Cambrian Explosion: mutation rate (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, September 16, 2013, 22:57 (4064 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: As for speed, how can anyone know what was feasible? We have nothing to compare it with. ...... For kidneys, livers and nervous systems to function, you require intelligent cooperation between cells and cell communities, regardless of whether God created the intelligence or not. Can anyone think of a more rational explanation?-DAVID: Before cells cooperate, one needs a good design. Cells cannot create that design. They ony know their own coded job. I would guess there are 20-30 different cell types in a kidney. How do they individually decide what part each plays?-Because cells communicate individually, just as bacteria do and ants do. That's why the parallel is so fascinating! Ants can change roles, while within the same community you will also find different forms of the same species, and since we know innovations happen, obviously cells can do the same. The coding only becomes binding when an innovation works and the cells adopt their respective roles. There have to be the two stages: 1) innovation, 2) perpetuation, always in accordance with the prevailing environment. Ant colonies must have developed their different engineering works, military strategies, farming techniques etc. from scratch, and each invention required new roles. Ditto the formation of new organs by the cells. I simply do not believe that innovation can be the product of instinct. (That is why your foal is irrelevant.)
 
DAVID: A thoughtful discussion of the problem, raising my issue that all the new cell types are not accounted for in the Lee paper. It also discusses a new book raising the same issues:-http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/darwins-dilemma-remains-unresolved-wh...-Is there anything in my proposal that is contradicted by the following passage from Erwin and Valentin on the website you refer to?-"Increased genetic and developmental interactions were also critical to the formation of new animal body plans. By the time a branch of advanced sponges gave rise to more complex animals, their genomes comprised genes whose products could interact with regulatory elements in a coordinated network. Network interactions were critical to the spatial and temporal patterning of gene expression, to the formation of new cell types, and to the generation of a hierarchical morphology of tissues and organs. The evolving lineages could begin to adapt to different regions within the rich mosaic of conditions they encountered across the environmental landscape, diverging and specializing to diversify into an array of body forms."