idiom

So were the intermediate sentences valid sentences?

And its the "Natural selection favors" or "designed by natural selection" personification bits. I think I get the process but the writing style is consistently suggestive. An oddity of the history of the subject?

pz

If you are talking about the Dawkins simulation, not really.

If you are talking about real evolution, then no, many mutants will be lethal and even more will be neutral. The ones that survive all represent "valid sentences".
It is typically written that way not as a historical relic, but because it is simpler and more straightforward. English grammar just doesn't accommodate the concepts of evolution very well, and efforts to contort the language to avoid teleological language often produce such convoluted prose that the language becomes the focus of the writing, rather than the ideas. Biologists know exactly what we mean when we write "natural selection favors", and it doesn't involve a being outside the process exercising judgement.

idiom

That was my major objection to the dawkins experiment.

Okey dokey then. That helps, thanks.