Very interesting video. My brain mass has increased by 2%.
Speaking of complexity, I was wondering how complexity would be measured. The most reasonable measure of complexity I would posit would be the number of base pairs on the genome, because that would be directly indicative of how many procedures were being performed, structures being built, et cetera. Let's say we go with that... who has the largest genome? Who is the most complex?
Well, actually it is the Amoeba
Polychaos dubium, with 670,000,000,000 base pairs.
That goes well above
Paris japonica, the largest plant genome, with 150,000,000,000 pairs, and still above
Protopterus aethiopicus, the largest vertebrate genome, with 130,000,000,000 pairs.
Not to mention, it utterly demolishes the human genome in terms of complexity, with a mere 3,000,000,000.
So, I guess humans are not the most complex creatures around with those kinds of rookie numbers.
just as complex and evolved as we are
Yeah, the idea of being 'more evolved' was always strange to me, as it implied there was some sort of "ladder of being" that could be ascended or something (and usually people say that the goal of the ascent is to become human-like, coincidentally). I guess if there were a measure of "how evolved" a creature were, it would be the number of generations behind it, because that would be the number of times natural selection has refined its form. Therefore, fruit flies would be some of the most-evolved creatures in the world.