Evolution is not random!!

This is what most people think about evolution – that it is random. No it is not random, no it is not completely by chance, but far from it. I thought most people knew about this, but I have seen this argument put forth so many times that I felt the need to act on it now. I am not sure where I read this(probably “The Blind Watchmaker” but I’m not sure).

Imagine you are a thief, or a lock picker. You stand in-front of a fat locker which needs a 5 digit numeric code to open. If you do not know anything about the key number that opens it, you need to try 10*10*10*10*10 numbers to open the locker(in the worst case). If you try to key in all possible combinations until the lock opens, your procedure is essentially brute force. And chances of doing that in reasonable amount of time are very slim.

Instead, suppose that the locker has a small bulb that glows green, if you choose a digit that exists in the key number. Say the key is 74231, and you start choosing the first number from the 9 digits in the decimal number system. The small bulb glows red until you key in 7 for the first number, at which point it turns to green. Finding it reduced your effort by a factor of 10. Continuing this process until you find the right key takes utmost 10+10+10+10+10 trials.

The important point to note here is the existence of the bulb that gives feedback for each digit in 5-digit number. Though your process may seem random, it is not very so – the search process is directed by the feedback. In Darwinian terms, this feedback is called natural selection, and it is framework that random mutations work in, and this process as a whole is called Evolution.

So the next time somebody says Evolution is random, counter them by pointing to the existence of the feedback mechanism.