Intelligence & Evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, November 25, 2013, 15:51 (4015 days ago) @ dhw


> DAVID: Supports me!!! It is all chemistry and physics!!!
> 
> dhw: You can use as many exclamation marks as you like, but they won't alter the fact that bacteria USE chemistry and physics to coordinate sophisticated processes involving millions of individual events. You seem to think that any mention of chemistry makes the user of that chemistry an automaton!-Because all of their responses are chemical and physical reactions according to the plan they follow, a plan within them from the beginning. You keep implying thought when none exists.-> dhw: Some ID folks may love him, but Dembski doesn't. He attacks Shapiro's theory of Natural Genetic Engineering, and interestingly he writes: "Shapiro believes that cooperative behavior is a fundamental organizing concept for biological activity at all levels of complexity." http://evolutionnews.org/2012/01/is_james_shapir_2055551.html
 
You don't know Dembski well enough to understand the comment. He is primarily a theologan and is critical of Shapiro coming so close to the ID concepts and then leaving out the attendant theism Dembski requires.
 
> dhw: This ties in neatly with a description of Shapiro's book which I found elsewhere: 
> "Cells, according to Shapiro, are intelligent in that they do their own natural genetic engineering, taking existing structures through horizontal DNA transfer or symbiogenesis, say, and reworking them in new contexts for new uses." -Exactly what he says. But it is just as easy and plausible to interpret his findings as using intelligent information implanted. Where Dembski gets upset is Shapiro doesn't recogize theism as a possible source.
 
> dhw: "In order to be truthful, we must acknowledge that certain questions, like the origins of the first living cells, currently have no credible scientific answer. However, given the historical record of science and technology in achieving the "impossible" (e.g., space flight, telecommunications, electronic computation and robotics), there is no reason to believe that unsolved problems will remain without naturalistic explanations indefinitely."-I followed him regularly on H.Post. I actually follow H. Post daily just to see what the wooly liberals are saying.
> 
> dhw: He certainly isn't pushing divine design, is he? And in view of his repeated and absolutely explicit comments about cellular intelligence, I'd suggest that his view of evolution is considerably closer to my hypothesis than to yours. -Of course the cells act intelligently. They are intelligently planned and guided by plans. And he is not thinking about cells as you are. He is championing their epigentic abilities.