More Denton: Reply to David (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, July 29, 2015, 21:38 (3195 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: 'Direct explanation' does not [offer a] correct explanation. Action by God is just as direct.
> 
> dhw: Nobody knows the correct explanation, but direct “action” is not the issue..... My hypothesis explains the diversity because in its theistic version, God gives organisms the wherewithal to do their own thing.-You are reasonably close to my view. We mortals cannot tell the difference between God helping organisms evolve either by direction or by an onboard mechanism for planning that He gives them.-> 
> dhw: The issue is not the origin of the original code (which may or may not be God's doing), but the mechanism that drives evolution. In my hypothesis, once the intelligent cells existed they would have learned from experience, and once they cooperated, they would also have learned from schooling (i.e. from one another's experiences).-Do we know how cells transmit learned information and process it without brain function? Very nebulous to me. But we do know how cells function through biochemical reactions.-> 
> dhw: Once more: the theory of evolution does not deal with the source of life and intelligence (which may or may not be your God), and nor does my hypothesis of the intelligent cell as its driving force. According to your hypothesis, what enables cells/cell communities to innovate is some kind of computer programme devised by God, which may look like intelligence but isn't. According to mine (theistic version), God gave the cells/cell communities intelligence.-Granted we don't know how life started, but the origin of life is entirely a part of what we must study. The first DNA must contain the information that drives evolution from the simple start to the more complex. That is what evolution has accomplished. Is that intelligence hiding in an undiscovered organelle in the cells we study or just part of the original DNA?-
>> dhw:the first cells would have had to pass on millions of computer programmes that would switch themselves on automatically in billions of individual organisms, thus creating every innovation leading from bacteria to us, including a sudden flurry of switching on during the Cambrian. Throughout the billions of years, the programmes would also have had to cope with any number of environments, or alternatively God would have had to preprogramme the environmental changes. The programmes set up in the first cells contained not only all the innovations from single cell to human, but also the instructions for complex habitats and lifestyles. Alternatively, God personally fiddled with the insides of all the organisms to transform them, and personally created programmes for their habitats and lifestyles once they had been preprogrammed into existence. I don't see this as simple. -And I don't see all of this as too complex for God, but you have doubts about God.
 
> dhw: Let's try a different analogy. .....And his cells also work out that he'll get around much better if they do some rejigging, so they produce legs where once he had fins.-The point you persist in missing (as obvious as your nose should be to you), is the geologic layers provide no time for experimentation. The new complex Cambrians are JUST THERE, as if out of thin air.-> dhw: My (hypothetical) intelligent mechanism exploits the opportunities provided by a new environment. A sudden major change in the environment could lead to a sudden burst of major innovations, but innovations that don't work straight away won't survive. That is the simple logic.-Then why was Darwin so worried about the 'Silurian' and posited that intermediate forms would be found, which they haven't? There is no known explanation for the GAP in steady development which is present throughout evolution at all other times.