Proving common descent (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 06, 2012, 18:11 (4377 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: 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.-DAVID: 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 epigenetics 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 inherited by making the genome changes stable, and not transient. -You have almost answered the $64K question, though nowadays perhaps it should be the $1m question. If somatic cells signal genetic cells to change DNA, and this is done permanently, then we can attribute evolution as we know it to interaction between intelligent cells (somatic and genetic). The original eye, for instance, sprang from one such interaction, and was then followed by a wide variety of eyes, because eye cells (somatic) signalled to genetic cells to try something different. The alternative to this explanation is that God created each innovation separately (Creationist), or each innovation was the result of a random mutation (Darwinist). How the cells "think" and communicate and stabilize themselves is another question, which will indeed need to be answered, and on receipt of your multi-million pound donation (I don't trust the dollar) to the DHW Research Foundation, I will start my experiments at once.-Meanwhile, consider the enormous explanatory powers of this hypothesis:
1) Evolution does NOT depend on random mutations, although it does depend to a degree on the randomness of changes in the environment. 
2) Gradualism goes out of the window, because any innovation must take place within an existing creature and must function straight away if it is to survive. However, once the innovation functions, there may well be many more versions of it over any period of time as different communities of cells do their own thing with it (parallel to the original wheel, and subsequent inventions that use the wheel).
3) The fossil record does not show intermediate forms because there are none. There are only varieties. (Failed experiments, of course, will not survive.)
4) The Cambrian explosion was the result of cell communities (organisms) responding to new environmental conditions (perhaps an increase in oxygen) which permitted a whole range of inventions that would not have been possible in the old environment.-This one hypothesis answers all four major objections to Darwin's theory. And theists and atheists can still argue to their hearts' content over whether the intelligent cell could or could not have assembled itself by chance.-Give me a nice positive response, and I may consider sharing my Nobel Prize with you.