Re: Ears under pressure. Was Re: Aquatic ape theory

Phillip Bigelow (n8010095@cc.wwu.edu)
31 Oct 1995 15:40:57 -0800

hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey) writes:

>Living organisms display increasing order and entropy. The order
>and complexity increases with higher levels of evolution.

I am not aware of ANY evolutionary biologist that has evidence for your
statement, or even believes it. Where is your science journal source for
this statement? And further, your statement is so general in nature that it
is almost meaningless. Are you referring to temporal changes, or are you
referring to systematic changes? Are you ignoring the fact that character
traits can be retrograde temporally?

>There will those that come after us, even smarter. And they
>will be the highest on the evolutionary scale.

I am not sure I understand what you mean by "scale".
You don't seem to be referring to cladistics. Having more than a passing
exposure to the earth sciences and paleo :-), the word "scale" is not used
(except by the general public).
Why do you assume that a "smart" organism is high on the evolutionary
"scale"? There are plenty of "smart" organisms that display apomorphies, it
is true, but there are a greater number of small-brained creatures that are
MUCH more complex than a human.
For example, an ostrich is VASTLY more apomorphic than a human in every
regard except for brain capacity. Morphologically, the Order Primates, and
including the family hominidae, are quite primitive. So, from an overall
morphologic perspective, we are quite low on the evolutionary complexity
tree.
<pb>