Genome complexity: what genes do and don't do (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, February 26, 2019, 18:35 (1886 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Then I don’t understand your answer to my comment that cells produce instructions “de novo”. You said “that is true for what exists today”. If so, it means cells are intelligent today. You go on to say that before evolution was “completed” (I envy your foreknowledge of events over the next few billion years), it was all preprogramming and dabbles, which can only mean cells were not intelligent then.

dhw: Contrary to your comment above, this paper does offer an explanation of evolution: intelligent cells utilize the same genetic resources to develop new organs.

dhw: You claimed that the paper did not offer an explanation of evolution. It does – it clearly sides with Shapiro. But of course the explanation is a hypothesis or “guess”. And it’s a totally different guess from your own.

dhw: The quotes could hardly be clearer: these scientists agree with Shapiro that the underlying informational control mechanism is cellular intelligence, and that is what coordinates the massive set of processes. They have not said how this mechanism might have come into being in the first place, but I have consistently proposed that a possible source is your God. Of course none of this provides the conclusive evidence you are looking for in any hypothesis that contradicts your own unproven hypothesis, but I must thank you for illustrating yet again the fact that there are lots of modern scientists who now support the concept of cellular intelligence as the mechanism that runs evolution – as opposed to your 3.8 billion-year-old library of instructions.

dhw: The idea that the underlying informational control mechanism is cellular intelligence does not in any way exclude God or intelligent design, and in your discussions with me, your attempts to equate it with atheism and materialism are out of order. I am neither an atheist nor a materialist.

QUOTE: So it has been dawning on us is that there is no prior plan or blueprint for development: Instructions are created on the hoof, far more intelligently than is possible from dumb DNA. That is why today’s molecular biologists are reporting “cognitive resources” in cells; “bio-information intelligence”; “cell intelligence”; “metabolic memory”; and “cell knowledge”—all terms appearing in recent literature. “Do cells think?” is the title of a 2007 paper in the journal Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences. On the other hand the assumed developmental “program” coded in a genotype has never been described.[/i]

dhw: I am repeating this quote because time and again you have told me that only a small minority of scientists (I always name Margulis, McClintock, Buehler and Shapiro as my examples) support the concept of cellular intelligence, and everyone else is on your side. Apparently “today’s molecular scientists” are not on your side. But I must thank you yet again for your integrity in presenting papers which support my arguments.

I present this material because it can support either view, that is chance or design, which is exactly, in a sense, equal to my 50/50 interpretation of the cells activities independent decisions or designed responses. You have chosen as a middle road, cells are intelligent in and of themselves. This is a mental compromise which allows you to stand on both pillars, chance and design all at once. In your mind this allows chance cells to appear (somehow) on the scene, develop (somehow) the ability to design for the future and therefore facilitate speciation. Nice sidestep to my thinking. You get to keep chance and design without losing either.

I view chance and design as absolutely either/or. I throw out chance absolutely. Life had to be started by design. Cells can not design their own future, recognizing the giant changes required in form and physiology as shown by the huge gaps in the fossil record.

But in the current evolution stage we do see cells that appear to design. It is in immune and embryological processes. In immunity, B cells change their DNA to code for antibody production. Do they follow rigid protocols or make independent decisions? For me they follow dictated procedures or they might make fatal errors in judgment.

And in embryology the cells of the zygote reproduced accurately resultant progeny which are mostly exact replicas of parents. I've alluded to all the various factors: chemical, structural pressures, DNA input, etc., all working in a frantic mixture. The process reproduces human copies accurately by design. In humans we can find variations which are minor as shown in Grey's Anatomy, such as variations in vessel routes. I have a misplaced artery in the palm of my left hand, of no importance. If in the melee of fetus formation free-form decisions are not allowed to happen. Mistakes do happens as shown in the ' human monsters' that do appear at birth, but are generally caused by some environmental insult in the uterus. underlying design instructions are required. Somehow zygote cells follow directions in the factors listed as well as others.

So Shapiro et al are not wrong. Their conclusions are open to debate as I've described. They offer you a safe shore to row to so as to get away from the very specific either/or approach that I follow in these discussions.