Does evolution have a purpose? (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, October 20, 2014, 15:31 (3685 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Because dhw came up with his cooperative cell community invention theory of evolution I entered into a discussion with his to show how that idea cannot work. Speciation needs to use basic 'how' information to proceed. Where did that information come from, I asked, and never got an answer. Those cells simply cooperated. Well, of course cells cooperate. There would be no life if they didn't.-This is a travesty of our discussion. From the very start the whole point of my hypothesis has been that cellular cooperation is directed by the equivalent of a “brain” within the cells. For over a year you insisted that cells had no “brain” but were automatons guided by a 3.7-billion-year-old programme God had inserted into the first living cells - your only alternative being that God dabbled. You finally agreed that the cell may have a “brain” located in the genome. Since my focus is solely on an alternative to random mutations, preprogramming and dabbling as the means of driving evolution forward, I have over and over again answered your question as to the source of this intelligence by saying it may be God. Your distortion of our discussion is unworthy of you.-Now that you've accepted the possible existence of this inventive mechanism, we have moved on to the interrelated questions of its autonomy and what purpose, if any, evolution may have. I have challenged vague terms such as semi-autonomy, guidelines, planning guidelines, non-specific instructions etc., and with a welcome return to the fair-minded David I know and love, you kindly acknowledged that “Our back and forth debate is my fault because I have not expressed the above observation of patterns before. Sometimes the recesses of my brain have to be dredged!” Thank you for your honesty. The patterns are as followsAVID: [Mammals] all have kidneys, livers, lungs and hearts. [...] All kidneys, livers and mammary glands, lungs and hearts are the same, in that they look the same under the microscope and function in the same way. What this pattern tells us is that the instructional manual for new species of mammals has certain set requirements. [...] You can't have these patterns without guidelines. Where there is freedom is the neck of the giraffe vs. the neck of the camel, or the blowhole of the whale while we have nostrils.-This more concrete approach is helpful. However, if we believe evolution happened, the fact that all mammals have features in common merely tells us that they have descended from common ancestors. Once these organs have been invented by a particular organism (cell community)and are found to bring benefits, they are passed on to create a new line which itself will then branch out into more new lines as further innovations and variations come into being. The fact that you can't be a mammal without a heart does not mean that the heart was preprogrammed into the first heartless cells. This takes us back to complexity, but please see my final paragraph before you respond.
 
DAVID: The only area I know of where the pattern scheme is broken is in the consideration of brain development. Only humans have this enormous difference in function. -In all mammals the brain is a control centre, registering and processing information, taking decisions etc. I agree that ours has additional layers of self-awareness, thereby expanding our range of knowledge and activity far beyond that of any other organism, but it still performs the same functions as all other brains. Might it not, like the dog's nose, be the product of your God's inventive mechanism working to improve existing mechanisms? -DAVID: Now lets take a quick look at the Cambrian: again all the same reqired organs and functionality, the patterns, but as ancestors of 37 existing phyla (famililes), the Cambrian era actually produced around 80 phyla, an exhuberance of animal form invention and obvious many animal form failures. Again, if there is an IM, it is in some degree free to create form but not function. Function has guidelines because successful life requires it. And it cannot be formed bottom up, but top down. It must have information and plans.-I still don't understand why you think God is clever enough to devise plans for all these different organs to be passed down through billions of years, organisms and generations, surviving all the environmental upheavals (probably random), eventually to produce the necessary kidneys etc., but you don't think he's clever enough to have devised a mechanism to invent them, even though you do think he's clever enough to have devised a mechanism (the human brain) to invent our computers, Beethoven's 9th, and Hoyle's Boeing 747!