Life's biologic complexity: Automatic molecular actions (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, December 06, 2016, 10:15 (2691 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: …You can’t explain why God didn’t start with humans. My hypothesis offers an explanation. So once more: please tell me what aspect of my hypothesis does NOT fit the facts of the history of evolution.

DAVID: You are correct. Your hypothesis fits the history. What I have done is to keep attacking your basic assumptions about cellular intelligence, based on a few hyperbolic statements by a few scientists, and your apparent lack of recognition of the need for precise planning in advance for the complexity I've demonstrated. Because it fits the history by no means shows it is anywhere near a correct possibility.

Perhaps I’d better repeat some of the areas my hypothesis covers, in contrast to your own: “With this scenario, there is no need to explain why the weaverbird’s nest is essential to the existence of humans, why God had to specially design and then deliberately destroy 99% of species in order to produce humans, or how God’s “total control” can be reconciled with the possibility that he does not control the environment.” These are huge gaps in your reasoning, which are covered by my own. I don’t have an axe to grind. I am looking for an explanation that fills the gaps. You are quite right to cast doubt on the question of just how inventive cellular intelligence might be. We don’t know. That is why it is NOT a basic assumption, but a hypothesis, just like divine preprogramming and/or dabbling of all innovations and natural wonders. (I wonder how many scientists support that hypothesis!) The claim that the various experts in the field are guilty of “hyperbolic” statements is pure prejudice. You don’t know. It’s 50/50.

For some reason you are always desperate to stress “planning in advance”, but as I keep pointing out, organisms react to the environment. The same applies both to adaptation and to innovation: until the environment demands or is suitable for change, the adaptation or invention cannot take place. We KNOW that organisms can change their genome in order to adapt. That is not advance planning, it is a reaction. What we don’t know is whether they can make the more complex changes involved in innovation. But it is a possibility that they can. And if they can, it explains the whole history of evolution with no gaps. You are quite correct: that does not mean it is right. But an explanation that “fits the history” merits at least as much serious consideration as one that doesn’t.