Cambrian Explosion: mutation rate (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, September 23, 2013, 19:37 (4079 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: As with Margulis, the emphasis is on communication, and cooperation, decision-making, and most interestingly diversification. Perhaps you do not regard communication as the exchange of information.-Please study bbella's find closely. It carefully describes the chemical interactions and control loops that guide cellular communication in a biochemical way. This is how the cells automatically tell each other what is going on. There is no thought. It is all biochemical interaction. The lecture she presents shows that clearly.
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> DAVID: Your cellular plan is like sending a group of folks out on the field who don't know what game they are supposed to play.
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> dhw: I like this analogy, because it draws a clear dividing line between innovation and established patterns. ..... That, however, is precisely the scenario I am suggesting as an alternative to your preprogramming: that when living conditions demanded it (adaptation) or allowed for it (innovation), existing cell communities cooperated in order to design the new organs and the rules that govern them. Once the system is established, the players know precisely what game they have to play.-If the players have no teleology in mind, have no plan, and if as described their responses are automatic biochemistry, it doesn't work as you would wish. The cells have to dig into their DNA instructions to try a new approach. And it is my theory that the instructions are there, placed pre-planned by God.
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> dhw: Yet again, you have sidestepped the fact that, since you believe evolution happened, your God must have preproprammed every innovation into the very first organisms, as well as the environmental changes that enabled them to come into being. And once more you claim that only this particular theistic interpretation makes sense.-No. you have my thesis twisted below.-> dhw: If I were a believer, I would find it far less convincing than the hypothesis that God created an intelligent mechanism (the cell) which over billions of years and through zillions of combinations devised its own evolutionary programmes. And if I were your God, I'm sure I'd find that scenario a good deal more interesting than yours!-Once again, the cells follow a program that allows for epigentic adjustments, but follows a general direction for more precise complexity. There is room for natural selection to act as a final filter for the choices the cellular innovations present. Yes I believe a theistic evolution happened. Environmental changes follow general patterns, but are not tightly controlled by God. The Chicxulub crator may be an exception.