Innovation (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 15, 2013, 16:34 (4211 days ago) @ dhw
edited by unknown, Wednesday, May 15, 2013, 16:54


> dhw: I'm trying to demonstrate to you that the difference between us does not lie in our view of the process of evolution itself, but in our views on the possible source of the innovative mechanism, and in your anthropocentric teleology. No matter what may be the origin of the intelligent cell/genome/DNA, you have no objections when I suggest that evolution works through the instructions given by this inner intelligence to the cells, which cooperate to form new organs and their connections. ......You accept this so long as it fits in with your divine teleology, which is the massive assumption that underlies your own religious interpretation of evolution.-I don't view my interpretation of evolution as religious. That is your interpretation of me! I think my conclusions are scientific. I started as an agnostic. Yes, I accepted religion's God because I can find no other representation of first cause that exists in human thought. but most religions are rather empty.-> dhw:However, I have no problem with your argument that the mechanism itself is too complex to have come about by chance or by the gradual evolution of intelligence from within matter. Both hypotheses demand as much faith as your own.-Here is generally full agreement from me, but how matter invents intelligence is way beyond faith. It is a pipe dream.
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> dhw: If I believed in chance, or in my panpsychist hypothesis, and if you then asked me how it could possibly work, I could say to you I don't know or care how chance managed to put everything together, but it did. Or I don't know how non-conscious energy acquired consciousness, or how the intelligent genome acquired its intelligence, but it did. "We are back to the leap of faith." However, once we take any of these leaps, my account of how innovations work makes sense whatever the source, and you have no objections to it. Isn't this a breakthrough?-No breakthrough. I see a process in evolution that requires guidance. I cannot see intelligence inventing itself. There is necessarily a first cause. Therefore I must believe in theistic evolution.-Because species appear de novo, genetics provides adaptation but NOT speciation. The only thing Darwin provided is evidence that some form of evolution occurred. Most of his speculation has turned out to be wrong:-http://books.google.com/books?id=4N1F6SpusrgC&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&dq=nelson+platnick+theory+put+to+the+test+grasse&source=bl&ots=M-cEZ51BBY&sig=7oonp2Aq2BgKwMSma70WPmL5nrs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1XWSUcf_OeP_4AOipIHABw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=nelson%20platnick%20theory%20put%20to%20the%20test%20grasse&f=false-Note also the confusion DNA analysis causes when applied to the so-called bush of life:-http://phys.org/news/2013-05-untangling-tree-life.html-If God dabbled, these are the results you get. Evolution is not a 'clean' easily discerned underlying process