Dawkins was a huge influence on me as a youth, but his recent musings [1] have made me realize that he does not really have more than a shallow understanding of evolution. This in turn has made me reluctant to revisit the books (Selfish Gene and Blind Watchmaker) that influenced me so much, for fear that I'll see more of the same shallow thought that equates evolution with selective breeding.<p>In this link the problem I see is that he is too focused on the mechanic of change. The trick of evolution is not random mutations, etc., but has to do with statistical properties of large population groups. A population that is of sufficient size will have variation within the constraints of the fitness function. How those variations are achieved is not really even that important except as regards the rate of evolution, rather than the effect of it.<p>But the fitness function is extremely complex; it's not just changing a few parameters. A population of land-dwellers is largely indifferent to the ability to float; so some creatures can float better, others float worse, but it doesn't matter. But at some point the floaters get good enough at floating that they can actually swim, and now there's a whole new fitness landscape to explore. And the fitness function can change over time.<p>The most important thing is variation -- that's the "anti-fragile" hook that makes life so tenacious.<p>[1] <a href="https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/1228943686953664512" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/122894368695366451...</a> -- "It’s one thing to deplore eugenics on ideological, political, moral grounds. It’s quite another to conclude that it wouldn’t work in practice. Of course it would. It works for cows, horses, pigs, dogs & roses. Why on earth wouldn’t it work for humans? Facts ignore ideology."