The Game Of Life++

So I was smoking a cigar and drinking a tumbler of bourbon the other day, just thinking about stuff.

One of my frustrations with scientists (not science itself) has been their reluctance to consider probability in their theories.  Well, some scientists, not all, I should not paint with such a broad brush.  One of the sticking points for me is macro-evolution.

Very often if you point out how statistically impossible life is, let alone life achieving its current state, the response is, "yeah we don't need to mention that because look around you... life!"

But that doesn't mean your theory of how life started and got to this point is valid just because you can see life around you.  Not by a long shot.  And that's the thing... life is SUCH a long shot that even if we had trillions of planets just like Earth in the universe, the chance life would have to form is STILL statistically tiny!!  AND we have not even proven HOW life was able to start in the first place!

So that kind of thing bugs me.

Next thing is evolution.  How do minor or major mutations lead to successful change in life forms?  Successful being a key word here... because assuming mutations occur that can then be carried on to offspring, what percentage of those mutations HELP a life form, and what percentage HINDER a life form?  My guess is only a small percentage ever help... and that most mutations perish and are never heard from again.

So... while I cannot account for how life actually started, I think it might be possible to create a "Game Of Evolution" where we statistically account for environment, predation and mutation in a given species to see how mutation affects a species ability to survive.

It would be complex and yet overly simplistic in comparison to reality... and the models would be somewhat rigid, but I think a super simple program could be written that counts mutation itself and how life fares against environment, disease, predation and how each mutation might affect their abilities to resist (or succumb) to those other effects.

Also, we could then have one species become a new species after so many mutations... giving them base resistance changes on the fly.

The idea of this fascinates me.  I might try playing with it.