My thanks to David for his comprehensive answers to my questions concerning horizontal gene transfer, and especially about Steve Talbott's article on the genome ... with its intriguing reference to "the misbegotten hope for a non-lifelike foundation of life". 
> 
> You remark at the end: "We need to follow this fellow [Talbott ... he has two Ts]. I'll bet he discusses design in future articles."
> 
> I think you're right ... in which case, the "non-lifelike foundation" may yet turn out to be a metaphorical shot in the theological foot!-I insist that his metaphore refers to the 'hope' of atheist scientists. His article refutes them all the way down. Life is the foundation of life in life's chemistry. The scientists have wounded feet!

David drew our attention to an article about the genome, one aspect of which I have queried, as its ramifications are enormous. 
> > 
> > DAVID: I don't think he ever said that life did not come from inorganic materials.
> > 
> > The symphonic image and the complexity of the genome are clear, but there are two passages that aren't. You've repeated one of my quotes: "things do not become simpler, less organic, less animate." The other quote ends: "[Molecular biologists] are writing "finis" to the misbegotten hope for a non-lifelike foundation of life, even if the fact hasn't yet been widely announced. It is, I think, time for the announcement."
> 
> Your first quote is right on 'his' mark. With the discovery of the triplet code in DNA, many atheistic scientists assumed they had found the Rosetta Stone of genetics. Far from it, the new research is revealing an enormous number of layers, and when the molecles are 'watched' in their dance of coding and control, each type of molecule acts as if it has a life of its own. Not exactly true but it looks like it. Those molecules are under tight controls. But the choreography is at a level of a great ballet company doing Nutcracker. Nothing 'looks' inorganic. Nothing is simple. And he expects that further research will only make the schemata more and more complex. Quote 2 is a metaphor for giving up on Darwin from his the original suppositions: 'misbegotten hope for a non-lifelike foundation of life', parses as the foundation of life 'is life'. (Parallels his comment on turtles all the way down) 
> >
> What do you think is the announcement? 
> 
> Very simple: Life is alive in all the layers. It may have started from inorganic matter, but that matter has changed into an animate-like construction of extreme complexity in which the organization of the parts has resulted in an emergence of living matter, most highly developed in the human brain with so-far unexplained consciousness. Like Stuart Kauffman's theories of emergence from complex systems. There is no simple explanation for this observation. The parts are so carefully intertwined chance construction is extremely unlikely. It looks 'irreducably complex'. 
> 
> We need to follow this fellow (Talbot). I'll bet he discusses design in future articles.
> 
> 
> > Thank you for the latest posts about horizontal gene transfer. This appears to shed light on how prokaryotes adapt to changing conditions, but does it have any bearing on the emergence of totally new organs and species? (I'm asking because I'm not sure whether I've understood all the implications.)-Prokaryotes can have horizontal gene transfer. These are single-celled organisms. Eukaryotes are multicelled. They have organs, and there is some small evidence for gene transfer at this level of development. Prokaryotes can form new species with gene transfer, but the evidence of gene transfer forming new organs in eukaryotes does not exist. And I doubt we will find evidence for this.

David drew our attention to an article about the genome, one aspect of which I have queried, as its ramifications are enormous. 
> 
> DAVID: I don't think he ever said that life did not come from inorganic materials.
> 
> The symphonic image and the complexity of the genome are clear, but there are two passages that aren't. You've repeated one of my quotes: "things do not become simpler, less organic, less animate." The other quote ends: "[Molecular biologists] are writing "finis" to the misbegotten hope for a non-lifelike foundation of life, even if the fact hasn't yet been widely announced. It is, I think, time for the announcement."-Your first quote is right on 'his' mark. With the discovery of the triplet code in DNA, many atheistic scientists assumed they had found the Rosetta Stone of genetics. Far from it, the new research is revealing an enormous number of layers, and when the molecles are 'watched' in their dance of coding and control, each type of molecule acts as if it has a life of its own. Not exactly true but it looks like it. Those molecules are under tight controls. But the choreography is at a level of a great ballet company doing Nutcracker. Nothing 'looks' inorganic. Nothing is simple. And he expects that further research will only make the schemata more and more complex. Quote 2 is a metaphor for giving up on Darwin from his the original suppositions: 'misbegotten hope for a non-lifelike foundation of life', parses as the foundation of life 'is life'. (Parallels his comment on turtles all the way down) 
>
 What do you think is the announcement? -Very simple: Life is alive in all the layers. It may have started from inorganic matter, but that matter has changed into an animate-like construction of extreme complexity in which the organization of the parts has resulted in an emergence of living matter, most highly developed in the human brain with so-far unexplained consciousness. Like Stuart Kauffman's theories of emergence from complex systems. There is no simple explanation for this observation. The parts are so carefully intertwined chance construction is extremely unlikely. It looks 'irreducably complex'. -We need to follow this fellow (Talbot). I'll bet he discusses design in future articles.-
> Thank you for the latest posts about horizontal gene transfer. This appears to shed light on how prokaryotes adapt to changing conditions, but does it have any bearing on the emergence of totally new organs and species? (I'm asking because I'm not sure whether I've understood all the implications.)