The Human Question

Dawkins describes how embryological development is completely local. No master plan: Just many local interactions, each of which is directed by the set of instructions contained therein. Just like a flock of birds flying together so that they look like they are all part of one graceful whole. But they are not: rather, each is following its own set of instructions. True, that set of instructions is the same in kind for each bird. But there is a different instance of these instructions for each bird. Dawkins points out that if you want to simulate the movement of a flock of birds on the 2 dimensional computer screen, you don't write one computer program for the whole: rather, you write one program for one bird, telling it how to adjust to the movements of other birds. Then you clone it for as many birds as there are. This is an elegant argument against the unity of not just an embryo, but of any organism. Dawkins himself doesn't carry it that far, but there is no reaso...