Changes

== Variation and Randomness ==

== Variation and Randomness ==

Natural selection becomes interesting when there is the possibility of random variation in the duplication of individuals--in other words, when an individual is copied, the copy may be slightly different from the original.  It is important to note that, as stated above, the ''mechanism'' for this variation is not explained or even taken into account by natural selection.  All that matters is that there is ''some'' process that produces variation.  Some of the new, slightly different copies of an individual will be evaluated differently from the original, scoring either higher or lower depending on what changed.  If this process is iterated many times, individuals which score well on the evaluations will become more and more numerous, and the highest score of an individual will tend to rise.  It has been suggested that this process can lead to the appearance of design, as the individuals that are present after many iterations of this process will usually score very well on the evaluation (since those that do not score well are eliminated).

Natural selection becomes interesting when there is the possibility of random variation in the duplication of individuals--in other words, when an individual is copied, the copy may be slightly different from the original.  It is important to note that, as stated above, the ''mechanism'' for this variation is not explained or even taken into account by natural selection.  All that matters is that there is ''some'' process that produces variation.  Some of the new, slightly different copies of an individual will be evaluated differently from the original, scoring either higher or lower depending on what changed.  If this process is iterated many times, individuals which score well on the evaluations will become more and more numerous, and the highest score of an individual will tend to rise.  It has been suggested<ref>[Richard Dawkins, ''Climbing Mount Improbable'']</ref> that this process can lead to the appearance of design, as the individuals that are present after many iterations of this process will usually score very well on the evaluation (since those that do not score well are eliminated).

== An Example ==

== An Example ==