- 27 Jun 2017 12:55
#14818647
I probably do. It was over 30 years ago that I read Darwin's original work.
Potemkin wrote:I think you misunderstand the theory of evolution. Darwin did not claim that evolution necessarily progresses from the simpler to the more complex organisms - instead, natural selection adapts organisms to a constantly changing environment by weeding out those individuals which are less fitted to that environment. This sometimes means that more complex organisms or species are weeded out, and the simpler ones survive. In fact, nature seems to care nothing for complexity - the overwhelming majority of life on Earth is exceedingly 'primitive' and simple; the complex organisms are few in number and are at the top of the food chain. In fact, the average complexity of life on Earth (average in the sense of 'mode') has remained unchanged for the past three billion years or so. What has increased over evolutionary time is not the average complexity of organisms, but their diversity - the number of ecological niches which are filled. This is what has shown a strong upward trend over evolutionary time, not complexity.
I probably do. It was over 30 years ago that I read Darwin's original work.