First of all I'd like you to define the term "simpler" as a term in biology.
Ha. I’d really like to comply. I’ll try to be a bit more explicit in how I use the term then. Prokaryotes are simpler than Eukaryotes simply (sic?) because the geologic record shows them existing billions of years BEFORE the Eukaryotes. I’ll class them less organized, simpler, also because there is no nuclear membrane isolating the DNA from the rest of the cell. Less organized, then, I’ll use synonymously with “simple.” Single cells organized into multicellulars, then invertebrates, then vertebrates, etc.
I've seen things appear more specialized, but that in no way means more complicated.
Seems that “simple” and “complex” can say just as much about the abilities of an observer as the thing observed. I open my dated 8 year old Molecular Biology of the Cell and I am overwhelmed at the complexity. I'll not be writing a better text I'm sure. My own abilities determine what I judge to be complex or simple, though I am most open to suggestions as my understanding improves.
Then you have organisms that are hardly specialized at all (i.e. yeast) that have some of the most complex dna possible surpassing even our own in amount of nucleic acids used to code it.
Though humans might have fewer genes, the protein coding genes can form different proteins. I wonder if complexity instead should be related to the proteome, the number of proteins that are coded. Hmm. Genes code for proteins and it is proteins that build cells and bodies.
As for your other assertions, variances in the life on earth are poor proofs for evolution.
Good thing life’s diversity is not offered as proof. I offer the three observations combined as the facts that evolution explains. Creationism has its own explanation for the three observations. God did it. Cognitive scientists can deal with the solipsist explanation as the whole of history being generated by consciousness, but that is stretching my cognitive powers though it is my philosophical view when modified with panpsychism as it is compatible in my mind with emergent qualities from organization and complexities which I can deal with, at least until smoke comes out of my ears.
Young earth creationists deny the age presented in the geological record claiming a flood of, uh, biblical proportions can account for the geological record. My point here is to show that even an observation/conclusion of the geological record can be denied in certain worldviews. I figure the evolutionary worldview will accomplish the most in the least amount of time in the effort to combat pain, suffering and early death. Others figure the creationist view will prevail in the long run. I just don’t know your worldview. And I’m reluctantly glad of it. You’ve forced me to study and refresh my info pool.
Distribution of alleles within noncompetitive locci(sp?) compared to distribution of alleles in locci where there is a competitive advantage for one allele over another is a much better proof for natural selection. Most other forms of evolution are self evident (mutation, genetic drift, etc..)
I spell it loci but I’m not sure if that is technically the plural or not. I’m as much an authority on it as a coal miner can be. Maybe I’d bet a nickel on it.
I’m most fascinated by the recent field of epigenetics. Appears to me that the environmental factors that can turn on or off the phenotypic expression of a heterozygous gene at a recessive allele’s locus is possibly where the competitive advantage plays itself out with natural selection in the time before sexual maturity or before procreation occurs. The complicated part in sexual animals, humans in particular, is that the formation of the female human’s eggs while a foetus in the womb well before they have gone thru meiotic division (done after the sperm enters) is sensitive to the diet and other epigenetic influences from her mother’s diet and environment, whereas in men the sensitive time is a week or so before an insemination occurs, as the sperm develops undergoing meiotic division. At these times is when an offsprings DNA is formed that it can be acted on. Once combined in fertilization the resultant zygote has the epigenetic factors of its own as well as the environment presented by the mother’s womb that will effect gene expression. Much going on in epigenetics. Much to think about philosophically about epigenetics with whether religion or science is the more capable to determine the significant epigenetic influences and have the standing to exert social pressure to effect positive epigenetic changes on the population.
Whew. Maybe I should stick to coal mining or poetry. lol