An inventive mechanism (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, October 06, 2014, 15:57 (3699 days ago) @ dhw

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.
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> dhw: 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.-Lets review: we are trying to reach a conclusive view of how a hypothetical inventive mechanism (IM) might work to achieve speciation. I have trouble accepting without reservation the two approaches of total preplanning vs. dabbling. I look at speciation as defined by the whale series, in which each step is vastly different than the last. This recognizes the gaps in Darwinian evolution as defined by the fossils we find. Yes, Nature provides constraints, but not guidelines. The guidelines must be in innovation instructions in the genome, just as in my example of building a new house (different than all others), with the new owner describing his desires and the architect, using his knowledge and experience forms the new set of plans, and they must include design of structure (partially new morphology) and plan of construction (embryology). -> dhw: “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.-I think you have confused your understanding of my reasoning. In my attempt to find a reasonable IM, I am trying to bind my concept of genome control, whose methods of creating phenotypes and morphology is not at all as yet understood, with the gap issue and with continuity in evolution. My barn cat looks just like an African lion (which I have seen up close and personal). The continuity is there in form and in hunting ability. Both survive in very different environments. Life is very inventive and can handle environmental constraints with many novel inventions as I show in Natures wonders.-> dhw:You have always criticized my hypothesis for being nebulous, because I can't explain how it works. I find your objections nebulous.-Your original hypothesis stretches celluler abilities beyond what is shown they can possibility create. Once you agreed with me to place the IM in the genome, we have come much closer together in our thinking.-> dhw: What constraints and guidelines are you referring to, other than the obvious ones I've mentioned?-I have explained my constraints as part of genomic guidelines and also environmental challenges.-> dhw: 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?-I have never fully rejected 'pre-pro' or 'dabb'. These are reasonable possibilities, if one accepts theistic evolution. I just don't like them as stand-alone concepts of God's abilities. An IM is a strong possibility to get around my uneasiness, but I am content with it, only if it follows my architect analogy, as the genome guides the new production of a species.