The Greatest Show from Darwin to Dawkins 2- Theory

2. Only theory

Before you start convincing yourself of the correctness of any teaching, it would be nice to figure out what's what. What is evolution? What drives her? At the same time, refresh the memory of the very theory of the origin of species, which answers all these questions.
"Why waste all this time? - an impatient witness will ask, — let's go to concrete examples."
Maybe I'm answering so as not to get confused in words. And then, with what will we compare these very examples? How do we understand that they prove it or, God forbid, contradict it?

We are looking forward to opening "The Greatest Show on Earth: Evidence of Evolution". Let's skip the author's complaints about the difficulties of teaching biology in the USA. There are almost half of the population there who believes in the flood and does not want to change their faith in any way. I have to ignore Dawkins' call to promote the theory of evolution in temples and cathedrals.
In fact, I can't help the author with anything here. Since I did not study at the seminary and was not ordained.
So, to the definitions.
"Evolution is a fact." No comments.
"It is indisputable, without serious doubt, without a healthy, informed, reasonable doubt, evolution is a fact.
" "Evolution is a fact, and this book will demonstrate it."
"Evolution is exactly the same fact as the fact that Paris is located in the Northern Hemisphere."
"This book will take inference seriously, not mere inference, but proper scientific inference—and I will show the undeniable power of inference that evolution is a fact."

"The evidence of evolution is at least as compelling as the evidence of the Holocaust, even if there are living witnesses to the Holocaust."
After such a pressure of convincing conclusions, the morality of the last of which I leave on the conscience of the professor, I finally guess that this is a popularizing work addressed to a wide range of readers.
Therefore, the definitions here are not strictly scientific, but, so to speak, understandable to ordinary people. In particular, the American one.
We have to resort to Wikipedia, where we find such a definition. Biological evolution is a natural process of development of life on Earth.
Despite all its simplicity, it does not add clarity and almost does not differ in depth from the definitions of Dockins.
What does natural mean? Is it the one that is different from the unnatural? Or how?

There is also a more complex one, which is about changing the genetic composition of populations, adaptation, species extinction, and as a result speciation.
This is already more or less clear. Let's follow the example of Dockins and not bother our heads with too complicated terminology, but rather move on.
It remains only to figure out what prompted unicellular organisms to evolve into multicellular and so on to you and me, who were concerned about this whole chain of events and are quite capable, as I hope, of comprehending it.
Let's move from the definition of evolution to the theory itself. Dockins, true to his style, as an explanation embarks on a long discussion about the rabbit, watching the ancestors of which, you can move along the timeline deep into the centuries and notice that the pro-pro-great-grandmothers of this rabbit are only slightly different from herself, from which he makes a very important remark:
"Another reason we don't notice changes in rabbits from one generation to the next is that in any century, variations within the current population will usually be greater than variations between mothers and daughters. So if we try to discern the movement of the "clockwise" by comparing mothers with daughters, or even grandmothers with granddaughters, the small differences that we are able to see will be flooded by the differences between the friends of these rabbits and their relatives jumping in the meadows around. However, gradually and imperceptibly, as we move back in time, we will reach ancestors who look less and less like a rabbit, and more and more like a shrew (although not too much)."
This wording is worth remembering. Despite its apparent simplicity and even lightness, it is magnificent. The abstract link of evolution, conventionally called the rabbit, changes as a result of small mutations.

The evolutionary step is so small that it fits into the understanding of randomness and the requirements of sexual selection. The problems associated with interspecific interbreeding and even the hostile attitude of females and males to pronounced mutants remain overboard.
What does it have to do with major mutations at all? Despite the fact that theory and reason itself rejects the randomness of large and, consequently, complex changes.

Translating into the language of technology, it is absolutely impossible to imagine a cart in one human generation that has turned into a modern car in the complete absence of a reasonable inventive principle. But to imagine the same cart for thousands of years plastered with road dirt and as a result took the streamlined shape of a high-speed car is much easier. Especially if, instead of a thousand years, millions are put into the desired equation.
For those skeptics who are not inspired by this assumption, the mechanism of selection of useful accidents, proposed by Charles Darwin himself, comes to the rescue.

On order to avoid doubts about the alternative mechanism of evolution, we quote the respected Professor Dockins: "All serious biologists agree that natural selection is one of the most important driving forces of evolution, although, as some biologists insist, it is not the only one stronger than others." "Even if she is not the only one, I have not yet met a serious biologist who would point to an alternative to natural selection as the driving force of adaptive evolution — evolution towards positive improvement."
Given that Darwin's proposed natural selection has not found an alternative in scientific circles for a hundred and fifty years, we have no choice but to consider only it.
Here is how the formula for success sounds in the Dockins transcription: "Without any selection agent, those individuals who are "selected" by the fact of having the best equipment necessary for survival are most likely to reproduce, and therefore pass on their genes for having the best equipment.
Therefore, each gene pool of each species tends to be filled with genes that create the best equipment for survival and reproduction."

We highlight the main components of success:
1. Variability;
2. Survival of the fittest.
That's it! And do not forget, of course, that mutations can only be random. Otherwise, we will agree to who knows what.
After we've sorted everything out, the task looks pretty simple. Any presented fact of speciation is checked for compliance with the theory of natural selection and the matter is in the hat. It is unlikely that more than one example will be needed, since all the factors are so obvious that in encyclopedias, they are simply called self-evident.
What can I add here? In conclusion, I will quote one more quote from Dawkins' book: "The more vigorously and thoroughly you try to refute a theory, if it withstands a siege, the more it approaches what common sense willingly calls a fact."

Undoubtedly, the eminent professor most likely built his book this way: unsuccessfully trying to refute Darwin's theory. It's good that I'm not a professor and I don't set myself such unrealistic tasks.
One example, one debriefing, we make sure that it is self-evident without us and return to our beloved cats on YouTube*.

* - I apologize for my English. I would be grateful for the corrections.

Next: http://proza.ru/2022/06/27/891