Logic and evolution; an addendum (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, July 27, 2016, 16:09 (2822 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: More thoughts about this issue:-I believe humans are different in kind, both in body form upright posture, and in their giant brain, which is as different from other brains as any other difference we can find. As an example look at the hyrax and the elephant. They are close relatives genetically, but that's hard to believe, and I've seen both. The percentages I've given re' the DNA in chimps and humans, 98% similar populations of bases, but only 78% practical applications, shows us how that works in mixing and matching bases to change the expression of information. Genes contain different information when they are transposed, reduplicated, or how much they are allowed to be expressed. The source of speciation has to lie in more fully understanding these mechanisms. My theories must use what we know, which I have presented.-I agree that we need to understand these mechanisms more fully in order to find the source of speciation. But how on earth can “what we know” be said to provide any sort of basis for the theory that all the information needed for evolution was present at the beginning, and speciation is caused by loss of information? All we know in that context is that adaptation can be accompanied by loss of information. We also know that cell communities can change their structure when their existing internal information makes adjustments in order to cope with NEW external information. If loss of information ACCOMPANIES adaptation and this allows you to theorize that loss of information CAUSES innovation, I can certainly theorize that whatever mechanism enables cell communities to adapt to new information might also enable them to exploit that information in order to innovate.-xxxx-DAVID: I have a new study that defines these molecular and gene controls over cell division. Note the headline which uses the word 'decision' and feedback loop:

http://phys.org/news/2016-07-nota-cellular-feedback-loop-enables.html-David's comment: This all sounds very automatic and controlled to me. The only part of the reactions that might fit the issue of conscious action or 'thought' is the role of the genes in these reactions, what proteins they code for, and whether the gene is repressed in transcription or increased in expression by these molecular relationships. We know genes code for protein production, but how they might be exerting other influences is not yet discovered. Note that the molecules themselves increase or decrease gene function!-As always, you focus on systems that are already functional and established. You and I are full of functional, established systems that work automatically. Only when something goes wrong or when there is a change in conditions is there the possibility that what works automatically will have to change. Nobody as far as I know claims that all cells are constantly thinking about what they do! There are two approaches here. Firstly, scientists set problems which take organisms out of their known environment, to see if they have the “intelligence” to solve those problems. You accept such tests when they are carried out with our fellow animals and birds, but the lower down the scale we go (e.g. to ants to bacteria to plants), the less prepared you are to acknowledge the results. Secondly, we are trying to identify the possible mechanism that leads to evolutionary innovation - i.e. all those individual physical elements which at one time never existed before and which in the course of time accumulate to produce all the different species. This is not a matter of WHAT the genes do, but a matter of what makes them do it, i.e. what guides the physical mechanisms to create the new organ. Your theory is that God has preprogrammed the mechanism or operates it through personal intervention. Mine is that they operate the mechanism themselves. An analysis of all the chemical processes will not give you a clue as to how cell communities (organisms) are able to solve new problems and to create new structures.