Thought Experiment - Coin Toss
Imagine for a moment that you have gone along to a magic demonstration. When you get there, you see a banked row of seats facing a stage. On the stage there is a man dressed in white robes, looking serenely at the audience.
In front of him is a table with a camera pointed at it, there is a big screen behind the man in robes, and you can see that it is showing the table top. The man asks for an audience member to give him a coin, so you get up out of your seat, and give him one from your pocket, and return to where you were seated.
You then see him pick up your coin and close his eyes, he waves his other hand over the coin, and says; I command you to land on heads!
He then tosses the coin and lo and behold it lands on heads. You start to feel slightly embarrassed for the man, it was a 50/50 chance and not that special.
However he picks up the coin again, waves his hands and says; I command you to land on heads! It is heads again, you start to wonder why you have come to this place, looking around, you can see others are wondering the same thing.
The man on the stage does his little routine again, he gets to 10 heads in a row, and there is adequate applause. Ten heads in a row is impressive, and you're sure the odds of doing so are tiny.
However the man does not stop, he keeps going! The auditorium goes quiet, you are all in awe, as the man keeps commanding the coin to land on heads, and it does. At twenty heads in a row people begin to lose their minds, shouts of; that's amazing or oh my god, how is he doing that?! ring out around the theatre.
Finally he is on 99 heads in a row, he pauses for dramatic effect, the lights dim, all you can see is the man and the table in the spotlight. He picks up the coin, places it on his forefinger and thumb, it seems like he is a little nervous, the atmosphere is tense, even though 99 is impressive, everyone wants to see the 100th head.
He raises his voice; for the last time, I command you; LAND ON HEADS!
As the robed guru flicks the coin into the air; you become aware of the thumping in your chest. You are absolutely mesmerised as you watch the silver coin flip over and over, seemingly in slow motion. It lands on the table, bouncing and spinning, all eyes are glued to the giant screen . . .
IT'S HEADS!
The place goes wild; everyone is applauding, cheering, laughing, even crying! Magic does exist; what other possible explanation could there be?! The odds of flipping 100 heads in a row, let alone actually dictating when you were going to do it, must be in the millions to one!
The Big Reveal
Impressive right? I mean, I'd be impressed at that show, wouldn't you be? Let's look at how our fictional guru managed to flip 100 heads in a row.
When we view the show in isolation we are impressed, however that masked A-hole who likes to give away magicians secrets; do you know the guy I mean? Anyway, he does a show and reveals to us how our guru did the trick, suddenly we are not so impressed.
It turns out the magician you went to has been doing that act 10 times a day, every day for the last 10 years. Many times over that year the audiences were not impressed, sometimes he only managed one head, and they all left. At other times, he got to fifty or higher, and they were impressed, but not overly so.
Then you are dealt a real whammy, this magician is not the only magician to be trying this trick. There have been a thousand robed gurus all over the country performing the same trick, ten times a day every day, for the last ten years.
Then one day, you walked into this magician's 36,500th show, and finally he did it. When you watch all the shows put together, it seems mundane, in fact, it just seems like it was inevitable that one day someone would throw 100 heads in a row.
This for me, is a great analogy for natural selection. Things seem perfect now, because we happen to be around to witness the cool part, with human ingenuity, computers, bridges, pyramids, aeroplanes and such. However we have just happened to arrive on the day that 100 heads get thrown.
Think of all the magicians flipping coins like all the different branches of species (genus), and think of throwing 100 heads in a row as the human race.
It could have been our magician who threw the 100 heads, or another one, it just so happened that we were lucky enough for it to be us.
If we stick around for long enough, we may just get to witness the biological equivalent of a coin landing on its edge 100 times in a row.
Further reading:
Surviving A Post Truth World - Fighting A War Between Reason And Superstition
WHAT DO YOU THINK, DID OUR MAGICIAN COMMAND THE COIN, OR WAS IT JUST PLAIN LUCK AND PERSISTENCE? DO YOU SEE THIS AS AN ACCEPTABLE ANALOGY FOR EVOLUTION? IF NOT, PLEASE LET ME KNOW BELOW!