An inventive mechanism (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, October 06, 2014, 12:16 (3699 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: What I am describing is constrained autonomy, changes under guidelines tying the future to the past. I will never believe in complete autonomy of cells to do their own thing. [...] Innovation under constraint. [...] Invention under provided guidelines.-The last of these was in answer to my question whether your God preplanned the beetles' drastic morphological changes 3.7 billion years ago, or dabbled personally, those being the hypotheses you favour. You have rejected them with a clear no. The qualifications that you now add to your acceptance of “a sort of” autonomy apply to all inventions. You might as well say that no invention/innovation can achieve the impossible: Nature provides constraints and guidelines. Our friend the beetle may try as hard as he likes, but he'll never be able to turn himself into an elephant or an eagle. “Guidelines tying the future to the past” have nothing to do with preplanning or divine dabbling. An organism that changes itself has to change from what it was to what it will be. That is evolution. The environment constitutes an unbreakable constraint. If the innovation can't cope with it, then the organism won't survive. You have always criticized my hypothesis for being nebulous, because I can't explain how it works. I find your objections nebulous. What constraints and guidelines are you referring to, other than the obvious ones I've mentioned? And finally, back to our beetles: since you now firmly reject the very idea that God preprogrammed or separately invented their myrmecophily, do you agree that they autonomously worked it out for themselves?