Genes' survival drives evolution
July 31 2000, to Scientific American
From:henisdov To:[email protected]
Re: I.Crawford's Searching for Extraterrestrials, Sciam July 2000.
In his concluding paragraph, "Resolving the Paradox?", the author implies that evolution of organisms is "drawn" or "driven" by a directional tendency towards a more complicated organismal complex. This indeed may demonstrate that intelligence is an inherent capability and is characteristic of life throughout its history and its evolving forms.
However, would'nt it be more accurate to assign the driving force of evolution to neatly and plainly survival plus replication, an aspect of survival?
Thus at the "beginning" ambient Earth circumstances supports survival of pre-celled base organisms, then with successive changes of circumstances that threaten their survival the base organisms intelligently form symbiotic associations of early "genes", then in some locations some of these associations "cell" themselves, then some of the cells form "endosymbiotic" associations, then some of these monocells form polycelled organisms, etc., the driving force being always survival/replication.
And in this vein : during the 700 million years of polycell life evolution, including the 140 million dinosaurs domination years, living organisms experimented with survival mechanisms purely and solely "organic". The revolution was initiated by some primates circa 200 million years ago, when for survival they changed posture and living circumstances, which initiated a change in their brain development, that eventually resulted in "technological" capabilities.
However, basically ALL the existing and potential capabilities of EACH and EVERY living organism regardless of size and complexity stem from the nature of the living organisms that dwell in their constituent cells, their genome, as the capabilities and characteristics of a society stem from those of its constituent individuals.
DH