Neutrino,
I used Ree's quote, "A star is simpler than an insect," in my earlier post to buttress my claim that biology is more complex than physics. Hopefully the following two paragraphs taken from two of Martin Ree's books (the second of which contains my earlier quote), will ease your worry that I've somehow taken his quote out of context. By the way, Richard Dawkins makes the same point, perhaps even more forcefully in the early chapters of his book, The Blind Watchmaker. David Deutsch also says as much in his, The Fabric Of Reality.
"The amazing and fascinating complexity of biological evolution, and the variety of life on Earth, makes us realize that everything in the inanimate world is, in comparison, very simple. Things are hard to understand because they are complex, not because they are big. The challenge of fully elucidating how atoms assembled themselves-here on Earth, and perhaps on other worlds-into living beings intricate enough to ponder their origins is more daunting than anything in cosmology." Just Six Numbers, Martin Rees, p.19
"Friendly skeptics sometimes ask me: "Isn't it presumptuous for cosmologists to claim to explain anything bout the vast cosmos?" My response is that what makes things hard to understand is how complicated they are, not how big they are. Under extreme conditions-inside the stars or in the hot early universe-everything breaks down to its simplest ingredients. A star is simpler than an insect. Biologists, tackling the intricate multilayered structures of butterflies and brains, face tougher challenges than astronomers." Our Cosmic Habitat, Martin Rees, p.63
Gilbert and Sullivan's Princess Ida noted that, "Darwin's man, though well behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved." My previous posts to this forum speak often of the tense alliance between the ape and the man in us. We've inherited a genetic proclivity to seek solutions through violence. Fortunately, we've also inherited a brain complex enough to have the ability to override such a predisposition. Civilized men do just this. However, benevolent men are as superior, as malevolent men are inferior to the basic social necessity of civility. Carl Sandberg says as much in his poem Wilderness:
There is a wolf in me...fangs pointed for tearing gashes...a red tongue for raw meat...and the hot lapping of blood -- I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a hog in me...a snout and a belly...a machinery for eating and grunting...a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun -- I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a baboon in me...clambering - clawed...dog faced...yawping a galoot's hunger...hairy under the armpits...ready to snarl and kill...ready to sing and give milk...waiting -- I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.
Oh, I got a zoo, I got a managerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red - valve heart - and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and a mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going God-Knows-Where --
For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world; I came from the wilderness.
Regards,
Michael
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