Subj: progress in evolution (answer to Rich Daniel)
Rich:
Do you believe that evolution always progresses upward (toward more
complexity)? Parasites often lose complexity as they evolve from
free-living organisms.
Bertvan:
I've read arguments that evoltution has no direction, does not result in
increased complexity. Surely muli celled organisms are more complex than
single celled organisms. In mammals, evolution seems to have resulted in an
increasingly complex central nervous system, culminating in the complexity of
human consciousness. To tell the truth, I don't know how that might apply to
plants, or even insects. You have opinions on the subject?
You are right that multicellular organisms might appear more complex than single cellular
organisms. But complexity, unless quantified, has little relevance. But even more importantly
this does not show that evolution EQUALS progression to complexity.