Is Darwinian evolution fact? I believe it is not, but who am I to judge? I am not a biologist, nor a paleontologist, nor a geologist. However, I am a software developer and I can develop programs to simulate various phenomena from real life.
About a year ago I developed a program to simulate evolution. I am not the first one to do it, however I believe that my simulation better implements the principles of Darwinian evolution: variation and natural selection. Furthermore, I wrote my program with a bias to make evolution possible. Seeing evolution in action, I came to some interesting conclusions, as well as confirmation of some of the claims of what is now called inteligent design theory.
I wrote a paper on the subject, which you can read here: An Experiment in Evolution – Thoughts on Life, Science and God (mihaioara.com).
For those who do not have the patience to read it, here are some of the findings:
- Microevolution really occurs
- Through many of experiments and scenarios, macroevolution (which would include new designs of organisms) was never observed
- Certain limits of fitness were never attained
- Fitness improvement came with loss of function
The last point is particularly interesting, being observed in the biological world by Michael J. Behe, a Lehigh University biochemist. As he describes it, one can always improve the fuel economy of the car by stripping it of some non-essential devices. If you throw out the radio, and the air conditioning, you will get better fuel economy. In my case, I have observed how organisms become better fit for a PARTICULAR environment in which they evolve, while losing the ability to function well in other environments.
I enjoy reading, especially that today, for now reason I browsed through some books and I opened the book “On the Origin of Species”, and here is a paragraph “He who believes in struggle for existence and in the principal of natural selection, will acknowledge that every organic being is constantly endeavouring to increase in numbers”.
I am not surprised that you choosed this subject because there is a lot of math in it, besides evolution.