In a message dated 4/9/2005 10:52:02 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> "Evolutionary dead ends are very common in the human fossil record. In > fact, there are people who would claim that we probably don't know any > direct ancestors to Homo sapiens in that record. But if the pattern of > human evolution has been one of the production of new species and the > selective extinction most species in the fossil record, then clearly many, > many species that we know as fossils were evolutionary dead ends in the > sense that they didn't give rise to descendent species." > > Ian Tattersall, Curator in the Department of Anthropology at the American > Museum of Natural History in New York > He is my next door neighbor. Kind of a dour guy. The point is that there is no trend towards "better" in evolution. 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 _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
