Micro vs. Macro Poker

Evolution is evolution, right? I have read many references to the bait-and-switch objection to presenting evolution as all the same, and I have read many explanations of micro- vs. macroevolution, but I have found none of them completely satisfactory. Most leave me with the impression that macroevolution is simply the extreme of microevolution, and nothing can be farther from the truth. Allow me to attempt an explanation using a card game:

All life is based on DNA. There is not only no known life form apart from DNA, there is also no viable theoretical model for life apart from DNA.

DNA is like a deck of cards. The cards are shuffled, and you are dealt a hand. Some combinations have meaning, and some are more valuable in play than others. Just as each hand is different, though delt from the same deck, each generation of reproduction is a little different, though from the same “deck” of DNA. A simple game of Poker would be to get a hand of five cards and be allowed to turn back as many as two for a chance at better cards. Of course you have to know the meaning of the various possible combinations of cards to determine if you have a good enough hand to play.

Suppose we change the objective of the game to have the least number of red cards: At the end of each round of play, the person with the most red cards permanently removes those five cards from future play. In the next round everyone would get the same number of cards, but the round would be played with five fewer cards in the deck. What would eventually happen? As the deck gets smaller, everyone would be dealt predominantly black hands, and red cards would become rarer and rarer. This is how microevolution works: Certain DNA alternatives are removed by “natural selection,” until some remaining characteristic dominates among all the organisms. Sometimes the new organisms are called a breed, sometimes they are called a species. This applies to the size of beaks among Galapagos finches, and the number of dark specks on speckled moths.

Now suppose we are back at the beginning of the game, and we forget the rule about withdrawing the hand with those despised red cards. This time the new rule is that any person who is dealt a new card, one not in the original deck of 52, gets to duplicate that new card, put them both back into the deck, and retire any one other card at random. No one is allowed to intentionally (by design) create a new card. It must come into existence by accident–cards rubbing against each other, getting torn, or drinks being spilt on them are all fair game. How long would it take for the new card to dominate? Yes, this is how macroevolution “works.” A new characteristic comes into existence in an organism–eyes, feathers, whatever–and it eventually dominates, creating a new species.

Microevolution takes away characteristics until one feature dominates. Macroevolution adds a characteristic and then favors it until the new feature dominates. The processes of micro- and macroevolution are exact opposites.

But if you were tracking with the “macrogame,” a more reasonable question than, “How long would it take for the new card to dominate?” would be, “How long would it take for a new card to come into existence?” Tares and spills are unlikely EVER to create a 13 of Spades or a Queen of Circles. A fortuitous tare might yield a One-eyed Queen, just as sickle cell anemia yields a defense against malaria, but the limited biological advantage comes at a tremendous cost, and it again occurs by taking away information, not adding it.

So if microevolution is not contested by anyone, being observed; and macroevolution requires new information, which is unlikely by chance alone; why don’t student textbooks make this information clear? Now we should introduce another poker term–”bluffing.”

This entry was posted on February 1, 2007 at 12:37 am and is filed under Science and faith. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.