On Monday, January 15, 2001 9:31 PM Spike Jones spike66@attglobal.net wrote:
> > Being a creationist is pretty dumb, true. However, "directed evolution"
at
> > least sounds plausible, and merrits some attention.
>
> RIGHT! Evolution *is* directed, definitely. It is directed by
> sexual selection. This part of the equation is often overlooked,
> but sexual preference directs evolution more than natural selection,
> which has a huge random factor to it. spike
In _Evolution as Entropy_ (2/e), Brooks and Wiley broach the subject of
orthogenesis -- AKA directed evolution. I mostly agree with their take,
which is similar to what another list member here brought up, that there are
self-organizing tendencies in biological systems, even above the organism
level. (Of course, to them all of this is driven by lower level phenomena,
though each new level adds some constraints to the lower level stuff.)
I've brought up this book before here, but no one has taken a crack at it...
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
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