Bertvan:
>>Wouldn't some non random mechanism be necessary to specify how
>>the new parts would be used? Otherwise the possibility of the function
>>they performed turning out to be being useful would be extremely unlikely.
Cliff:
>The environment would specify which mutations had useful new parts.
>But in this case it may not be much of a trick: an aggregation of cells or
>higher organisms would be harder for predators to swallow. With the
>evolution of a little coordination, a simple chain of organisms could
>become a flagellum, gaining motility.
Bertvan: So that is how "bigness" evolves? The little things are all
devoured, leaving only "bigness" genes? Don't you ever wonder why, in
today's biosphere, tiny things vastly outnumber large ones?
Personally, I would find it an odd coincidence that a bunch of unspecified
genetic material would just happen, accidentally and randomly, to turn into
something so complex as a flagellum. But we each have our own criteria to
judge what seems credible, I guess.
Bertvan