode he speaks about 'Climbing Mt. Improbable'

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-690865967686494800

Other Comments by 82abhilash

14. Comment #216209 by Jack Rawlinson on July 22, 2008 at 8:34 pm

the whitepearl wrote: "Ok who started this first post competition? It's getting rather annoying. If you have this itching desire to point out the obvious to everyone, please include something relative to the article. Or at least state something worth reading. "

Hear hear. What the hell is wrong with people who do that? Why do they think it matters a damn who posts first, and even if it did, why do they think that saying nothing more than "FIRST! HA!" is in any way more intelligent than spraying "I WOZ ERE" on a wall?

I'd expect to see that sort of low-IQ sub-moron behaviour on some bloody pre-teen popstar myspace wankfest site, but here at RDF? Pathetic. Get a grip, some of you.

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15. Comment #216219 by Jack Rawlinson on July 22, 2008 at 8:49 pm

But calming down now :-) ... it's nice to see someone remind us of something that the fuss around TGD has perhaps occluded to a degree: that RD is a damned good writer, and is one of a fairly small group of knowledgeable scientists who can really communicate well with the general reader. Much as I appreciated TGD I shall never forget that it was "The Blind Watchmaker" which first blew me away. I understood evolution before I read that book, but it was the first piece of writing that made me feel it.

Hmm. Suddenly I feel like re-reading it.

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16. Comment #216279 by prettygoodformonkeys on July 22, 2008 at 10:20 pm

"low-IQ sub-moron behaviour on some bloody pre-teen popstar myspace wankfest site"

Is "Yay, first post!" any less enlightening than: "gee, I liked that book, I think I'll re-read it"?

whatever, mom.
I call 'Dibs' on last post....

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17. Comment #216290 by dsainty on July 22, 2008 at 11:24 pm

Watch any space-heading science fiction moving picture and you'll see that the evolution of a large-brained biped with two skilled hands, forward-pointing camera eyes and other human features is almost a certainty anywhere in the universe, regardless of the planetary conditions.

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18. Comment #216300 by Raiko on July 23, 2008 at 12:42 am

I am very surprised by this verdict, and it must be quite frustrating to Richard. In all his books I have read he always stresses very, very much that he is using metaphors and that metaphors only work so far. He also very consciously drops metaphors and picks them back up (and even says so!), if they should become problematic.

There is barely much else a public science writer can do to make science both accessible to the general public and not too misleading at the same time.

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19. Comment #216302 by Chris Davis on July 23, 2008 at 12:46 am

This is what my ol' mum would have called 'praising with faint damns'

The anthropocentricity displayed here is a bit extreme. Not only is Hom. Sap. hardly the pinnacle of creation, we're thoroughly unlikely to last. Just a few million years in and we're already well-equipped - and minded - to wipe ourselves out (and take much of DNA's work with us). I doubt we'll be around much longer.

And we persist in seeing dinosaurs as Nature's failures!

CD

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20. Comment #216307 by Steve Zara on July 23, 2008 at 12:53 am

Comment #216055 by 82abhilash

Also the 'Descending mount probable' gives the idea that complexity is an inevitable outcome of evolution.

The problem I have with "mount improbable" is that it suggests to me that certain aspects of life are intrinsically unlikely, and that some sort of extra energy must be put in to "get up the mountain". It turns out that certain supposedly "hard-to-evolve" features like eyes and wings turn up often - they may even be universal features of complex life. Also, life may be an inevitable result of the nature of our universe - it is not something that has to be "worked at" like climbing a mountain.

I realise my feelings about the metaphor of mount improbable aren't to do with what Richard intended, but they were still what came to mind.

By turning the thing upside down I wanted to explore the idea that complexity arises spontaneously, and often.

I think this actually illustrates Richard's gift as a writer - he makes one think and want to explore ideas, and gets you to look at things in different ways.

Also, it was fun to write!

Other Comments by Steve Zara

21. Comment #216313 by Chris Davis on July 23, 2008 at 1:08 am

@20

Without contradicting your main thrust, I'd hesitate to describe eyes as 'hard to evolve': the path from a Euglena's light sensistivity to an eagle's eye is a smooth climb up a slope of Mt. Improbable, with a steady accumulation of advantage at every stage.

Indeed, as research pushes on, I expect we'll find that many intuitively hard evolutionary problems will turn out to have similar probabilities. The only real measure may be how long a feature took to arise: sex, say; or multi-cells.

CD

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22. Comment #216318 by Steve Zara on July 23, 2008 at 1:21 am

Comment #216313 by Chris Davis

I actually agree with you, sort of. If eyes aren't hard to evolve, it does not feel that right to me to talk about climbing up a mountain of improbability. It's more like a mountain of apparent improbability, because it seems at first sight that complexity should be unlikely.

Other Comments by Steve Zara

23. Comment #216320 by Dinah on July 23, 2008 at 1:24 am

This is what my ol' mum would have called 'praising with faint damns'

How strange. My ol' Mum would call it 'damning with faint praise'!

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24. Comment #216324 by Happy Hominid on July 23, 2008 at 1:31 am

In this recent edition of Another Goddamned Podcast the discussion came to Richard Dawkins and his value to atheism - is it greater if he just writes the fantastic science that gave him his fame? Or does his fame now make him a better spokesperson for rationality?
http://anothergoddamnedpodcast.blogspot.com/2008/07/another-goddamned-podcast-20-june-26.html

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25. Comment #216325 by epeeist on July 23, 2008 at 1:32 am

Comment #216307 by Steve Zara

It turns out that certain supposedly "hard-to-evolve" features like eyes and wings turn up often - they may even be universal features of complex life.

Steve, something I was musing on the other day.

I started out in computing writing Algol 60 programs. This step above writing in assembler abstracted you away from the machine and enabled programs to be produced much more quickly. Further abstraction has followed, standard components, IDEs, diagrammatic techniques. All of which have added further meta-levels allowing not only programs to be produced faster, but more complex functionality to be included.

Is there a similar mechanism in evolution? The first steps being difficult but as time goes on the simple structures being used to bootstrap more complex structures and allowing evolution to proceed at a faster rated?

I should note that I am currently reading Churchland's "A Neurocomputational Perspective" and finding his discussion on topological mappings in the brain quite fascinating.

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26. Comment #216327 by Dr Doctor on July 23, 2008 at 1:32 am

"I actually agree with you, sort of. If eyes aren't hard to evolve, it does not feel that right to me to talk about climbing up a mountain of improbability. It's more like a mountain of apparent improbability, because it seems at first sight that complexity should be unlikely."

I think Dawkins explained this metaphor pretty well. But if it makes you feel uneasy to talk in those terms, why not use your own metaphor?

Metaphors often don't work for everyone, (I admit I thought about putting this on your blog rather than here but the discussion on it is current) which is why a good writer uses it as an amuse gueule.

To pick at it the way you are might be a fun intellectual exercise but on your blog you used it as a criticism which I think is stretching things somewhat:

Just to quote the bit I am referring to:

(your comment on your blog entry)
[[[ ****
I think Richard Dawkins is perhaps the best explainer of scientific ideas I have ever read, but also one of the worst for coming up with metaphors and examples! Even at the start of "the selfish gene", I think he gets things wrong. He describes his "gene centred" viewpoint and the "organism centred" viewpoint as if they were alternative ways of looking at a "Necker cube". But, they aren't! The gene centred view is the right one, in almost every case.

The Mount Improbable idea may seem to make things easier to understand for a young audience, but doesn't my Mount Probable metaphor make things even easier? I think the key thing with my approach is that it doesn't emphasise that evolution is difficult; is improbable.

Richard is a true scientist. I am sure he would be happy that people like me challenge his approach :)"

**** ]]]

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27. Comment #216336 by Steve Zara on July 23, 2008 at 1:47 am

omment #216327 by Dr Doctor

Yes, if it was a criticism, it was meant in the gentlest way possible, and in a way, it is quite the opposite really, as it shows how much Richard inspires people to think.

I think Dawkins explained this metaphor pretty well. But if it makes you feel uneasy to talk in those terms, why not use your own metaphor?

Because it can be fun, and illustrative, to take an existing idea and turn it around to see what it looks like, just as Richard did with the "747 in a junkyard" metaphor. This can challenge pre-conceived ideas.

I do know what Richard is getting at, because we associate "complex" with "improbable" generally, so it seems like a mountain of complexity has to be climbed.

However, I think it can help to talk of evolution and natural selection as a blind force of Nature, to contrast with the idea of design, I sometimes write that it is as blind (and lacking in ethical implications) as gravity. That is what gave me the idea of drifting downwards, with an inevitable production of some form of complexity. The width of the base of the mountain shows that where you end up in terms of actual creatures and morphology is very variable, although there are some valleys which drive you in certain directions (eyes, wings etc).

EDIT: I admit the problem may be in the feeling that the "Mount Improbable" metaphor gives me, but I see no harm in throwing out some ideas and see what happens to them. If I am wrong, that isn't a problem.

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28. Comment #216342 by Steve Zara on July 23, 2008 at 1:54 am

Comment #216325 by epeeist

Is there a similar mechanism in evolution? The first steps being difficult but as time goes on the simple structures being used to bootstrap more complex structures and allowing evolution to proceed at a faster rated?

I do wonder how difficult the first steps may have actually been. From what I have seen on recent research into RNA formation and catalysis, I am not sure the origin of life was that hard at all. Also, perhaps we tend to look at rate of evolution from our macroscopic perspective, when virtually all the complexity of living things is within the cells. So, from one point of view, all that has happened in the last billion years or so is mostly just shifting cells around (yes, it is really quite a bit more than that, but I am trying to make a point)

Other Comments by Steve Zara

29. Comment #216344 by Quetzalcoatl on July 23, 2008 at 1:59 am

Steve-

I do wonder how difficult the first steps may have actually been. From what I have seen on recent research into RNA formation and catalysis, I am not sure the origin of life was that hard at all.

From my reading of "Evolving the alien" I would now agree with that. It seems a matter of having enough chemical reactions and enough time (generalising horribly). And if that's so, then life may be very common indeed.

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30. Comment #216353 by Peacebeuponme on July 23, 2008 at 2:26 am

Is "Yay, first post!" any less enlightening than: "gee, I liked that book, I think I'll re-read it"?

Yes, I often wonder why people bother to contribute with "Great Post", or "I like Pat Condell".

However, in this case I'm struggling to see what to say of substance. The article is a bit light, consisting mostly of an excerpt from Richard's (admittedly wonderful) book.

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31. Comment #216357 by Roland_F on July 23, 2008 at 2:41 am

main article : I've chosen an excerpt from The Ancestor's Tale to illustrate Dawkins' skill at writing about science. This book is somewhat less polemical than his others, although it still has its fair share of strongly voiced personal opinions about evolution.

where are the other Biology books (not TGD) books polemical ?

To follow epeeist programming analogy : climbing Mount Improbable reminds me more at Operations Research with it's branch & bound algorithm. You get easily stuck at a suboptima (like the facett eye) and can't move forward any more.

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32. Comment #216359 by Roland_F on July 23, 2008 at 2:52 am

Steve's 'zarbi' link:

I think this is the better way of looking at things. Evolution isn't a matter of struggling to ascend mount improbable to reach some final peak.

To reach some final gully or depression not peak. And this gully might be a glacier lake a suboptimal altitude and not the deepest point.

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33. Comment #216361 by rod-the-farmer on July 23, 2008 at 3:09 am

I am working my way through The Ancestors Tale, after grinding my way through The Blind Watchmaker. The latter nade me think I had perhaps reached my personal Peter Principle re my understanding of biology. I found it rather difficult. The former is much easier, for me. TGD was really good. (My personal comments on the ability of RD as a science writer.)

And now for my burning question, which I have as yet not seen answered in Ancestor, but is where the question came to me. What prevents organism A from successfully breeding with organism B ? Or even partially successful, as in mules. Please be specific.

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34. Comment #216362 by Peacebeuponme on July 23, 2008 at 3:09 am

Roland

To reach some final gully or depression not peak. And this gully might be a glacier lake a suboptimal altitude and not the deepest point.

Its just improbable terrain, which can have peaks and gullys along the way. However, I don't see the problem of the "Mount Improbable" as a metahpor to explain how great evolutionay change can occur over time.

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35. Comment #216365 by Roland_F on July 23, 2008 at 3:19 am

33. Comment #216361 by rod-the-farmer : What prevents organism A from successfully breeding with organism B

Call it species A with species B not Organism.

Foremost the number of Chromosomes, when they differ no offspring possible at all or the offspring is infertile (your Mule).
And the structure and sequence of the Chromosomes must still be similar enough like interbreeding big cat's Tiger & Lion but not cat & dogs for example.
Sometimes it would be perfectly possible to interbreed like for some similar bird species but there are simply not mating because their sexual preferences are too different evolved over time.

But more details could be provided from some specialists here.

Other Comments by Roland_F

36. Comment #216370 by Steve Zara on July 23, 2008 at 4:02 am

However, I don't see the problem of the "Mount Improbable" as a metahpor to explain how great evolutionay change can occur over time.

If it turns out that life is very common, and certain complex features are pretty much universal, or at least very common (such as wings, eyes, legs), then the idea of there being an aspect of realy (as against apparent) improbability may be misleading. Also, it may give slightly the wrong impression to suggest there is any real barrier to complex life (as suggested by the idea of a "climb"). It may be that life is as inevitable in the universe as planets and stars, and what Richard is dealing with with the metaphor is our feelings of what we thought the situation was regarding complexity, rather than what it actually is. This may be even more the case if the ideas of the biologist Stuart Kauffman are correct, and there are some general high-level rules about evolution and how it proceeds, and what paths it takes.

To give an analogy, it used to be thought that planetary systems were rare, and there was some explanatory gap - some barrier of improbability that had to be overcome to get something like our solar system. Now we know they are not only common, but probably the normal state for stars. There is no longer any "mount improbable" for solar systems.

Other Comments by Steve Zara

37. Comment #216372 by phil rimmer on July 23, 2008 at 4:21 am

*Warning. May contain stupidity.*

The trouble with METAPHORS is they are not MODELS. There isn't the underlying commonality of maths.

Nevertheless, Descending Mount Probable is a truly valuable counter-metaphor to the debate. Musing on it, it seemed that progress down might pick up momentum. Then behold Epeeist offers the same thought from another angle.

Of course, momentum is entirely the wrong image. The descent is accompanied by the accumulation of a larger "toolkit" of path descent choices. (Not from enhanced gene complexity but from enhanced gene expression opportunity in the increasingly sophisticated gene host.) Further, the enriching of the environment on the descent, (e.g. no longer eat phosphate or die, but eat bugs or reptiles or fungus or die etc.)offers choices of paths making more mutation types potentially advantageous. The descent is still step-wise but perhaps less hesitant.

A crucial factor here is that the process of evolution does not "see" the landscape. The phenomenon exists only at the scale of the step. The individual's step is "blind", tentative (random!) and leads some individuals off precipices.

Little cwms or corries on the way down may trap say eye development in a blind alley, but other host-feature development may carry the host to a more beneficial location that may better facilitate such development. etc. etc.

I think I need a grown up now to tell me if this is anything like correct.

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38. Comment #216374 by j.mills on July 23, 2008 at 4:26 am

A lot of this chat seems to conflate common with probable. Clearly eyes are common in terms of the number of species and individuals that have them, and more importantly the number of times they have separately evolved. But, a la Paley, you'd still be astonished to find one sitting on a rock on Ganymede.

Surely the 'improbable' that RD sought to explicate was the existence of complex stuff at all? There may be some bacterium carrying a simple but unique biological feature: it may be very uncommon without being very complex ('improbable').

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39. Comment #216375 by Dr Doctor on July 23, 2008 at 4:38 am

Consider "Climbing mount inevitable", does that make you feel better about it?

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40. Comment #216376 by j.mills on July 23, 2008 at 4:40 am

where are the other Biology books (not TGD) books polemical ?

Polemical - as in pushing a particular point of view (Selfish Gene, Extended Phenotype) - not necessarily controversial or political.

On this business of going up (or down, to taste) the mountain: I wonder how contiguous the landscape is? In particular, are there biological solutions that are possible (ie. would be viable) but cannot be reached because there is no pathway of viable and accessible mutations? (I'm assuming a practical limit on the magnitude of a mutation.)

If so, the mountainside could have inaccessible 'pits' or 'ravines'. We might even imagine peaks with no base, which could never be climbed - Godel organisms, possible but unattainable...

Other Comments by j.mills

41. Comment #216378 by phil rimmer on July 23, 2008 at 4:51 am

There is something of the inevitable to descending a mountain (probable or not).

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42. Comment #216379 by Steve Zara on July 23, 2008 at 5:02 am

Comment #216374 by j.mills

"Improbable" as used in this context is the likelihood of a complex structure arising from pure randomness. But there are forces and factors of the universe that can drive the formation of complex structure, such as gravity and thermodynamics, so complexity may be both probable and common. Evolution could perhaps be considered to be such a force.

Other Comments by Steve Zara

43. Comment #216380 by Peacebeuponme on July 23, 2008 at 5:12 am

Steve

If it turns out that life is very common, and certain complex features are pretty much universal, or at least very common (such as wings, eyes, legs), then the idea of there being an aspect of realy (as against apparent) improbability may be misleading. Also, it may give slightly the wrong impression to suggest there is any real barrier to complex life (as suggested by the idea of a "climb").

Hmm. Interesting.

I'm talking a bit blind here, as it is one of Richard's books I haven't read. However, my understanding was that he was using it to show how complex life evolved from simple beginnings, which is apparently improbable, by showing that it occurs by step-by-step changes over millions of years.

Even if it turns our life is common (that there are many other life-supporting planets) and that wings, eyes etc do seem to be common features, I don't think that causes a problem for what Richard is trying to say. Its still improbable as far as our perception goes for one life form to evolve into another vastly different from it. That's improbable on the face of it, until you bring in other factors such as environmental change over time.

Also, there is always as 'real barrier' to this: time. And I think Richard was explaining to the layman that there has been plenty of this for evolution to occur (provided it is directed by natural selection).

Sure I haven't written that well, but hopefully it makes some sense!

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44. Comment #216382 by irate_atheist on July 23, 2008 at 5:20 am

43. Comment #216380 by Peacebeuponme -

To summarise:

The improbability is in our minds - not in reality.

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45. Comment #216386 by Peacebeuponme on July 23, 2008 at 5:32 am

Irate

The improbability is in our minds - not in reality.

Well sort of. Actually, j. mills says it better:

Clearly eyes are common in terms of the number of species and individuals that have them, and more importantly the number of times they have separately evolved. But, a la Paley, you'd still be astonished to find one sitting on a rock on Ganymede.

Its improbable in of itself, but maybe not when you bring common environmental factors in to play.

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46. Comment #216392 by Logicel on July 23, 2008 at 6:01 am

I think Steve Zara's metaphor is quite good--works much better for me than RDs. However, it does not have that sound biting quality of RDs. Sound bites can get information out in the meme/mainstream, but often at the expense of in-depth explanation/knowledge. Sigh. A necessary compromise, I suppose. Or maybe not. Perhaps, we are just accustomed to the punch of sound bites, and we need to become receptive to better delivery vehicles for information.

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47. Comment #216401 by Steve Zara on July 23, 2008 at 6:20 am

However, it does not have that sound biting quality of RDs.

That is part of Richard's genius, and that of other great scientific minds like Carl Sagan and Steven Weinberg. They give us ideas that are instantly memorable and encourage further thought...

"The Selfish Gene"
"Mount Improbable"
"Pale Blue Dot"
"First Three Minutes"
...

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48. Comment #216419 by bujin on July 23, 2008 at 7:09 am

Ok, I have got to ask - what the hell is it with these "first post" things that contain absolutely no useful content whatsoever? It seems pretty damn pointless to me!

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49. Comment #216422 by Richard Dawkins on July 23, 2008 at 7:19 am

I am interested in the suggestion that Climbing Mount Improbable might not be an ideal title. Interested, because I regard it as the most under-rated of my books. It sells FAR fewer copies than The Blind Watchmaker although I think it is a better book. Perhaps the reason is that the title is not so good. It covers some of the same ground as The Blind Watchmaker, but -- even though it is not really for me to say -- I like to think the two chapters called 'The Museum of all Shells' and 'Kaleidoscopic Embryos' are genuinely novel and original, where The Blind Watchmaker is mostly popularizing stuff that is already well known to professionals. Well, as I say, it is not really for me to judge. But my own opinion is that, if anybody is thinking of reading The Blind Watchmaker, they might do better to read Climbing Mount Improbable instead. Of course, I wouldn't want to STOP anyone reading BOTH!
Richard

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50. Comment #216427 by Tyler Durden on July 23, 2008 at 7:26 am