RE: virus: Un-natural De-selection

Brett Lane Robertson (unameit@tctc.com)
Fri, 15 Aug 1997 08:30:12 -0500


>It's obvious that complexity *can* be adaptive. It is very
>far from obvious that that fact, taken with standard
>evolutionary theory, is insufficient to explain the lifeforms
>we see around us.

>Robin

Not to add to or take away from what has already been said...that there is a
natural selection technique at work which most likely has some processes
allowing for complexity...my theory, "development", suggests that simpler
life forms are fundamental steps in attaining a more advanced state and are
as such "protected" by complexity as well; that is, advanced (more complex)
life forms must also select to keep the most simple processes in good
working order so that the more advanced processes can work most efficiently
(like adults protect children so that they can become adults--or like the
body performs its most basic functions "automatically"...breathing,
circulation...so that higher processes can operate.

Brett

At 09:47 AM 8/15/97 +0100, you wrote:
>Brett Lane Robertson wrote:

>>Darwinian theory has the sizable burden of
>>proving that the negative, braking power of selective
>>demise, coupled with the blind chaotic power of
>>randomness, can produce the persistent, creative,
>>positive drive toward more complexity we see sustained
>>in nature over billions of years.

>If there is such a drive, why are the simplest forms of
>life the most successful? (Consider bacteria, nematodes.)

>It's obvious that complexity *can* be adaptive. It is very
>far from obvious that that fact, taken with standard
>evolutionary theory, is insufficient to explain the lifeforms
>we see around us.

>Robin

Returning,
rBERTS%n
Rabble Sonnet Retort
Every society honours its live conformists and its dead
troublemakers.

Mignon Mclaughlin