Quote:
Originally Posted by filtherton
Evolution favors success. Complexity can both aid and hinder success. I don't know if it makes sense to average (maybe the median would be more appropriate?) complexity across all life, but I suspect that we've had enough continuous evolution on this planet that this average level of complexity would be pretty stable with respect to time.
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Joel Lehman characterizes the complexity in humans as a "
Rube-Goldbergian digression." I thought that was kind of funny. I would say he agrees with your claim that "Evolution favors success", because he sees successful reproduction as minimal criterion. Evolution is then finding a myriad of different ways to do this same thing.
In any case. There are other forces at work in changing organisms other than Natural Selection. (If by "natural selection" we mean a straight line towards fitness via competition). I will name several. Genetic Drift, Negative Frequency-dependent selection, and the Baldwin Effect.
Frequency-Dependent Selection was mentioned in Lehman's PDF above. If you have never heard of it before, here is a good lecture on it.
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Was anyone able to read the chapter in the first PDF?
For those of you can, but are not interested, it talks about the Drake Equation. This is used to calculate the probability that there is other intelligent life in the galaxy. Your personal opinions on the evolution of complexity and the evolution of minds makes a huge difference to how you form the Drake Equation. I had never made a connection between these two things in my mind. If human beings are an
accident of an accident, this opens up the real possibility that we are truly alone in the galaxy.
My next question -- did anyone here actually read the PDFs I linked?