(April 10, 2016 at 2:36 am)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote:(April 9, 2016 at 11:18 pm)AAA Wrote: I don't think it's a given that once you have a replicating system you have unlimited capacity to develop everything else. All we see in extant species are systems that can accomplish their task. In order to get from any system to another, you have to have functioning system at every step. Are you telling me that you believe there are different functioning systems going from (lets pick the brain) the most primordial nervous system to the higher evolved ones? Think of all the systems that would have had to exist in between. Is it not speculative to say that they existed?
Also no I don't want to tell them they are off base, I never said that we should stop origin of life research. I look forward to seeing what they find. I don't discourage investigation into a scientific idea.
Yes, we do believe that, because that's what we observe. Take Invertebrate Zoology, next semester, and you'll see some of those extant systems that are "on the path" to the mammalian brain, still alive and kicking in their various stages of transition. Same for the other major systems I mentioned. Even more fascinating is Comparative Anatomy, in which you get to dissect a shark and cat and compare the systems of the two, to see their interrelatedness and similarities, despite many of their functions having evolved in different directions for quite some time.
We don't have either of those two classes. Why not say that the mammalian brain is "on the path" to the less developed brain? After all, it is a lot easier to lose genetic information and weaken the phenotype than it is to improve it. If the shark brain was on the path to the mammalian brain, then why has it not changed in so many millions of years? I don't think sharks experience selective pressure for intelligence.
