Life as Evolving Software... (Chaitin) (Humans)

by David Turell , Monday, December 26, 2011, 15:08 (4515 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: I find this discussion a bit confusing. I thought David was attacking gradualism, without which Darwin said his theory would fail. I can’t find any proposal in David’s posts that there’s anything other than a generation 1 to generation 2 mechanism. His divine pre-planning theory does not mean that each new species had to be created from scratch! But perhaps David would clarify this vital point himself.

I haven't changed. My pre-planning theory involves a guidance mechanism, yet to be discovered,in DNA, which gives us the drive to complexity in evolution. My main contention remains the same: 1) bacteria are still here and thriving over a 3.5 billion year history. Why did more complexity occur? It doesn't appear to be necessary. 2) the other primates are the same over 6 million years, and except for our incursions into their habitat, they are surviving nicely. So why the amazing advance to us big-headed guys. From all evidence it wasn't necessary. And it represents punctuated equilibrium to me. Gould is very reasonable in his point of view. 3) and Natural Selection never demands these advances. It acts like the 'sorting hat' in Harry Potter.