@ Dan:

Thanks for the nice examples, Dan. I didn't hear about them before. The variaty of the nature surprises again and again.

Octopus' behavior:

The question is about intelligence. My opinion: looking at fitness (in the sense of assimilation to a fast changing environment) evolution is very slow when you compare it to intelligence. In consequence, when a species got more not pre-determined neurons than others, it gives a competitive edge.

Considering the octupus' intelligence and the shapes of the birds' nests and the symbiosis of the tube worm and the bacteria, there is this high improbability that such complex systems could develop.
Science, or scientists are aware of this. Improbabilities are a common term within science as far as I know.
The mentioned theories of neg-entropy and self-referential systems, or call it cybernetics or theory of deterministic chaos, IMHO give answers.


@ Irish Farmer:

On doubts in science:

Doubts are normal in science, they are the base of science. Doubts and curiosity. Develop a theorie, and you'll have a doubter! That means, to find a doubter of a theory doesn't mean that a theory isn't true. Within science there is a competition of theories. But wether a theory establishs depends on observations and investigations, and on the simplissity how the theory integrates them into a coherence of explanations.
As far as I heard within a discussion with a biologist, there is a lot discussion among biologists about the details within the evolution theory, but not about evolution in general.
Another word about doubts: As everything in our modern world science can only work because of division of labour/distribution of tasks, that means that scientific recognition depends on a huge amount of information which no single person can validate on his own. And this in addition means that it relies on trust that the other researchers did their job well, and that other scientists proved there work etc.
In your posts, Irish Farmer, your are not only doubting of evolution, you doubt about results of the geology, and you doubt about results of astronomy and physics.
You are doubting of millions of man hours of investigations of competiting men and women - you seem indeed to construct a conspiracy theory.


@ Nitro:

I will try to get the book of James Gleick, but it is not available in Europe at the price as in America. I'm too busy until end of next week to buy it.