Proving common descent (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, November 05, 2012, 22:24 (4378 days ago) @ dhw

NB The more we discuss this topic, the more convinced I become that the explanation for all the flaws you and I see in Darwin's theory (reliance on chance, gradualism, gaps in the fossil record, the Cambrian Explosion) lies in an inventive intelligence within the organisms themselves. That is why I am so eager to find out the terms YOU would use to describe how the mechanism works and where the intelligence lies.-You are asking the $64K question. So we know that bacteria are very adaptable, according to Shapiro, using epigenetics. We know that multicellular organisms can adapt and that epgenetics plays a role. But as I indicated we do not know how somatic cells signal genetic cells to change DNA and how that is then inheritated by making the genome changes stable, and not transient. Again using the guppies: if small guppies are put in a stream where predators prefer small sizes, them obviously the larger will survive, but the entire population changes in a two year period, faster than mutation rates, indicating a rapid response within the guppies. The certainly smells like an intelligent response. In higher forms there are alarm responses in the brain, and perhaps this is how it the changes are initiated. I really don't know of a theory as to how this is done.