The Pile of Blocks Analogy

One classic argument theists use to attempt to debunk evolution is the example of the pile of building blocks. You take a box of plastic blocks, say lego and you shake the box. You continue to shake it. The theists asks you, "How long do I need to shake this box before it will form into a perfect model of a house?" Of course you are going to answer, "That's impossible. Even if you shake that box for a million years, the blocks will never form into a model of a house".  The theist then says something along the lines of, "If it's impossible for a house to form by shaking the blocks, how can evolutionists believe that life could evolve into what it is today? Life, which is far more complex than this box of blocks? The chances of shaking a box and producing a house is far more likely than life evolving into what we have today. 

As a Christian, at first, I thought that was a great argument, but even as a Christian I came to see it for the feeble and ridiculous analogy it really is. There are major flaws with this argument: 

1. A box of blocks are not organic lifeforms. They have no ability to grow or mutate. They are unable to give birth and go through millions of years of natural selection, etc. Unlike a living organism. So there is no comparison. 

2. Something that has been built requires natural resources. Eg a painter needs paints, a brush and a canvas. A builder needs wood, nails ,etc. Even the pile of blocks are natural resources. But do they require millions of years of shaking something to become blocks? And if a creator created the blocks, where did the material to create the blocks come from?

3. We can compare one house to another. We can know that a house is always built by someone. They can never appear naturally. However, when we look at a lifeform like a tree or an animal and compare them to other trees and animals, they can only ever appear naturally. No one can ever build them. So no, of course a pile of blocks is not going to become a house without some kind of outside influence. However a tree is also a house to certain lifeforms and we know that these houses DO grow naturally, without the need for a builder. The perfect home for birds, bugs and other critters.

4. In the blocks scenario, the goal is to produce a perfect model of a house. Evolution has no ultimate goal whatsoever. Human life evolved because of the environment, not despite the environment.

To really understand evolution, the person who uses the above argument needs to look at their analogy from a different perspective. You shake the pile of blocks and you see what you get. You may find you have the perfect home for some other life form (like a tree is a perfect home for other lifeforms). Perhaps that lifeform would find it extremely comfortable and they might even marvel at how God created all these piles of plastic blocks especially for them to live in. These block-dwelling creatures will thrive . They may even end up becoming the dominant life form on the planet because of it. 

This is how evolution works. Those beings which are best suited to their environment are the ones that are going to thrive. All the others will become extinct or will be forced to adapt to suit the environment. Zillions more lifeforms become extinct than the few that survive.

Let’s say we have a 10 different species of life on this planet (I’ve scaled things down radically to make it easier to understand). 10 survived to this current day (Humans are one of them). Yet there have been a Gazillion lifeforms that never survived. That never made it to the current day. All we have left is a handful of lifeforms that thrived or struggled to survive. It’s just that we look at it and think “Wow! Look at all this life thriving on this planet!” But it’s not as many as what we think, not when you consider the gazillions of lifeforms that just didn’t have the ability to survive here. What we have today are the ones that managed to adapt. 

Think of it like a lottery. Millions of people play the lottery each week but maybe only one person will win the jackpot. But yet it happened and it’s inevitable that every jackpot is going to be hit no matter how long it takes. And for that one winner, it was an inevitable outcome due to the fact they chose the right numbers. The chance of them winning was actually 100%. Not 1 in a billion.

Evey lifeform on this planet that lives today is one of the inevitable winners. We have a planet full of lotto winners. All the lotto losers died off. It’s just that in the scenario of evolution it’s not about dumb luck. It’s about who is the best at picking the right numbers.

For mankind, it was only inevitable that we would thrive. If the earth's environment had been any different, we probably wouldn't have or we would have evolved into something completely different.  Maybe some other type of species might be dominating this planet instead. Maybe the dinosaurs would have kept on going and wiped all the cavemen out.

I can imagine that somewhere out in this universe there may be a planet completely different to ours where totally different types of creatures thrive. They may even come to our planet and see it as ugly an inhospitable. Oxygen may be toxic to them, water may be like acid. Plants and shrubs may seem like monstrosities. It's true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  What may be amazing and beautiful to us as humans may not be the same for other lifeforms. Just imagine a fish trying to live out of water!

So next time you try to calculate the odds of human life evolving to what it is today, Don't. Evolution has no goal, it is not trying to achieve anything. There is no house being built. What we have today is the inevitable outcome due to the "shaking of the plastic blocks".