Cell response to electric field (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, April 19, 2013, 14:18 (4237 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Questions:
1) If the genome invented whales without being preprogrammed, how do you know it didn't also invent bonobos without being preprogrammed? 
DAVID: It did.DNA is programmed only to respond to changes.-Let's start again. You think God preplanned the human bush (which would include bonobos), and left the rest to inventive DNA, although DNA has no intelligence of its own. Please explain how to differentiate between the invention of unplanned, unpreprogrammed whales and the invention of planned, preprogrammed bonobos. If there's no difference, how do you know that the human bush was planned and preprogrammed and the rest was not?-2) If God's preprogramming of bonobos depended on unpredictable changes in the environment, is it not true to say that the evolution of the human bush depended on chance?
DAVID: Possibly, but note my comment above. The whole thing smells of teleology.-It smells of your anthropocentric teleology if you sprinkle a branch or two of the bush with Chanel Homo Sapiens. It smells of higgledy-piggledy if you sniff the bush as a whole. You'd have a better case, I think, if you opted for higgledy-piggledy as your teleology (e.g. your God experimenting, having fun, and/or leaving everything to his intelligent invention the genome, instead of all this alleged preprogramming of the human branch).-3) Bearing in mind that Darwin's theory allows for your God creating the first forms of life and the mechanisms for evolution, and if you believe that unpreprogrammed, unconscious, unintelligent DNA could invent all the complex innovations necessary to create flycatchers, whales and brontosauruses, why can't you believe that random mutations could do the same thing? 
DAVID: Because most mutations are not beneficial, and the time line is too short to allow for Darwin's gradualism. Note punctuated equilibrium, and all species arrive de novo in the fossil record. Epigenetics is a part of the genome which came at the origin of life.-Sorry, my question was badly phrased, but you missed out my parenthesis saying I find both scenarios equally unbelievable. I agree that random mutations are not credible, but you haven't given any reason for believing the equally incredible hypothesis that an unpreprogrammed, unconscious, unintelligent mechanism could invent all the complex innovations necessary to create flycatchers, whales and brontosauruses.
 
4) If an unpreprogrammed organism perceives, responds, solves problems, calculates what it is capable of doing in a given environment, and then invents something totally new and functional, what else would it need for you to acknowledge its "intelligence"?
DAVID: You refuse to acknowledge my scenario. The DNA is an automaton using the information it is given.-Yes, I refuse to acknowledge your scenario, and you refuse to tell me what else the genome would need for you to acknowledge its "intelligence". In order to invent something totally new and functional, I maintain that it requires intelligence to use the information available. (Isn't that the whole basis of ID?) Automatons cannot innovate! They can only obey instructions. But you say the whale was not preplanned ... in which case the genome was not instructed to produce whales. McClintock (Nobel-Prize-winning geneticist): "A goal for the future would be to determine the extent of knowledge the cell has of itself." Why do you insist that you already know the answer, and the answer is NONE? Why not keep an open mind?
 
5) How do you know that the consciousness of the human 'soul' exists but the consciousness of the genome does not?
DAVID: I have faith the human soul exists, but consciousness is related only to nervous tissue. -What does "related to" mean? If, as you believe, the soul is conscious and survives the death of nervous tissues, consciousness can only be in the form of energy ... see David Turell, 18 April: "All at an energy level. No material parts."-DAVID: However, since the quantum network pervades the universe, it may have some effect upon individual molecules in a way that science has not yet discovered.-Yes indeed. If our consciousness is all energy and can direct our material parts, maybe "in a way that science has not yet discovered" this energy exists on a micro level and can direct the material parts of the cell. I'm not asking you to believe it ... only to be as open-minded as McClintock.-dhw: Why leap so decisively into such quicksands of illogic when you can sit safely on the fence with me and contemplate other options with calm and rational detachment?
DAVID: Because I can only see one side of your picket fence as rational. I only see your head in the sand.-I am sitting on a fence. Unless my fence has sunk below ground level (in which case it can't be called a fence), it is not possible for my head to be in the sand. Ah, more confusion! But, dear David, you are older than me, and I must make allowances!