Re: A couple isolated examples of "devolution"


"Paul Ciszek" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:dioln7$uv7$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> (Note: I am not a biologist.)

> I used to waste quite a bit of time "surfing" a couple of tree of life
> webpages. One of them had links to external articles. One of these
> articles claimed that a certain type of "protozoan" turned out to be
> a single celled variety of cnidarian--i.e., at least one single-celled
> species is descended from multicelular ancestors. Elsewhere in the
tree
> was a discussion of creatures that resemble flatworms but have no gut.
> The speculation was whether or not they were descended from creatures
> that had once had a gut.
>
> --
> Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence
is
> pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice."
> Autoreply is disabled |
>

Thanks for that input.

Nature, forever true to form, is never just black and white - or
thankfully not so simple that I would
get scared. :->

[That is why I have taken rational refuge in thinking that Infinity very
much part of What Is going on.
This position of mine gives even more of a reason to think that we
should try very hard to find out what is approximately going on within
and around us humans.]

It seems obvious to me that this far into its existence, and in addition
to having started out (from the Nothing-aspect of What Is) in a
fundamentally evolutionary manner (#), our universe makes it far easier
for its living forms of matter to evolve into (building into) virgin
Niches* (thus realizing its "configuration space"-like potentials) than
to devolve into (breaking down into) already densely filled Niches*.

It is as if Evolution (i.e. this universe as a patterning process -
including its biological patterning) essentially operates according to
"an Archimedes's law of allele translocation" - that is, it thereby kept
"buoyant upwards" - but not "buoyant downwards". :-)
-----------------

# In the sense that, astrophysical evolution begun with the emergence of
the conceivably most energetic and simple state of subatomic
matter-pattern possible; namely particles forming a quark-soup, that
cooled into a plasma of free electrons proton and neutron, that further
condensed into atoms of hydrogen that gravity then clumped together into
stars, who then fused hydrogen into successively heavier and atoms, and
eventually spat these out to subsequently form solar system featuring
biochemicals and biological processes that are in part dependent on
several of these elemental atoms.
----

* The 'balooNed' or 'n-enlarged' (capitalized) spelling of "niches" may
be taken as my warning against making too clear cut a distinction
between individual phenotypes and their environmental niches; because to
do so is roughly as erroneous as distinguishing too doggedly between
space and time, or even between space-time and energy-matter.
------------------------------------------------------------

P


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Part 1 (of 3): What are major aspects of evolutionary theory?
    ... I ask you how to root the tree, you answer by using directed links. ... prevailing theory of evolution is true, is no good at all for the task ... of how to provide a concise summary of evidence for evolution. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Part 1 (of 3): What are major aspects of evolutionary theory?
    ... > I ask you how to root the tree, you answer by using directed links. ... I merely claim that the way scientists refine ... > prevailing theory of evolution is true, is no good at all for the task ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Darwin Was Wrong (Apparently)
    ... Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life ... Read our related editorial: Uprooting Darwin's tree ... time he published On The Origin of Species 22 years later, ... Without it the theory of evolution would never have happened. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Darwin Was Wrong (Apparently)
    ... Why Darwin was wrong about the tree of life ... Read our related editorial: Uprooting Darwin's tree ... time he published On The Origin of Species 22 years later, ... Without it the theory of evolution would never have happened. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Unequal branch lengths
    ... >>> phylogenetics. ... usually tacks on uninterrupted branches extending from the root of the tree ... the rate of evolution for your characters might have varied ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)