"TomHendricks474"  wrote in message
news:c6j8si$5b5$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> << This brings up the second problem -- from which the signal-to-noise
problem
> really stems -- which is that of extinction.  Even if we've sampled the
> genomes of every living thing on Earth, we know with certainty that we're
> missing a substantial amount of data from extinct organisms.   >>
>
>
> This may not always be the case.
> Here's why - IF as I have suggested, every
> adaptive step is some type of better energy
> moderation or evolved form of energy moderation
>  - then we know the driving force
> to begin life and the driving force
> in changing life etc.
> In its most basic form IMO its energy in/waste out.
>
> Now match that with the environment that
> that extinct species lived in.

A resounding maybe :).  While there are some great examples of organisms
operating at or near the thermodynamic limit of their environment, there are
also many exceptions.  That is, Darwinian evolution isn't always able to
arrive at an optimal solution to an environmental challenge; within the
constraints of genetic change, you "can't always get there from here".  (I
recently read a really cool essay by Richard Lewontin -- may be available
online but I don't recall the title :( -- on this very idea, where he
paraphrased this idea as something akin to 'why don't snakes eat grass?').

One question not clear to me on this is whether, once a near optimal
solution evolves, it is successful enough as to monopolize any chance for
further variability to arise?  At least anecdotally, this seems to have a
good bit of support in the important role that cataclysm and catastrophe
have in the history of our world; only by effectively hitting a global reset
switch can you knock dominant populations out of their comfortable and
overextended niches and pave the way for new biological innovations to
arise.

> Once we learn life is not as random as we think
> (one can't have a random chemical system built
> on a cyclical non random heat cycle environment) then
> we will have more clues than we do now IMO.

Also I think for your scenario to hold you've got to have explicit knowledge
of the various and vast geochemical eras the Earth has gone through.  How
many enzymes, pathways, and metabolic strategies were lost for example in
the transition from an anoxic to an oxic atmosphere?
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