Biological complexity: more cell pore complexity (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, May 13, 2016, 12:32 (3117 days ago) @ David Turell

David: Balance kept everyone who survived eating and now we are here.
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!
DAVID: So what. As long as nature keeps its balance throughout evolution, everyone eats.-No they don't. 99% of species have disappeared. Your concept of balance seems to be that if humans are here and able to eat, nature is and always has been balanced.-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.
DAVID: 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.-The odds against chance producing life in ALL its different forms are enormously enormous. What is this “process of life”? It sounds as if you are now suggesting that the process of life works independently of your God's plans and instructions. But according to you, the organisms that produce the innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders are all “guided” to do so! So God “guided” all the weird species etc., extant and extinct, for the sake of humans, even though they have nothing to do with humans. Fuzz!-dhw: I have never questioned the huge advance in consciousness. My point is that the human brain was not an innovation.
DAVID: But human consciousness, coming out of the structure of the human brain is an innovation.-We are talking about the course of evolution, not the unsolved problem of consciousness. The human brain is a physical entity which has clear links with the brains of our animal ancestors, and as such is a variation, not an innovation.-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.
DAVID: 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.-What is not true? No innovation or variation would have survived if it had not somehow helped the organism to cope with its environment. Yes, you are making the argument that complexification takes place for its own sake and improvement is secondary, and I am asking why an organism or your God would create a new complexity just for the sake of complexity. If it didn't help the organism to survive or to improve its mode of existence, it would be pointless.-dhw; I don't see why even in your scenario God would try to complexify organisms just for the sake of it.
DAVID: In order to drive evolution to the most complex of all, humans.-Then it's not for the sake of complexity - it's for the sake of improvement, unless you believe your God produced humans because he wanted a creature with lots more twiddly bits than a bacterium and not a creature with lots more useful attributes.
The remaining exchanges all deal with the same point, so I shan't repeat them.