types of organization

[Prof. Dov Por]

John,
By the same logic we could say that we are just another way of packing the
nucleotides, or different expressions of the  atom carbon . Evolution , in
the very literally sense means  a qualitative change.
By the way, old Haeckel would be very happy  to see you considering us  a
kind of fish,amphibian, reptile, etc. Do I sense here a "ladder of life"?
Just as mitochondria are not comparable to free-living bacteria anymore, so
are our cells. Even the single cell, our mother ovule, or even the legions
of spermatozoans, are unable to live independently. By the way, I don't know
of any metazoan which   "returned" to protozoan life.
Dov
-----Original Message-----
From: John Grehan <jrg13 at PSU.EDU>
To: TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG <TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG>
Date: 06 February 2000 22:58
Subject: types of organization


>Dov Por wrote
>
>At 05:28 PM 2/6/00 +0200, you wrote:
>>Don, Of course you can continue to play the reductionist way and say that
>>the cell is a  complex of mitochondria, peroxisomes,spirochetes and
>>whatever. And all these bacteria are in turn...., etc.etc.. The problem is
>>one of hierarchy, of more complex organisation of the parts. By reducing
>>complexity to its atoms  you do not explain it., you only create flat
>>mechanistic models.
>
>By recongizing "higher" organisms are single cell colonies one is not
limited
>to treating the organism in a reductionist manner. Of course there are
>differences, but it is the nature of these differences that may be viewed
>differently. As single cells recombined in different ways they became
>something
>else, but it is a philosophical question as to whether they may be
>treated as no longer anything of what they were. The concept of "types of
>organization" recognizes both the difference and the continuity of life in
>terms of how life is organized.
>
>
>You loose the qualitative aspect which is supremely
>>important, especially when you speak of the bag of protozoans called
Homo.
>>A cell in an organism does not compare to a   free-living cell, even when
>>you keep it artificially and feed it  as an embryonic stem cell., for your
>>devious human needs.
>
>These are differences certainly, but they do not mitigate against the
>possbility that as a type of organization we are not in some way
>still single cells, just very different kinds of single cells from our
>ancestors just as we are also a strange kind of fish, amphibian, reptile,
>and perhaps not so strange kind of mammal.
>
>John Grehan
>