More on the DNA Mystery

Another thought struck me today.  It relates back to my previous post and it’s this:

If evolution depends on random chance (i.e. on random mutations of genes which are preserved when they provide a positive effect), then what you need is a lot of those random trials, and the way to have a lot of those random trials is to have long lengths of DNA strands that are reproduced during cell division and recombined during mating.  It seems nature doesn’t care much in which part of which chromosome a new gene is formed, so big empty chains give you a bigger chance to form new genes.

And then I realised: it’s like the ‘infinite number of monkeys’ thought-experiment, where they eventually type all the great books. If you have an infinite (or semi-infinite) length of DNA and you reproduce it enough times, bits of the chain will eventually contain all the genes you need to make a human being.  And the more I thought about it, the more that seemed like a good analogy.  Of course, a lot of the time the monkeys will type gibberish, but every once in a while…..