Before the survival of the fittest, the primeval soup was shaped by the survival of the stable patterns of atoms. From the simplicity of selection of stable forms and rejection of unstable ones, the complexity of a human being, which consists of approximately 7x1027 atoms, has been reached in three to four million years. Even though all the living creatures appear as if they were designed by an intelligent creator as William Paley argues in his watchmaker analogy, life on earth is a chance process. Dawkins explains early evolution by ‘replicators’ which can be described as molecules that acts as moulds or templates that are able to create copies of themselves. Erratic copying in replicators and later on differences in longevity, fecundity and copy-fidelity made evolution possible. However instead of a single-step selection, our existence is the final-end product of a quintessentially non-random process of cumulative selection. One common misinterpretation about this process of improvement is assuming that the entities selected were sorted once and for all. However, this misunderstanding can be clarified with the infinite monkey theorem. In Dawkin’s monkey/Shakespeare computer model, firstly a virtual monkey hits 26 letter keys and a space bar randomly until it produces the sentence “METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL” (1986). By using this strategy reaching the target phrase would take “about a million million million million million years” which is “a million million million times” the age of the universe. The second scenario involves repeatedly selective ‘breeding’ of mutant nonsense phrases. By passing the combination of letters, which resembles the target sentence the most, onto the next generation, the target phrase was produced in 11 seconds. Thus the clear difference between single-step selection and cumulative selection reveals that chance is only a small proportion of evolutionary progress and the process is fundamentally non-random.
The idea of self-replicating genetic entities is the essence of any theory of origin of life. Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, Cairns-Smith’s clay theory or Eigen’s hypercycle model do not look for “design or purpose or directedness”. Even though the previously mentioned weasel program is beneficial for demonstrating the influence of cumulative selection on evolutionary progress, the computer simulation disregards that there is no “distant ideal target” or “long-term goal” in basic principles of evolution. Hence Dawkins developed a more complex graphical model of gene selection by using biomorphs, which can be described as vague shapes that resemble animals. Natural selection was imitated by changing the genes that influenced the angle, the length, the depth or the distance. By endless repetition of reproduction of nine-gened biomorphs, an artificial evolution scenario was created. Formerly mentioned models and many others support modern evolution theory; however, the role and importance of the theory in education system is still highly debated. Even in the field of psychology, evolution generated substantial controversy and criticism. Influence of reciprocal altruism, sexual conflict, kin selection, parental investment, inclusive fitness, parent offspring conflict, paternity uncertainty, massive modularity, innateness of certain phobias and many more on human behaviour are glossed over. Adaptations and instincts are not solely characteristics of non-human organisms and are also a part of human nature. It should be universally accepted that the 3.6 billion years of evolution has an effect on human behaviour.
