Re: Re. Progress

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 5/4/00 8:15:08 AM EST, chris.lavers@nottingham.ac.uk 
writes:

<< No, no. I'm certainly not equating natural selection with randomness. I'm
 refering to the old example (who came up with it now? Gould?) to explain
 how average complexity (difficult concept that) can increase over time even
 if the same number of lineages are becoming more and less complex.... >>

Is time to decouple notion of progress from notion of complexity. Increased 
complexity is not necessarily progress(!!); often a >decrease< in complexity 
is progressive. Probably better to tie notion of progress to notion of 
increased efficiency. This may even be measurable(!).

Also, with regard to wall: Is not life itself, versus prior condition of 
non-life, progress?