DILEMMAS (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, October 31, 2014, 19:30 (3674 days ago) @ GateKeeper

GATEKEEPER: I think dna solves for every solution it can at a given time. For example I think It is actually solving for future climates that may or may not arise.

dhw: In my hypothesis, what we are calling the inventive mechanism (the “brain” in the genome) may do two things: adapt to the new conditions (necessary for survival), or exploit them to create new forms (that's the really inventive bit). In both cases there is a response to the new environment. 
GK: I don't have the answer to "adapt" or "exploit". I see it as both, over all that is. Life adapts to and exploits.-Sorry, I obviously didn't make that part of my post clear. The context is evolution, and I'm suggesting that when the environment changes, organisms will either perish, adapt, or possibly innovate. Adaptation will almost certainly result in the organism remaining the same species. We see that all the time. However, some organisms in the past may have found that the new environment enables them to do things that couldn't be done before, e.g. an aquatic organism finds itself confronted by dry land, so while others stay in the water, it moves onto the land, and fins become legs. That's innovation, triggered by exploitation of new conditions. Don't ask me HOW it works. David and I are discussing possible explanations: his God preprogrammed the first living cells to pass on instructions for fins to become legs; his God intervened and turned fins into legs; organisms have a “brain” in the genome that enables them to turn fins into legs.
 
GK: More complex from less complex? I do not know, or have not seen one example of it.
DAVID: You are absolutely right.-I don't know your views on evolution, GK, and am beginning to wonder if I know David's, but if you believe in the theory that all living organisms except the very first descended from earlier living organisms, you are looking at examples every waking moment of your life. The question then is not whether, but how complex comes from less complex.