factual

C. elegans wiring is over-complicated and unexplained

The C. elegans wiring diagram is far more complicated than it needs to be; a human engineer designing a 300-neuron behavioral network would not produce something like it, and most of its many wires have no known purpose.

factualpending

Speaker

Jeff Lichtman

Evidence Quote

if a human had to design a 300 nerve cell behavioral network, it wouldn't look like C. Elegans. It has way more wires, and most of them, we don't really know why they're there.

Source

298 | Jeff Lichtman on the Wiring Diagram of the BrainSean Carroll's Mindscape
Created: 6/13/2026, 12:30:16 AM

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