Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 569
THE 'BLIND WATCHMAKER' WHO IS ALSO DEAF AND DUMB. Logic and common sense raise a key question here, that if the fish couldn't cope with the changes then why was it making the change in the first place? However he goes on to add: “. . . but they have had to pay a price: they have had to give up the normal, highly efficient, fish method of swimming, throwing the whole body into serpentine waves. They have solved the problem by keeping the body stiff as a poker. . . . Who 'they' are, who have solved the problem,. Dawkins has avoided to mention. Did the fish do it themselves? If not, who did it for them? As we envision the initial making of the electric fish, in accordance with the bit by bit theory, the entire system seems to begin with the portholes. . Dawkins explains: 'The fish has what amounts to a tiny voltmeter monitoring the voltage at each "porthole". . . if some obstacle appears in the vicinity, say a rock or an item of food, the lines of current that happen to hit the obstacle will be changed. This will change the voltage at any porthole whose current line is affected, and the appropriate voltmeter will register the fact. So in theory a computer, by comparing the pattern of voltages registered by the voltmeters at all the portholes, could calculate the pattern of obstacles around the fish. This is apparently what the fish brain does. 19. Why should the fish brain appear to perform this unique feat of electronic engineering? If one is totally convinced that the fish brain has no real wilfully created organization or complexity of design nor has it any capability of conscious operation itself as Dawkins asserts, then to allude to it as a masterpiece of electronic 535