Re: Complexity of life
Cliff Lundberg (cliff@noe.com)
Tue, 09 Nov 1999 00:24:22 -0800mortongr@flash.net wrote:
>At 10:22 AM 11/08/1999 -0800, Cliff Lundberg wrote:
>>But even in terms of the list
>>you give here, the point remains, that major phyla were formed early and
>>no new basic plans have formed since, and our general evolutionary theory
>>does not predict this.
>
>Simply not true. A phyla IS a basic body plan, and the list I presented is
>a list of NEW basic body plans AFTER the explostion.
I didn't say "before the explosion", I said "were formed early". The
list you presented gave mostly paleozoic examples. And even these,
it might be argued, could have existed as rare forms in earlier times.
One has to accept that evolution was qualitatively different in that
formative period. Subsequent evolution is highly constrained, far
different from the creativity of the Cambrian explosion.
--Cliff Lundberg ~ San Francisco ~ cliff@noe.com