Hi, thanks for actually using rational arguments, unlike regal.
Originally Posted by rsaavedra
Percentage of genes shared is not the same as the operational complexity of different genetic machineries.
This is correct; indeed, there is quite a lot of junk DNA (though whether some of it may in fact play a part; it's controversial). Nonetheless, it's useful for the
order of magnitude comparison I was making.
Moreover, in multicellular organisms there are extra complexities associated to ongoing interactions and interregulations between cells and tissues
Sorry, but from a systems perspective, these processes simply replace the domain of the environment of the single-celled organism. The single-celled being has to deal with an environment of air/water/soil/whatever, whereas the cell of a multi-cellular organism deals with an environment of others of its kind (which obviously is just a refinement of the colony environments that some of the single-celled organisms form).
Now, there's also the point that operational complexity of a genetic code may not necessarily be the best measure of evolutionary advancement.
It's not a measure of it at all. I've already provided a number of citations for actual evolutionary success measures, such as percentage of total biomass and adaptability.
Depends on how biologists choose to define evolutionary advancement or "success".
The definitions I've referenced are not arbitrary, since they are a direct consequence of what evolution actually is, an optimization algorithm directed by varying environment.