Biological complexity: protozoa sans mitochondria (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, May 26, 2016, 01:40 (3104 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: It makes far more sense to me that organisms and/or your God should look for different means of survival/improvement, rather than complexity just for the sake of complexity. It is perfectly feasible that the giraffe and the whale developed as they did because at the time these changes gave them a better chance of acquiring food. -I think a drive to complexity is quite apparent, for that is what we see, ending in humans. Your explanation for giraffes and whales as it pertains to food is a real stretch. Some giraffe types graze and don't bother with trees. But the maasai giraffes chose poisonous leaves; what? In desperation because there was nothing else around? And whale precursors jumped into the water because the fish looked so delicious. Sorry, both evolutions require vast physiologic and anatomic phenotypical changes. Complexity!!!-> dhw: But I agree totally with your final remark: the extent of autonomy, the extent of God's interventions, and the existence of the mechanism and indeed of God himself are all matters of guesswork. What we have are hypotheses, but in terms of how evolution works, an autonomous inventive mechanism provides a convincing explanation for the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution.-You autonomous inventive mechanism (aim) is really equivalent to my drive to complexity mechanism (dcm). In both cases new forms and lifestyles are created, the bush grows, but in my approach God is always guiding, perhaps after seeing what has developed. This is one way dabbling can happen. I'm also still open to full guidance by God. 
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> dhw: the very fact that some scientists believe cells/cell communities to be intelligent does at least give us a possible starting point.
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> dhw: If your God allowed the bush to spread of its own accord, apart from when he dabbled, there has to be an autonomous mechanism. That is why the “intelligent cell” (possibly designed by God) may well be the key to our understanding of evolutionary innovation. But of course it's still only a hypothesis.-You are correct and I'm toying with my dcm idea which closely approaches yours.