Biological complexity: protozoa sans mitochondria (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, May 26, 2016, 22:25 (3103 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Once the new species was established, conditions may have changed, or it may subsequently have moved to different environments, but if it has been successful, it will survive. No need to shorten the neck again, or go back to living on land! In other words, the new complexities resulted from the drive for survival/improvement and were not an end in themselves.-I agree success is present if a new form survives. but I am not convinced that your Darwinian approach of seeking improvement for survival is correct. Since (as Denton shows) there are basic patterns from which everything develops, and everything certainly becomes more complex even unto unreasonable forms, I still hold to the view that making organisms more complex is the driving mechanism in evolution. Darwin looked at breeders using variability of animals to create slightly different forms. We don't see that, as you know, in evolution. We see punctuated jumps in fossils, fully formed and functioning new animals, not Darwin's tiny steps. This can only occur if giant steps in complexity occur. Then the issue of superiority in survival takes over.-
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> dhw: If “the bush is allowed to spread as it wishes” (which can only mean autonomy) and then God sees what has developed, guidance will only begin AFTER the autonomous inventive mechanism has done its work. If he approves, there is nothing for him to guide, so he can't be “always” guiding. The mechanism is autonomous until he dabbles. Of course you have every right to remain open to your own hypothesis of “full guidance”,.... My plea has always been that you should consider my alternative as feasible.-I am open to a complexity drive, and if your concept is in play, God keeps on eye on everything, and steps in if he doesn't like an outcome. This means He gets his desired end results. It is a reasonable alternative/
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> dhw:Thank you. If your dcm is autonomous, it is exactly the same as mine, except that you give it a different motivation: it wants to be more complex for the sake of complexity, whereas mine becomes more complex because it wants to survive and/or improve.-'Wanting' is very anthropomorphic, isn't it? Complexity, if it works, is always improvement. Of course, what we see in the fossil record are the improved forms. We don't see the failures, only the comings and goings of successful species through the ages due to extinctions, which it has been shown are usually just bad luck with the environment.