Evolution and Poker

[MarkD (A Whateverist, not a Christian)]

I thought Jay’s suggestion of Yahtzee as a game that more aptly fit the process of evolution was a good one. Yahtzee captures the element of opportunism and next steps inherent in evolution.

@jpm

Perhaps a better game to look at for a metaphor to evolution is Yahtzee. In that you get to keep some dice and re roll the rest to make the best possible hand, but you have a lot of end points that might give you points, with the possibilities and best course changing with each roll of the dice.

I agree with Daniel that it is hard to envision evolution as a reliable engine for arriving at teleologically pre-determined ends.

@Daniel_Fisher

But what this illustrates is one very core difficulty I have with the way many conceive of evolution. I hear people say, in effect, “see! see! There is a stepwise path to some certain complexity.”