LUCA latest: Shapiro redux (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, July 23, 2023, 13:07 (279 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: All we see are epigenetic editing, nothing close to speciation. Nothing 'major' in current research.

dhw: It’s a theory! Nobody knows how speciation happens! But if we know that “minor” autonomous editing does occur, why should we discount the possibility that “major” autonomous editing could also have occurred when conditions required it?

DAVID: "Major autonomous editing...when conditions required it" is what happened, but that 'why' does not tell us 'how' it happened.

Agreed. Thank you for repeating my bold. How does that come to mean we must discount the possibility that intelligent cells could have been the agents of major as well as known minor editing.

dhw: Meanwhile, what evidence has been found to prove the theoretical existence of a divine, 3.8-billion-year old programme for every innovation, lifestyle, strategy, natural wonder in the history of evolution. What evidence is there for an unknown, sourceless mind named God theoretically intervening to specially design every innovation etc. in the history of evolution (99% of which are/were irrelevant to what you say was his one and only purpose)?

DAVID: The evidence you recognize is complex design of living forms.

Hence the theory of intelligent cells doing their own designing, as opposed to your God’s 3.8-billion-year-old programme and/or his non-stop (and 99% irrelevant) dabbling.

DAVID: I faithfully presented Shapiro as an historical figure in the debate.

dhw: You faithfully quoted his exact summary of his theory, e.g. “evolutionary novelty arises from the production of new cell and multicellular structures as a result of cellular self-modification and cell fusions.” Stop pretending that I have “blown it up”.

DAVID: What you have blown up is that cells have the intelligence to create irreducible complexity in living forms.

I have never mentioned the “irreducible complexity” of anything. I have repeated word for word Shapiro’s theory, and added that it is perfectly possible that your God designed the original cells and their intelligence. Please stop dodging the issues and inventing arguments I have never used.

dhw: You have agreed that he would have researched work on other organisms before reaching his general conclusions.Stop pretending that his theory is only based on bacteria.

DAVID: Not true. It is your invention. What I agreed to is Shapiro was fully aware of other studies and research.

What is my invention? You agree to my bold, then you say it is not true, and then you repeat my bold!