Zach Hancock has posted another YouTube video. This one is about the evolution of genomic complexity. Have you ever wondered why eukaryotic biochemistry is so much more complex than the same processes in bacteria? Maybe it's because bacteria have highy efficient biochemistry and eukaryotes have evolved bigger, more complex structures by accident. This is a video about evolution by accident and the evolution of complexity in the absense of positive Darwinian selection.
You can learn about constructive neutral evolution and the origin of introns and the spliceosome. You can learn why eukaryotic ribosomes are so much bigger and more complex than bacterial ribosomes. As a bonus, you can learn how structures showing irreducible complexity arose quite naturally in the absence of any supernatural intervention.
Could I ask? One issue I have with Zach's video is the word complexity. I feel we don't have a good understanding of what makes something complex. I feel a false dichotomy is being set up with bacteria labelled simple & eucaryotes complex. But isn't it the case that these simple bacterial genomes produce far more diverse and "complex" chemistry than eucaryotic cells? Isn't the bacterial realm a far better place to explore complex & varied chemical processes than eucaryotes? I am intrigued by the dichotomy being created and wonder if it is accurate or whether it is missing something important in how evolutionary processes work. Any thoughts?
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