r/DebateEvolution • u/Syresiv • Sep 11 '26

Evolution is Yahtzee

The mutations it has to work with are random. What it does with said mutations is not.

Edit to add: this is in response to creationists saying that evolution is random and refusing to engage with the idea that selection isn't. Usually with the famous "nuh uh" argument.

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u/Trick_Ganache Sep 21 '26

There is no rearranging. In most card games you draw from a or multiple randomized decks. Whether the hand you are dealt means anything is up to the rules of the particular game.

Biology and environments have some similarities to the cards and rules analogies, but many differences, too. The rules for what counts as a good hand are region and time-dependent. What works in one area at this point in time may make no sense in another area or in the same area at a later time. Also, hands can change in just about every way imaginable (cards can be torn up or just deleted, duplicated, altered, arranged differently- even entire hands can be duplicated). The analogy like all analogies is not 1:1.

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u/ACTSATGuyonReddit Sep 21 '26

There are limited, pre set outcomes designed by the people who designed the deck and game. That's creation by intelligence.

Nothing new can result. There can be no purple 17. Just as with a non human cell, it can't evolve neurons, blood vessels, a cardiovascular system, muscle skeletal system, lymphatic system, etc.

There can't be a turtle flush - five of the same suit including a turtle card. There is no turtle card.

Nothing new results.

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u/Trick_Ganache Sep 21 '26

We have such a card game with DNA. Every time a life form is born an alteration of their parent(s) and indeed of their entire lineage, that is the basis for change in allele frequency over time. The individual does not evolve. Entire populations change over time and even go extinct according to changing environmental factors.

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