Biological complexity: more cell pore complexity (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, May 13, 2016, 00:12 (2896 days ago) @ dhw

David: Balance kept everyone who survived eating and now we are here.[/i]
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> dhw: Yes, evolution is a history of cooperating cell communities, and all organisms are dependent on some others for their survival. But what you call the balance has never stopped changing, and apparently 99% of those organisms are now extinct! -So what. As long as nature keeps its balance throughout evolution, everyone eats.-
> dhw: Somehow, you seem to think the fact that we humans are here means that nothing else mattered to your God, and yet he took the trouble to “guide” the rest including those NOT “critical to the scheme”. It's the untold numbers of the latter that make your scenario so creaky.-You've forgotten that I think the process of life is very inventive (we don't know how), but the weird species are everywhere. Again, so what! I still no odds that dictate humans should be here. I am sure the odds against chance humans are enormously enormous.-> 
> dhw: I have never questioned the huge advance in consciousness. My point is that the human brain was not an innovation. -But human consciousness, coming out of the structure of the human brain is an innovation.
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> dhw: Why have you suddenly brought Darwinian competition into the discussion? It's obvious that all innovations and variations must somehow be linked to coping with the environment. -That is not true. One can make the argument that a drive to complexification is primary and improvement a secondary result mediated by the selection process on the variation presented.-> dhw;Competition may be a reason for seeking improvement, or organisms may simply be motivated by new opportunities offered by changes in the environment. But complexity for its own sake to me seems utterly pointless. I don't see why even in your scenario God would try to complexify organisms just for the sake of it.-In order to drive evolution to the most complex of all, humans-> 
> dhw: So Woese disagrees with Margulis. I'll leave that discussion to the experts.
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> DAVID: Woese doesn't disagree. Mitochondria were ingested. You are missing the point that bacteria have free floating DNA. To get to true multicellularity a nuclear membrane and other organelles had to be added to the complexity of the cell. Woese wonders how. It is neat how you stick to 'your' small group of experts!
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> dhw: Once again, you are switching the argument to how eukaryotes came into being. I am not sticking to “my” experts. I did not know there was controversy over the completeness of the endosymbiosis theory.-There is not just one way of thinking about evolution. I know you knew that.-> 
> dhw: And you continue to ignore the fact that it's not just we who appeared! NO other life form HAD to appear. And I keep suggesting that WHY is because there was a built-in drive not only for survival but also for improvement.-And I'm suggesting that a complexity drive is all that is needed for evolution to work. All living organisms try to survive with the attributes they have. -> 
> dhw: How do organisms look to survive? (And in your scheme of things, how do they look to complexify?) Do you think God even has to instruct them to want to go on living? -No. It is built in.-> dhw: But in your view, they don't say anything to themselves. God “guides” them to complexify for the sake of becoming more complex - and apparently this sometimes leads to improvement, though apparently it's all been carefully planned to produce humans. Your scenario is getting fuzzier and fuzzier.-From my comments above you will not see fuzziness, just a process managed by increasing complexity.