Cambrian Explosion: mutation rate (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, September 18, 2013, 15:44 (4084 days ago) @ dhw

PART TWO-dhw: [your god] created cells in such a way that they were capable of independent invention as well as self-perpetuation.-DAVID: That I can accept in my context.-And that is all I ask. You have rejected the alternative that your God preprogrammed every single innovation barring the odd dabble. On several occasions in the past you have accepted the basic premise of the intelligent cell with the proviso that it was created by your God (who occasionally dabbled), but for some reason you seem averse to using the word "intelligent", as if that must be reserved for your God and for humans, with a tiny nod of concession towards our fellow animals. (I prefer "intelligent" to Margulis's "conscious", which is too readily mistaken for human-type self-awareness.)
 
dhw: Margulis's "conscious", cooperating entities offer an explanation of this evolutionary process (whether theistic or not) which surely deserves to be taken seriously by someone who otherwise has "no idea how [cells] individually decided to adapt their DNA to differing expressions to become each type".-DAVID: I take her point seriously, but she is no more an authority on exactly how it all worked than I am. Conscious intelligence is at the basis of life. In a way back to your panpsychism approach, but I won't drag that thought so far into the underbrush of avoidance of recognizing that without chance there is only one other road to understanding, a pervading intelligence runs the show.-She is no more an authority than you or anyone else now or at any time. Nobody is an authority, and that is why we should respect one another's views. I agree that conscious intelligence is at the basis of life, and I am suggesting that it is present in all forms of life, in varying forms and degrees. The intelligent cell is a proposal put forward to explain the course of evolution, and in The Origin of Species Darwin was only concerned with evolution and explicitly not with the origin of life itself. I don't know whether Margulis theorized about that or not, but in our discussions, it is essential to draw the dividing line. Once we agree that "conscious" intelligence is at the basis of life and is therefore present in the cell and in cell communities and in all forms of life, we are left with the problem of its source. That's where the different parties diverge.