Zim wrote:
He is my next door neighbor. Kind of a dour guy.
Wow, any more interesting folks around?
The point is that there is no trend towards "better" in evolution.
Agreed, hence my regret in using "better" in my first post.
Natural selection is short sigthed and opportunistic. Apparent trends reflect consistent environmental conditions that favor some adaptation. Complexity in living
organisms has increased throughout history but that does not mean that there is a direction in favor of complexity since along with this trend there have been organisms that have become simpler. If one were to judge the most "successful" groups based on total biomass, number of species or longevity, bacteria win hands down.
Even if one accepts that increasing complexity on balance is increasing and that complex organisms (like us) have had a dominant effect on life history that does not mean that there is some inate drive to complexity it simply means that in a world filled with successful organisms the only way to succeed is to try something new and new things are usually more complex than existent
things
So there is no linearity.
-- Doug _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
