I don't recall saying anything about 'understanding evolution in general.'
My entire point is that evolution has occurred, complexity has increased,
and the claims by YECs that complexity hasn't increased is wrong. You are
reading into my post YOUR desire to understand evolution in general. I am
quite content to show that it has occurred. If it has occurred then
Christians must come to deal with it. To date, they are not doing a very
good job in that regard.
'Complexity in general' is not
>quantifiable, so it's not a scientific term. No specific quantifiable measure
>of complexity is going to be satisfying.
>
>The article implies gradual simple-to-complex evolution, an old-fashioned
>idea.
No it doesn't. It merely shows that complexity has increased. And it has.
Are you saying that men, with 210 cell types is less complex than the
cnidaria with 14? The article does not say that there is an orthogenesis.
The article shows that given the laws of probability complexity would
increase.
>How do you know the agnatha were the progenitors of other vertebrates?
>This is something that was taken as obvious by the first evolutionists; but
>what findings since then support the assumption? The major phyla came
>into being in a trice. Given the reductive pattern of subsequent skeletal
>evolution, the agnatha may well have evolved from gnathostomes.
>The evidence is far too fragmentary to claim knowledge of specific
>genealogy here.
>
>If you count cultural evolution, which has nothing to do with cell-types,
>perhaps man is "the most complex of beings on the surface of the earth".
>But by any other yardstick I don't see where we have greater complexity
>than other animals. Do we have electric organs? Spines? Peacock feathers?
>Brains anywhere near the size of elephants' or whales'? In none of our
>perceptive organs are we the champions of the world. etc etc.
There is an objective measure of complexity--number of different cell
types. WE can be more complex than an electric eel without having all of
his cell types. All we need is MORE cell types. You are confused about what
makes something more complex. Complexity does not mean having one of
everything, it means having the most differentiation.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution