Cell response to electric field (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 20:13 (4044 days ago) @ dhw
edited by unknown, Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 20:51

dhw: Stop running away, cowboy, and draw!-I don't run. We are talking at cross purposes and two different levels.
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> dhw:The hypothesis of the intelligent genome/cell removes two weak links in Darwin's theory: gradualism and random mutations. In the sections you've skipped, I've used your example of the flycatching sundew plus your comment: "God did not have to fiddle. The genome did it all by itself, it was so smart given the information God implanted into DNA in the beginning." There could hardly be a clearer endorsement that there's a mechanism (perhaps invented by your God) within the genome that independently and intelligently does its own innovating. How can this be "beside the point"?-Your statement is correct as long as you accept that the innovation is an automatic response to the environmental stress causing it. The cell responds to imbedded information, and does no thinking on its own. 
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> dhw: IF cellular matter is not conscious, and intelligence includes consciousness, then of course it's not intelligent. Your "IF" is precisely what we're discussing! I'll accept your definition, though, so long as we don't anthropomorphize cells. The invention of a new organ requires 1) learned knowledge and consciousness of the environment;-Consciousness in this case is an automatic chemical response by cellular molecules, which trigger the change. -> dhw: 2) learned knowledge and consciousness of what is and is not possible within that environment, and of what the organism will and will not be capable of;-Sounds like you have the cell thinking. It can't.-> dhw: 3) thought that will use this information to create a new organ that will function. That, in my hypothesis. is how the genome produces the innovations that enable evolution to happen.-Again, the cell is thinking. Impossible.-> dhw: And that, by your definition, constitutes intelligence. Your alternative explanations are chance, and God's preprogramming or individual creation of every single innovation in the history of life. You've rejected these alternatives, so please tell us why the "smart" genome which "did it all by itself" is not smart and did not do it all by itself.-Because you persist in not seeing the progression of events to prepare for evolution. God in His intelligence coded DNA to contain all the information cells would need to respond to the environment and complexify as necessary. the cell molecules respond automatically.
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> DAVID: This is my key concept. It is concept presented by the Intelligent Design folks. Cells are not intelligent. They are filled with information they are programmed to use. This is all automatic. Just how this is accomplished is still not fully understood, and that is the research the mainstream scientists are referring to when they refer to the cells acting intelligently.
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> dhw: So when McClintock writes "a goal for the future would be to determine the extent of knowledge the cell has of itself", and when Talbott dismisses the idea of the cell as an "automatism", apparently they are really saying the cell is an automaton with no knowledge of itself. Come on, David, you can do better than that.-You are misinterpreting Mc Clintock: She does not know the extent of self-knowledge within the cell, if any, but is saying the issue has to be explored, to be sure we are not missing anything. Talbott may dismiss 'automatism' but that is his way of accommodating his philosophy. In my mind his theory is simply wrong, but his objections to Darwinism are correct. Simply put, if you accept my scenario, God has to exist.