Well, even a new month does little to stem the reams of anti-evolutionary nonsense that some websites produce. This current example (which was, as is often the case, found from Pharyngula) ticks lots of the boxes for the nonsense woo-worshippers who want to disprove evolution by any means possible. Sadly they rarely seem to care how idiotic their attempts are, and I suspect they work on the principle of if each attempt convinces one person, as long as they do lots of attempts it will work. (Bit like spam mail really)
Anyway, via the wonders of modern technology (what looks like a server side PHP script) the “Random Mutation Generator” website claims to demonstrate what it views as a flaw in the theory. When you visit the site (and really, css was common place on the internet years ago, there is NO excuse for that web design), you get a text box in which you can write words then press the “mutate” button and see what happens.
Now, as an example of server side scripting this is fine (although it could just have easily been done with JS on the client – then it would at least have been AJAX-Cool). It is certainly not an example of how evolution takes place, nor is it an example of how random mutations in DNA occur. This is a script. It is arbitrary and constrained by the code used, the concepts behind that code and the skills of the programmer. Calling the “submit” button “Mutate!” does not make it evolutionary.
I am not sure if the person behind this site is a creationist / ID proponent but it seems that their attempt to disprove evolution by actually disproving intelligent design. Now, laying all the woo and sheer nonsense to one side, if we can for one minute accept the generator as an example of evolution (urgh, but stick with me), it shows that the oft used ploy of “directed evolution” is false. The generator takes a recognisable English word (the “creators” start point) and through random mutation (which certainly happens, even IDers agree to that) tries to show it can not become a different recognisable English word.
Now, correct me if I am wrong but I dont recall anything in Evolution which that applies to. There is plenty in ID which it does though.
The absurdity of this (irrelevant) demonstration surely comes from the fact that almost all random genetic mutations are maladaptions and do in fact fail. If it says – run this program 500 million times, then it might at least be making a stab at simulating eveolution.
Of course, the obvious flaw is it’s based on English words. There are no set lengths for English words or phrases. (There are are rules about the placing of vowels and consonants which aren’t included in the algorithm. There are rules about sentence structure, ditto.) If the random mutation of a set length word throws up a meaningful word in Serbo-Croat, who would know?
Typical ID style argument. Appears logical and scientific at first . Look below the surface for a moment and it falls apart.
I think part of the problem is due to some schools being bad at teaching people how to think and question. Science is pretty poor at this because so much of science education involves learning “laws” and very little involves challenging thinking patterns. That’s why even scientists need to learn English and History and Social sciences…. so pseudoscientists would at least have to be willfully daft and not just daft by default.