Cell Memories (Identity)

by dhw, Monday, August 11, 2014, 23:10 (3756 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: (7 August) Your theory does not explain the huge gap of the Cambrian Explosion. My theory assumes God stepped in at this point in evolution. 
DAVID: (9 August) I do not prefer dabbling by God as the method He used.
dhw: Confusion reigns. Your assumption is that God stepped in to organize the Cambrian (= he dabbled), but you prefer the theory that he preprogrammed all the new organs and species in the first living cells.-DAVID: I'm not confused. I admitted I don't know. I prefer to favor preplanning, but dabbling is a possibility I cannot rule out.-Perhaps this is another example of Americans murdering our beautiful English language. “Assume” in British English = to take for granted that something is true. If you assumed that God dabbled in the Cambrian, you could not favour a different explanation. -dhw: I have already accepted that area of your scepticism in the sentence you have quoted. But you claimed my hypothesis of the intelligent cell didn't fit the history, and I pointed out that it offered exactly the same explanation of the history (punctuated equilibrium, the Cambrian, the comparatively sudden appearance of new organs and species) as your own theory - namely, intelligent design. You may not believe cells are capable of it, but if they were, that would give us the same outcome as your preprogramming or your dabbling hypotheses.-DAVID: That is exactly where we disagree. If the cells were brilliant enough the same result is probable.-Then you agree! -DAVID: However, present evidence does not take slightly sentient cells with simple reactions to the level required to plan the complexity and coordination of advanced organisms. Your theory requires extreme faith in those cells, and you eschew faith.-Once again you scurry back to the point already dealt with. I wrote earlier that I understand and partly share your scepticism, and I have repeated several times that I offer this hypothesis as an alternative, not as a belief. My objection was to your claim that it didn't fit the history, not to the fact that it didn't conform to our current knowledge of the cell's capabilities.