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

by dhw, Sunday, March 17, 2019, 15:01 (1868 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I did not throw out pre-programming as a reasonable theory. […]

dhw: I described how your bacteria apparently distribute programmes for the whole of evolution, and you found it very funny. If my description was inaccurate, please tell us how else they could have done it.

DAVID: Bacteria don't do anything with future use of the genome. They only have access to what they are programmed to use. Whenever advances in speciation occur, it is due to activation of a portion of the genome for that advance.

You still haven’t told us how bacteria could have passed on billions of programmes for evolution if they only had access to their own. And I keep repeating that my hypothesis has nothing to do with FUTURE use of the genome but proposes that speciation is the result of responses to new conditions.

dhw: If, over millions of years, your God specially designed big toes, pelvises, mini brains and maxi brains and all the other bits and pieces that distinguish H. sapiens from pre-hominins, you have a stage by stage or itty-bitty design of H. sapiens.

DAVID: Yes, God designs parts, but then H. habilis jumps to H. erectus with all those parts which have now been designed for change in place. You have tried to introduce itty-bitty where it does not exist. You know full well all major speciation introduces gaps!

Of course there are gaps. But if your always-in-control God’s one and only purpose was to design the brain of Homo sapiens, and he designed a succession of mini and less mini brains before designing the maxi brain, that is itty-bitty design. Ditto all the other bits and pieces passed on from hominins to humans to H. sapiens.

DAVID: 90% of scientists are atheists. What interpretation did you expect? Remember the chances are still either/or.

dhw: You asked me what “more and more” scientists, and I have told you! So now you do a complete volte face and tell us that 90% of scientists reject your automaticity but let’s not listen to them because they are atheists!

DAVID: I will interpret sources as I evaluate their biases! Still 50/50.

Fine. But please stop telling me that there is only a “tiny list” of scientists who support the concept of cellular intelligence.

DAVID: The final description of a scientific theory requires a paradigm shift due to enough convincing discoveries (Kuhn) and we are obviously not at that point in the known facts. It is still 50/50 although a majority try to say that cells show intelligence in their activities. Yes, they do, but it can be automatic from intelligent instruction/information.

So when you told me I was quoting a “tiny list” of scientists, you actually meant the majority of scientists, and it is your scientists who constitute the tiny list. But I’m happy with your odds of 50/50. I’m just unhappy with your claim that science supports you.

DAVID (under “Biological complexity”): There is lots of cross talk and communication between all parts of the cells:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00792-9?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_c...

DAVID: All of this is automatic activity as the cell produces its products. A complex going factory. Huge article, hard to compress.

dhw: […] I keep pointing out that most cellular activity has to be automatic if a particular system is to survive intact, and intelligence will only be applied (a) when the system first comes into existence, and (b) when there are new conditions, e.g. new problems to be solved or new opportunities to be exploited. In my hypothesis, that is when cross talk and communication – essential elements of intelligent cooperation – precede intelligent decision-making, which in turn produces more automatic activity as new instructions are implemented. [David’s bold]

DAVID: […] And what I can see is that you are describing the exact need for design and a designer. Our only experiences always show is that such complex systems require design and a designer.

And my proposal is that cell communities are the designers who design the design. But the cell communities themselves may have been designed by your God.

Under “Magic embryology”
QUOTES: That mounting evidence is leading some biologists to a bold hypothesis: that where information is concerned, cells might often find solutions to life’s challenges that are not just good but optimal — that cells extract as much useful information from their complex surroundings as is theoretically possible.

"How the cells do it remains a mystery. Right now, “the whole thing is kind of wonderful and magical…”

DAVID: Note the important use of information which is guiding the making of an embryo. A blueprint exists in an orchestrated mass of stimuli. As in a symphony, it has to written by a composer.

As you rightly say, it is USE of information that guides the process. Cells extract information and then USE it to find solutions to life’s challenges. How they do it is a mystery. You propose a 3.8-billion-year-old “blueprint” for every undabbled solution and new development throughout life’s history, though you have not yet explained how every single blueprint could have been passed on by bacteria who only had access to their own. Well, maybe...just maybe...the magic stems from a possibly God-designed mechanism known as cellular intelligence.