The Simple Life Ain't So Simple

[Mr. McD]

The anthropomorphic view of evolution just received another blow. Humans top the evolutionary hierarchy because of our supposed complexity, which is backed by an incredibly sophisticated genetic portfolio. But a new survey of marine life indicates that "simple" organisms such as corals and sea anemones have many of the same genes and complex gene families--consisting of many closely related genes derived from the same ancestral gene--as we do, leaving open the question of what really sets us apart from other species.

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2005/1206/2

[phantom power]

1. Any attempt to assign a "top" to the evolutionary tree...

displays a complete misunderstanding of evolution. Likewise, any notion that humans are the most complex organisms, by any measure, has been obsolete for decades.

[unblock]

2. people also seem to forget that EVERYTHING evolves

people hear that we evolved from apes and imagine that today's apes are identical to the apes of eons past.
it is true that not every species has gone through the same number or kinds of mutations as others, but everything evolves and adapts.

the lowly paramecium is usually given as the species that has evolved the least, but that is the exception rather than the rule.

[phantom power]

3. they ought to be watched

There is no need to be frightened. It is true some of the creatures are odd, but I find the
situation rather heartening than otherwise. It gives one a feeling of confidence to see
nature still busy with experiments, still dynamic, and not through nor satisfied because
a Devonian fish managed to end as a two-legged character with a straw hat. There are
other things brewing and growing in the oceanic vat. It pays to know this. It pays to
know there is just as much future as there is past. The only thing that doesn't pay is to
be sure of man's own part in it.

There are things down there still coming ashore. Never make the mistake of thinking
life is now adjusted for eternity. It gets into your head—the certainty, I mean—the
human certainty, and then you miss it all: the things on the tide flats and what they
mean, and why, as my wife says, “they ought to be watched.”

The trouble is we don't know what to watch for.

Lorein Eiseley, "The Snout" (The Immense Journey)
http://www.global-mindshift.org/make/pdfs/TheSnout.pdf

[Orsino]

4. Yeah. The "why are there still monkeys?" BS...

...that creationists sometimes chant fails on this point. Whatever common ancestors we shared with our modern primate cousins are long gone. And the monkeys have been evolving for as long as we have.