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0:00
My name is Bernd Schierwater.
And I'd like to introduce you to my
favorite animal, Trichoplax, today.
Trichoplax is a very
exciting animal, as I
will show you
during this lecture.
And the title of the lecture
is "Trichoplax and the Origin
of Animal Complexity."
0:19
Basically, I have only main message.
But this message is quite simple.
All I have to say is in evolution,
complex patterns usually
evolve from more basic patterns.
And of course, there
are other opinions.
But no matter what politicians
or religions tell us,
I think in the normal case,
we should stick with this method
that complexity evolves
from basic patterns.
0:47
So I have a simple example here.
And the example is
mobile phone evolution.
And I think we have good evidence
that mobile phone evolution went
from big and simple
to smaller, and even
smaller, and even more complex.
But the good proof is
easy to obtain simply
because mobile phone evolution
occurred within the lifetime
of a human being.
1:14
In evolution is a little
more complicated.
But the principle is the same just
that you don't have direct evidence,
we cannot observe
it in lifetime, while
we depend on indirect evidence.
But nonetheless, I make the claim
that even in animal evolution,
everything started with elementary
bauplans and very simple.
And from there,
we went from Trichoplax
all the way down there, for example,
through cnidarians to bilaterians.
And this is the point
I'm going to Illustrate.
Actually, I am going to enter
the lecture with an idea
how we can transform the little
Trichoplax down at the very bottom
into another bauplan much more
complex like the two shown here.
