An inventive mechanism (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, September 24, 2014, 15:28 (3496 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The alternative I have proposed is that there is a mechanism within the cells - you have placed it more precisely within the genome, which I'm happy to accept - that responds to environmental changes not only by adapting but also by inventing. -DAVID: It seems to me we are stating the same possibility, except you seem to want the cells to run the genome and it is the other way around.-I have never in my life, let alone on this forum, suggested that the cells run the genome. I took the concept of “the intelligent cell” from several researchers, and a year or two ago, on one of those occasions when you quite liked the idea, you said the intelligence must lie within the genome, which I accepted. (The genome is within the cell, and would therefore be the equivalent of the brain within the body.) It's not the cell that's the focal point of the hypothesis but the intelligent, inventive mechanism. However, whenever we get close to agreement, you continually scurry back to preprogramming. Here is an exchange between us under “How epigenetics works”, Jan 8 & Jan 9 2013 (yep, we've been gnawing this bone for a long time)hw: Unless your god preprogrammed the original “genome structure” to come up specifically with legs, wings, penises, vaginas, noses, eyes, livers, kidneys, teeth, tongue, brains etc., there has to be an inventive mechanism with takes its own decisions as and when environmental conditions are favourable for the introduction of such organs. -I then asked if you thought it possible that innovation was caused by “the inventive intelligence of the genome”. You replied: “Yes I think God designed a genome mechanism to respond in a rather automatic and autonomic fashion to environmental changes. The cells are not intelligent...do not wilfully make changes of their own. They are programmed to do so.”-Notice, it was you and not me who switched from the genome to the cells, and of course “automatic and autonomic” are a far, far cry from autonomous decision-making. On 22 March 2013 under “Trilobite eyes” you wrote: “My intelligent genome is not your intelligent genome. My genome has underlying information and intelligent application of that information, planned to be that way. [...] Your ‘intelligence' has no characteristics of anything recognizable as a conscious planning mind…”
I replied: “...In your version the genome is an automaton programmed by God to adapt and innovate “when it has to”. [This was a quote, but I can't find it.] In my version it is not an automaton, but is able to make its own decisions.”-That has always been the difference between us: your automatic and my autonomous, and you continue to climb on and off your own evolutionary picket fence. On 17 August you expressed doubts about your 3.7-billion-year computer programme and about your dabbling God theory, and wrote: “I like your self-inventing built into the mechanism” and “The idea of an inventive mechanism being present makes sense.” On September 1st you scurried away again: “I initially misused the concept of inventive mechanism as I was thinking out loud. I have defined it now as a set of preplanned instructions for a new species in some still hidden area of the genome. I expect it to be found.” You know as well as I do that ‘inventive' does not mean following preplanned instructions.-In your latest post, you have at least incorporated it as a third possibility (previously, you were confined to two: preprogramming versus God dabbling). However, you now define it as: “inventive mechanism, which is a variation of pre-programming and can create the new complex species by analysis and planning, following given guidelines.” And you think my concept is fuzzy! How can an inventive mechanism be a variation of preprogramming? What given guidelines? You are playing with words. (And no, I can't describe the mechanism. How do you describe a mechanism that has yet to be discovered and may not even be there? It's a hypothesis, not a scientific thesis.) There are restrictions, but these are not guidelines: the organism must be able to cope with its environment, and a worm is unlikely to be able to change itself into an eagle, or a crocodile, or a human. -The hypothesis, once more, is that along the route from bacteria to humans, cell combinations (directed by the intelligent, inventive mechanism your God may have installed within the genome) have over millions of years autonomously, independently, intelligently, without any preprogramming, without any given instructions, and in accordance with prevailing environmental conditions, created each innovation that has led to this vast diversity. If you insist on these nebulous, preprogramming dilutions, I definitely shan't share the prize money with you. Unless, of course, you are able to use your scientific knowledge to describe precisely how my inventive mechanism or your 3.7 billion-year-old computer programme or your God's dabbling works. If you can, the prize is all yours. If you can't, please don't expect me to!