If the natives knew about this for all that time, what about mokele mbembe? That crazy murderous dino living out in Africa? There’s lots of interesting critters not known to science, but the natives talk about them all the time!

Does the Great white’s pack hunting include co-operative behaviour exibiting short term unselfishness for later gain? Presumably not just coincidently hitting the same targets. It is possible the description ”pack hunting” could mean a lot or a little ! I doubt the Great White is in the same league as the Killer Whale and I think we know who cares for their young best. Isnt the latter trait much admired by us anthropomorphics ?

Yep, there are a lot of relatively simple life forms about but are they getting more complex ? I think they are, at the same time are new life forms coming into being ? In addition are new life forms being seeded from space as perhaps the red rain was in India? but maybe I’m casting to wide a net here !

What is happening in the hugh new biomass discovered on this planet is surely terra incognita as yet though we have an inkling. I dont see why increasing complexity shouldnt rule here either despite setbacks when it all starts again.

You state, generally life does not evolve toward superfluous complexity. I think it probably does here and there and evolution is not an exact process and like earth, only looks smooth from a million miles away. If natural selection favours the simplest solution it doesnt mean the solution is simple, it depends on the task and circumstances and the competition. Give the Panda time, if a thumb is better, it will get it.

As for your continuing assertion that life tends “on average” to move towards greater complexity, you seem to be missing the fact that more than half of all the species on this planet are things like bacteria, amoebas, dinoflagellates, algae, and other, very simple organisms. There is some debate as to whether viruses and prions count as living things but, whether or not you include these two ultra-simple groups of organisms(?), the fact remains that, on average, life does not evolve towards superfluous complexity. Indeed, natural selection seems to favor the simplest solution that will work, which is perhaps why pandas still don’t have real thumbs.

How I think it works is that there is, something inherent in the evolutionary process which on average tends to lead to greater complexity and this has happened/ is happening on this planet. In any particular at any one period this process may be fast or slow or very slow. An important driver of this process is competition between life forms and a drift to versatility. More complex life forms tend to have stored and unused potential whose DNA can be switched on and selected to deal with new conditions.
I think this process may reverse when conditions become unfavorable to life. One could speculate what has happened on Mars, assumming it had life and it now shrunk to be invisible.
Does anyone know if the Coelecanth has changed or not? Physical conditions for it have probably changed and so has the local fauna. So it has very likely it has had discreet changes not easily seen but significant, enough to enable it to survive. Without more evidence it cannot be said that it has not changed. It probably can be said it has changed but not by what degree
So we agree assessments can be made of some kind of relative value of different life forms but you insist on an entirely objective system decided by scientists. I think in the real world peoples feelings and preferences should be part of the decision and I didnt say ignore the scientists but take their contribution into account.
Also in the real world apparent contradictions can live together and do and oxymoronic utterences make sense. Being subjective and objective in the same arena can be valid and beneficial. Scientists are quite fallible you will see if you study these matters and some kind of natural wisdom outside science is needed to provide balance, starting with political science. Viz dont do what scientists say blindly and people have a right to an opinion ie be subjective if they wish.
The most amazing discovery in nature in the last century on this planet was the ubiquity of life. Perhaps billions of tons of life newly discovered miles and miles of them under our feet at every step. How many life forms was this perhaps more than ever discovered previously. Maybe in combinations we havenot dreamt of with strange capabilities. Perhaps in combination going through solid rock achieving group intelligence and affecting us in new ways.
Maybe indirectly mystery_man has reminded me of these and this and other obsevations here makes me think the subject needs a bit of a rethink ! This includes me.

Isnt the situation with the shark that its abilities focus on smell, and detection and managing its physical abilities, much like a robot sub and being so we are more than half way to our robot shark already and thre are robot fish. Sharky doesnt have much of a social life or mental life even though some has been reported and is finding out what the shark can do a work in progress not conclusive?

Not much been done on the possum I think and I guess it is probably comparable with the common rat. Thats quite considerable and in possum versus man in new zealand the possum appears to be holding its own.

I will be honest I do not know if a shark is more intelligent than a possum or if it is possible to make a proper comparison, but I would tend toward the possum without good evidence.

It was stated way up there that “complexity equals better,” and that is not really true. Trying to explain why this isn’t true has been my whole point here with these long posts.

Some last thoughts here.

Norman Uk stated-

My top ones would be Neandertal man, Orang Pendek or Bigfoot and I’d really like to see some aurochs! A new flea for example would come somewhere near the bottom!

How do you rank those as most important? Not intelligence because I don’t think aurochs would really gain top scores in that area. Complexity is also a completely arbitrary way to judge an organism, as I have tried to illustrate. Why exactly is flea at the bottom? Because you don’t think they are cool enough, important enough, or some other subjective rating? I agree that most people are going to be the least excited about the flea, but this is not really any indicator of how important the flea actually might be.

He then says-

So I still think we can and should have preferences about newly discovered creatures and set value on them and this obviously affects where the money goes to find them or nuture them.

Again, basing that value on what exactly? On complexity or intelligence, or on its actual importance? The whole implication of the posts leading to this is that this value on subjective labels such as complexity or intelligence. It just doesn’t work that way in science. An animal’s importance is just not all that tied to its complexity or intelligence level, and it really does not have much of an impact on where scientific funding goes or how important scientist view the creature. As I have already stated, no committee is sitting around saying one discovery or animal is more deserving of the money based on these subjective factors alone. Some very intelligent animals are getting less funding than simpler animals, it all depends on a lot of factors.

Of course value is assigned in science to certain animals over others, I did not say this is impossible or even undesirable. What I said is it has nothing to do with subjective factors such as complexity or intelligence. There are other more important things to consider, such as its role in the ecosystem which is not related at all to any human judgement of intelligence.

An example is found in my own area of expertise. I do research into the effects of invasive species on island ecosystems, specifically in Japan. A creature’s complexity level or intelligence has pretty much no impact on where funding goes. In this case the value of the organism is placed on whether it is indigenous or not, and its impact, rather than how complex it is. Incidentally, Britain has some of the same issues in this area as Japan does, hence the whole grey squirrel thing. It is not based on cute and cuddliness at all, but on the ecological implications. People may think an animal is very cute, and this can be a speed bump to trying to enact management plans, but fact is that cute animal may be no good for a foreign ecology. In this case, the importance lies in what is best for the ecology, not what people think about the animal.

Then there is this quote-

It is possible to construct first of all some criteria for categorizing life forms objectivley with a bit of subjectivity thrown in, assumming there was an incentive or willingness to do so, then applying it.

Any categorization you made on which creature is “more developed” is going to be inheritely flawed, because as I have been saying the importance of an organism is not based on some sort of “level of development,” as was implied. I have also tried to show that “level of development,” in biological terms, is not so easy to put a label on in the first place. It’s all relative.

My whole, admittedly heavy handed example of sasquatch versus plankton was to show that an organism’s value is not tied to its “level of development” as perceived by humans, or the complexity of the creatures in question. It was not intended to say that plankton were more developed than sasquatch or some such direct comparison, but rather to show that factors other than complexity or intelligence have to be considered when placing any sort of scientific priority on one creature over another. If anything, my whole point with that analogy was that human assigned “levels of development,” intelligence, and whatnot have nothing to do with it .

Cryptoinformant 2.0 is also correct. How do you come up with something workable concerning a monumentally important task like categorizing value and importance of life forms that is objective with a “little subjectivity” thrown in? Subjective in what way, and by whose standards? I think most biologists will agree that such a system as Norman-Uk proposes would have to be completely objective, and it is likely an organism’s complexity is going to have little impact in this regard. You are going to have to have other things that contribute to an organism’s assigned value.

Funding is not tied to creating these subjective hierarchies of animals based on complexity or intelligence, and it is unrealistic to think this sort of thing would work. There are many, many factors that have to be considered and funding for any sort of preservation is going to be based on a range of criteria.

So this is quite an unrealistic thing to say-

But I dont think we can trust scientists in many areas where we human beings can do better and have the responsibility to do so.

Let’s forget that us scientists are apparently not humans. The idea that the general public necessarily knows more about what’s best for the ecology is not very realistic.

I will say that obviously human subjectivity has a huge impact on the plight of some animals over others and I suppose this can have a big effect on money coming in. For example, if you put up a cute endangered animal like the giant panda, people are going to respond to that and this will led to greater amounts of money headed their way. On the other hand, take a less charismatic animal such as, say, the Japanese giant salamander, and you are not going to get such a public response. In this sense, human subjectivity is going to have a big impact. Does it mean that scientifically and objectively speaking the panda is more important than the giant salamander? No. Does this mean I don’t think pandas should get the funding? Not at all. But it is completely subjective and based on “cuddliness” in this case, rather than any other factors that actually matter.

Yes, human reception of animals has an impact on funding in the sense that awareness is raised. Public opinion and awareness is very influential and can be very important. But this has little to do with trying to come up with a viable, scientific way of assigning value to certain animals based on cuddliness, complexity, or intelligence.

Positive public opinion of an animal can actually be detrimental to conservation efforts and trying to deal with some invasive species in certain areas such as feral cats and dogs, squirrels, black bass, and many many others. People can be against the elimination of these pests for a variety of reasons, none of them tied to how important or dangerous the animal is to the ecology. Negative public opinion can have a detrimental effect too, for instance when you have people who do not want wolves reintroduced due to perceived threats, and so on. In all cases, none of the public opinion really has any direct bearing to how valuable an animal actually is. People may have the best intentions, but there is more to consider than how they subjectively view these animals.

So forgetting what scientists have to say and just letting the general populace make all decisions concerning conservation and funding could result in a lot of problems.

Also, with your statement that

It is possible to construct first of all some criteria for categorizing life forms objectivley with a bit of subjectivity thrown in

, there is a very simple logical fallacy there – objectivity and subjectivity are mutually exclusive, and you cannot have “a bit of subjectivity thrown in” while keeping it objective to any level.

In the sense that life as a whole moved up from simple groupings of molecules that are the beginnings of life, then yes, life has a whole has experienced a surge in complexity in that sense. That was an easy one! There was really nowhere to go but up in terms of complexity at that point in natural history. In those terms, then it could be said that life has developed into a more complex form from those earliest beginnings. As I have already stated, the maximum level of complexity has gone up due to the branching out and speciation of life and the effects that natural selection has had on that. I will concede that in the sense that life gained complexity in relation to these simple molecules it started out as. I do not meant to say that life has never gained in complexity whatsoever.

My whole point has been that life is not necessarily geared towards greater and greater complexity. This is where I think we are diverging on this topic. Although there was this initial surge in complexity, it does not follow that all organisms will necessarily continue to do so. Of course we have humans today which are very complex and indeed started out way back as tiny one celled organisms. This was due to a continued diverging from those lines that continued in complexity, while others did not because their environment did not lead to that. So we have us humans, but we also have one celled organisms, some of which are very simple in form. These one celled organisms have been around since long before humans, and have experienced a huge amount of generations of mutation and natural selection, far more than humans, yet they remain one celled organisms. There is no biological imperative for them to suddenly sprout legs or fins and start turning into more complex organisms. They are well suited to their role and environment. They may evolve to meet challenges, but not necessarily in the direction of “higher” organisms. The fact that most life on Earth is made up of these very simple organisms that did not experience greater and greater complexity even in light of their increased mutation cycles is really unavoidable. The way you make it sound is that all of these simpler creatures have some sort of destiny to keep getting more complex and if they haven’t already, then they certainly will. NOT SO. That position is indicative of creationism, not the other way around.

Take another example. Many more complex life forms originally evolved from amphibians. Through diverging and speciation in conjunction with selective pressures, some lines have gone on to become birds, mammals, and so on, yet we still have amphibians. These amphibians may change over time, but they are not necessarily gaining greater and greater complexity. This is because speciation does not require that all of the lines keep gaining complexity, only that they survive in their environment. So like with the one celled organisms, you have some species increasing in complexity, but not all. Humans branched off from creatures that are not too unlike some arboreal primate species still around today. They are adapting and surviving just fine despite not moving up to greater and greater levels of complexity.

You misunderstand my chimp analogy. The point is that some creatures (humans) are going to speciate and lead to a more complex form, while others (chimps) are not necessarily going to move in the direction of the kind of complexity found in humans. The environment and ecological challenges will determine the change they exhibit, and that change may not necessarily be an increase in complexity.

While yes, many creatures have become more and more complex, the vast amount of life on Earth has not experienced a greater drive towards that. Microscopic prokaryotes, all manners of invertebrates, insects, and on and on, have not demonstrated a drive to greater and greater complexity. They might evolve, yes, but that does not equal greater complexity. Life may have started out, due to competition and filling new niches, experiencing a surge of complexity, but there is nothing that requires that these organisms keep doing so.

Look at the coelacanth here. It has changed almost not at all in the millions and millions of years since it was thought to be extinct. It has many what you could call primitive attributes such as the lobed fins. Since before any line even somewhat resembling humans have been around, the coelacanth has remained the way it is. This is due to how well suited it is to its environment, and there was nothing that made it keep gaining and gaining in complexity, obviously. In your opinion, it should have gotten more and more complex until it was an organism bearing little resemblance to its ancient form, which has not happened. Evolution does not require that creatures keep changing, only that they change enough to survive in their environment.

Evolution does not even have to mean gaining new abilities. As I said, the most basic definition of it is a “change in allele frequencies over time.” This does not necessarily equate to “better” or “more complex” or new and improved abilities.

Much of the Earth’s biomass is able to keep evolving and not necessarily gain greater complexity. They may have come from something even simpler, but they do not have to keep moving up. If the organisms are suitable to their role, they may continue to be as they are. You make it sound like all one celled organisms are inevitably going to turn into something more complex, which is not a given at all. As a matter of fact, if these simple organisms started to sprout fins or legs for no good reason, that would actually be evidence against evolution.

I do not understand your mention of creationism here and implying that what I say is tied to that. That is so far off base, I don’t even know what to say to it. I am actually in the field of biology, and the implication that anything I am saying is a creationist line of thinking.. well I think I can say that this could not be further from the truth. I don’t know if that was meant to offend me or not, but I have not posited a single creationist angle here, and I am actually quite outspoken against creationism.

Anyway, in the sense that life as a whole moved up in complexity from replicating molecules, yes you are correct. But life is not necessarily always moving up to greater and greater complexity. There is not an imperative drive from “lower” to “higher.” This was my point. Although they may have come from something even simpler, creatures can remain and evolve in a relatively simple form indefinitely in accordance to selective pressures. An initial increase in complexity does not mean that this will continue on and on. As I said, the vast majority of life on Earth is testament to this. The majority of life forms on this planet have done quite well without moving onward and upward to increasingly advanced complexity.

If that were true, then we should expect to see the majority of life on this planet as very complex organisms, when in fact this is just the opposite.

”In effect all creature with minor possible exceptions have evolved from simpler life forms many times over they might now appear to be marking time but at some point they’ll get marching up that hill again”.
I dont see why you have a problem with this, I am sure you will agree that virtually all life forms have evolved from something simpler. (Though I do understand why you dont agree with the hill)This doesnt mean they are complex but were even simpler before! Like the first feeding organisms, maybe even before replication!
Isnt it generally accepted that organisms have periods when they dont evolve ie mark time then do a bit more often in leaps and bounds. This whether or no they have an accumulation of changes to their DNA.

“Like I said before, organisms do not exist to be a stepping stone to something “greater.” They just are”

It should not say ere. Sorry.