Positive change 2
Speaking of 'growth mindset' vs 'fixed mindset'.... Biologists are still mostly stuck in the 'infinite potential' department.

Standard Darwin theory says that life randomly developed from non-life and continues to randomly increase its potential and complexity without limit.

Reality says the opposite**, and biologists are finally coming to terms with reality, though they still can't quite express it freely.

Via Eurekalert, a reclassification of the unfamiliar but widespread critters called Arrow Worms or Chaetognatha. Back in the '50s when I was reading a lot of biology books, the Chaetognatha were considered to be proto-chordates, one step below vertebrates. They've been demoted several times since then!

Strikingly, the scientists found that arrow worms don't belong with spiralians, but instead with a new group of animals that form a sister group to the clade. The results, published January 10, 2019 in Current Biology, challenge the classical view that complex organisms evolved from simple ancestors by gaining new traits over time.

"Arrow worms are predators, they have nervous systems, they have developed sensory organs. But the other organisms they're grouped with are much simpler," said Ferdinand Marlétaz, first author of the study and a postdoctoral scholar in the OIST Molecular Genetics Unit, led by Prof. Daniel Rokhsar. "If you place arrow worms here, it means there was probably a lot of independent simplification, rather than the independent emergence of complexity."

Simplification rather than independent emergence of complexity.

Only one conclusion is possible.

All complexity was created all at once.

In species as in individual talents, USE IT OR LOSE IT. You can't gain more talent by cultivating your talent, but you can gradually lose it by failing to practice and cultivate.

The loss mechanism is obvious in neurons and muscles. Neurons that aren't active are ruthlessly swept out by the Glial Janitorial Service. Muscles that aren't used atrophy.

The mechanism in species is still mysterious. Part of it is standard Darwin. Genes get lost through mutation. If the lost gene doesn't code for a useful structure or activity in the current situation, offspring without the gene will survive and reproduce. Part of it may be epigenetic, with an intentional switchoff more like neural atrophy.


= = = = =

** Stupid footnote. I wrote: Standard Darwin theory says that life randomly developed from non-life and continues to randomly increase its potential and complexity without limit. What I meant by 'reality says the opposite' was specifically: Life did not develop from non-life, randomly or not. Life started with all of the available potentials in one Grand Blueprint, and each phylum or species or individual uses some of the available potentials, abandoning other structures or skills.

This isn't consistently opposite. The second part is a vector in the opposite direction from the Darwinian view. From increasing complexity, turn 180 degrees to decreasing complexity. But the first part is a zeroing out of the Darwin vector. Life didn't develop from non-life, it simply developed.

What happens if we reverse that vector? Non-life developed from life. Sounds weird, but as we understand more about the action of bacteria in rocks and clouds and every other previously inconceivable place, it's not so weird after all. Non-life could simply be the last stage in simplification and degeneration.

In the beginning God created bacteria, and bacteria pooped out the universe.

Labels: Grand Blueprint, Natural law = Sharia law

  ¶ 12:35 AM