From: onar@hsr.no (Onar Aam)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Has Macro-evolution Occured?
Date: 28 Jan 93 06:52:14 GMT
Organization: Rogaland University Centre

>In article <1993Jan26.164949.3683@hsr.no>, onar@hsr.no (Onar Aam) writes...
>
>> ...  (it was then widely misbelieved that humans are at the top of the
>>evolutionary hill) ... 
>> 
>> 
>>Onar.
>
>I recall that a few months ago, you were taking a lot of heat on t.o.,
>trying to defend your ideas about macroevolution (I forget the details).
>I might be mistaken, but I think a lot of the debate was based on your
>claim that there was some sort of way to define "complexity" that was
>compatible with the idea that species often (usually?) became more
>"complex" as they evolved.  If I am right, do you still think this?

Yes, you are right, and yes, I still think this. However, with more "complex" I do
not necessarily mean more advanced. 

>(NOTE: I am _not_ trying to open this can of worms again, I was just
>curious as to whether your prolonged silence on the topic was indicative
>of a changed perspective).

My silence on this topic is due to my lack of an exact defenition of complexity.
Therefore a discussion on the topic would be pointless at the moment, and indeed 
a can of worms. But I am working on it and my understanding has increased. My 
notion of complexity was greatly clearified when I first read the exact defenition
of emergent properties.


>I would have thought that on a range of "complexity", humans would
>generally be considered to be "at the top of the evolutionary hill"
>indeed.  (If not, then even your intuitive notion of complexity 
>seems to be unusual).  How does this relate to your quoted comment
>above?

I am not sure whether Homo Sapiens is the most complex (in my defenition, which
unfortunately is momentarily non-existent. :-) ) species or not, but I think so. 
A single human is probably no more complex than a chimp, just mentally more
efficient. However, the entire human race is probably more complex than the chimp
race. This is because of the process which currently guides our race which is
not present in the chimp race - science. It is this process which is leading to
the integration of individual humans into one huge entity or individual- Society.
(With science I do not mean the sporadic intelligent works of one man but rather
more the accumulation of knowledge and understanding independent of single 
generations. With this accumulation follows an information flow or current which
is the basis for this new-risen entity.) And I am quite positive that this can be
explained evolutionary. In nature individuals normally struggle for their own
existence, their own individualism. But ever so often new entities arise through
symbiosis and integration of individuals. These individuals "allow" themselves to 
narrow their freedom of behaviour i.e. their individualism, their ego which is an
"unnormal" trend of evolution. The evolutionary explanation for this would be
that the new entity which is about to arise is *also* struggling for its own
individualism. And because it is more complex (in my non-existent defenition) than
its composites it will win the struggle for individualism over its composite. 
Several conditions needs to be fulfilled for such entities to arise, and periods 
of stability seems to be one of them. 
    Hopefully you see the difference between this notion of complexity and the
hierarchical nature of speciation.


  
Onar.