Richard Dawkins' book, Climbing Mount Improbable, explains that extremely complex organisms and assemblies evolve through extremely slow and tedious baby steps, climbing the “gentle slope” of evolution. No miracles or giant leaps are required or even permitted. Each baby step must be an improvement on the previous step – it must deliver an immediate benefit – or it will not occur because the organism that incorporates that step will a) have no motivation to make that step and b) die before creating offspring that will also incorporate that step. As a result of this extremely “short-sighted” behavior by organisms, they can never reverse their evolutionary progress, even temporarily. That is, they can never descend the evolutionary slope where they are so that they can begin climbing another more promising hill that may even take them higher. Put another way: there is no reverse. An organism cannot back-up down an evolutionary road that appears to be a dead end so that it can take another fork in the road. It can only find a way forward or stall.
This predicament- finding oneself in a dead end or on a small hillock in the foothills of Mt. Improbable – can be relieved in just a few ways. Circumstances may change in way that alters the “landscape” and opens new evolutionary paths. For example, global climate change such as an ice age, might “suddenly” favor an animal with heavier fur and slower eating habits over a lighter animal with no fur that needs to forage constantly. Secondly, attributes from an organism on a neighboring or faraway hill can travel to cross pollinate with other organisms and contribute new attributes that the first organism requires. Lastly, and most rarely, a sudden change or gross mutation can yield a positive effect and help the organism leap forward. This third option is so rare because the odds of a dramatic change yielding a positive effect are so remote. As Dawkins says, while there are many ways for an organism to live, there are certainly many more ways for it to die.
The card game, War, is an analogy. Each turn is quick, uncontrollable (there is no strategy), repetitive and rigid in its outcome. If it was only this, one side or the other would quickly, and very boringly, “evolve” to hold all cards and wipe out the other and that would be the end. When the two sides play the same card, however, one side could win a high hidden card using a lower exposed card. Cross-pollination occurs and the two players' fortunes can change very quickly.
