Cambrian Explosion: afterthought (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, September 25, 2013, 14:12 (4056 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You are working from a non-belief system, I am strictily working from what science shows me.:-http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-we-should-choose-science-over-beli...-Thank you for this timely reminder. The examples concern firearm possession and climate change scepticism, but the message is that beliefs should not override science. However, as you say, I'm working from a NON-belief system ... and I offer the intelligent cell hypothesis as a possible explanation of how evolution works. It allows for a theistic AND an atheistic system, because it does not seek to explain the origin of the intelligent cell. One problem in our discussions is that I can't always judge the extent to which your beliefs are based on science and vice versa, but I think the above website is more of a warning to you than to me! In the last few days you have made statements like the following:-1) "Bluntly cells do not exchange information, only chemical reactions."
BBella's lecture (of which you approve) states: "To coordinate the behavior of populations of cells, cells in multicellular organisms must exchange data."-2) Margulis described cooperating cells as "conscious entities". You wrote: "This is her interpretation, which I do not accept." The following day you wrote: "I feel she would agree with me". You disagree with a renowned scientist, but you feel she would agree with you.-3) With regard to innovations such as the kidney, you wrote: "Preprogramming is the only conceivable way." Preprogramming could only be done by an outside intelligence, i.e. your God. You are right to challenge me on matters of science, and I have learnt an enormous amount from you, but what kind of reception do you think you'd get from the scientific community if you told them that divine preprogramming of the kidney was "the only conceivable way"?
 
4) "I have always supported the idea of pre-planning and pre-programming, which means the cells are automatic responders." If your belief in God's preplanning is correct, yes indeed, cells must be automata, but your support for the idea does not make it a scientific fact. I'm not going to say this is belief overriding science, because science has not cracked the problem of innovation and the Cambrian Explosion, but science itself should be neutral. The above statement might be seen as an example of belief influencing scientific judgment.
 
Let me deal with some other points in your post:-1) "If the user is automatic but is given a choice if several responses, in the epigenetic area of the genome, then 'roughly' applies. As I envision it, the controlling mechanisms allow for a,b, or c, depending upon the challenge to the organism."
In the context of innovations (creating a kidney de novo), I don't understand how the user can be given a choice. Did God give genomes a fruit machine, and x and y chose wrong, so natural selection eliminated them, whereas z got it right?-2) "Intelligence implies consciousness. I will not budge from this point." I agree, with the all-important rider that it does not imply self-awareness (I have emphasized this all through our discussion ... and Margulis did the same.) For me, intelligence implies consciousness of the environment, of other organisms, of accumulated information, of how to use that information, and the ability to take decisions. We see it most clearly in the behaviour of our fellow animals, but scientists who have studied other forms of life have observed the same attributes.
 
3) "Cells do not accumulate knowledge." BBella's lecture and the article on bacillus subtilis show clearly that cells both acquire and exchange data. How is it possible to do so without adding to the information already present?-4) "To make a kidney or a liver, there has to be a pre-existing plan. The cells alone cannot conjure up the plans. And chance attempts can't do it. You are empowering cells with much more than they are capable of individually or in groups. I know of no biochemical research that could support your contentions."
Nobody knows how these innovations happened. Darwin thought they came about through an accumulation of chance mutations, and some scientists agree. You don't, and I am highly sceptical. You believe God preprogrammed innovations. I suspect many scientists would be highly sceptical. Margulis's research into cellular behaviour and her emphasis on cooperation between "conscious entities" has suggested to me that the intelligent cell might be the key to innovation in evolution. I can't believe I'm the first to have considered such a possibility, but since we know of other scientists who agree with Margulis that cells exchange data, make decisions etc., the concept of conscious/intelligent cells can hardly be called poppycock. Whether communities of intelligent cells merging, cooperating, exchanging data and making decisions over thousands of millions of years are capable of designing a kidney I really don't know. All I do know is that the idea sounds no less feasible than random mutations, or a single, eternal, unknowable intelligence providing the first tiny organisms with billions of multiple-choice programmes. As you say, "I know of no biochemical research that could support such contentions."