Precambrian environment (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, November 01, 2013, 12:53 (4018 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: One theory is that the Cambrian explosion occurred because of an increase in oxygen. I really can't see anything in the article that undermines that theory. But of course it needn't be so. We just feel there must have been a trigger. Presumably your suggestion is that your God suddenly stepped in...but to do what, exactly? Change the environment (back to oxygen), or shove a few extra programmes into the automatons?-DAVID: I have no idea. It is clear that Darwin was worried about the Cambrian. His worry has only gotten much worse. No honest precursors, and then extreme complexity.-I'm not worried about Darwin's worries, I'm worried about David Turell's theories. You quite rightly refer to the Cambrian Explosion as a huge problem for the theory of random mutations. But since you believe so firmly in God's plans, and in the inability of cell communities to invent all these astonishing novelties, I can't believe you haven't got a theory to explain it. I've offered you two: 1) God increased the oxygen; 2) God shoved some extra programmes into the preceding generations of organisms. Here's another: 3) God preprogrammed an increase in oxygen, having already preprogrammed the first living organisms to pass on programmes to create countless new organs and species as soon as he'd increased the oxygen. Doesn't that fit in nicely with your scenario?
 
Dhw: The question is not whether they [cell communities] cooperate, but why they cooperate. You say they are preprogrammed to do so, and of course once the pattern of behaviour is established (the organ works), each cell ... like each ant ... plays its assigned role(s), but that does not explain how already functioning cell communities came up with new ideas. THAT is the great mystery.-DAVID: Not to me. They follow a plan they were given. You cannot make a kidney from scratch. And there were kidney-like organs in the Cambrian. Plans require a preexisting intelligence to make the plan.-So back we go to 1), 2) and 3). I knew you must have at least one theory! Here's one more: God (or maybe not) endowed cells with an intelligence of their own, so that by combining their evolving intelligences in vast cooperating communities, they were able to exploit new conditions (the Cambrian) to come up with new organs and species.