>
>Now, getting back to basics, what do you think of the following? Is there
>anything here to which you, or other reasonable critics with whom you are
>acquainted, might object?
>
>EVOLUTION (in the context of high school -college level science
>curricula): = "The postulated process by which new, biologically
>beneficial, increasingly complex genetic code appears and accumulates over
>time in a pre-existing (simpler) gene pool by random mass/energy
>interactions."
>
>Do recognize that this is but a second suggested 'draft' definition. Are
>there flaws? Can we improve this further?
I think the "increasingly complex genetic code" is inaccurate. I think if
you are talking single-celled organisms evolving into trilobites, the only
way to go, so to speak, is "up." However, after a certain point more
complex may or may not be beneficial. It all depends on the environment.
More complexity may not be beneficial or needed--simpler might be better.
I like the idea of changes accumulating through time, because that is what
is observed in nature. I'm curious what's wrong with the standard
definition of "a change in a gene pool through time."
Brian Harper pointed out that the biggest confusion in this debate seems to
be the difference between the changes we observe occuring through time and
the "Theory of Evolution" which includes a lot of stuff including mutations
(whether directed by the gods or random), natural selection and drift. I
spend a lot of time telling people "evolution is both a fact *and* a
theory!"
Susan
----------
For if there is a sin against life, it consists not so much in despairing
of life as in hoping for another and in eluding the implacable grandeur of
this one.
--Albert Camus
http://www.telepath.com/susanb/
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