More Denton: Reply to David (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, July 23, 2015, 20:19 (3201 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: The contrast between the pre-Cambrian and the Cambrian continues to become greater. This is really the main gap to discuss. There is no good reason foundso far for the giant leap in complexity.
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> dhw: Agreed. One theory is that there was a major change in the environment which provided a vast increase in opportunities for cell communities to use their autonomous, inventive intelligence. Another theory is that there is a supernatural power which preprogrammed every change 3.8 billion years ago, or which suddenly started monkeying around with the different cell communities.-One last time. In the Cambrian, from no predecessors, animal appear with fully developed functional organ systems, and those systems are integrated and cooperating. It is beyond my belief system that this occurred by cooperating cells simply jumping together in an organized fashion. Yes increased oxygen allowed the advance, but cellular adaptations through epigenetics are so far demonstrated to be small changes, not giant leaps implied by the fossil record.
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> DAVID: Shotgun is a good word. In your method cells make blind attempts at improvements by changes, and seeing what survives in natural competition. The giant changes in the Cambrian defy your theory to work.
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> dhw: My response to your last post argued that the attempts were anything but blind. Just as the mechanism for adaptation is precisely targeted, so too would the intelligent cell community use prevailing conditions to work out new ways of exploiting them. Humans do the same (and also fail as well as succeed).-Now you are equating cellular planning with the human ability to plan! Really?
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> dhw: The Cambrian illustrates why gradualism doesn't work. Exquisite planning applies to all organs, organisms, and Nature's Wonders. However, your assumption seems to be that only God and humans are capable of exquisite planning. -For me that is the natural assumption.-
> dhw: I'm glad you realize that your view entails informing professional biologists that they don't understand biologic complexity at the basic physiologic levels.-That is not what I have said. They know physiology of cells as well as I do. I have a right to a different interpretation, as do you.
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> dhw: All forms of communication and physical action, including our own, involve some kind of material process, but that does not explain the decision-making that precedes the communication and action.-I don't follow this statement. Surely we all understand how humans investigate, conclude and plan from those conclusions.-> 
> DAVID: I don't see the difference. If the humans are so much more complex, why not view them as the pinnacle of evolution?
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> dhw: You are assuming that evolution has finished, but even if it has, what do you mean by the “pinnacle"? We have the most complex brain. So our brain is the most complex brain of evolution.-Pinnacle in the sense of highest achievement of evolutionary changes. Stopped? I don't know, but I think likely.-> dhw:The dog has the most complex nose (I think). So the dog has the most complex nose of evolution. When you learn to flap your arms and fly three thousand miles non-stop in five days, you may even claim to have reached the evolutionary peak of long-distance flying. So what is the criterion for the pinnacle? -The pinnacle of the arrival of consciousness and human mentation, which is still totally unexplained, as Nagel points out.-> dhw:But to return to “the main thrust of my comment” which you are still dodging, and to use your pinnacle metaphor quite literally, the fact that Everest is the highest mountain does not mean that your God's purpose in creating the universe was to produce Everest.-You are reduced to word games. How many dogs (with their noses) climb Everest. By the way I've flown by the peak. We humans do know how to fly and flapping winged machines are being planned as we debate, according to an article a couple days ago..