An inventive mechanism: role of horizontal gene transfer (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, November 30, 2014, 19:52 (3428 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I'm reminded of an article you recommended earlier on this thread by Stephen L. Talbott. He points out, for instance, that “organisms are masterful participants in, and revisers of, their own genomes...” 
DAVID: Talbott's conclusions need to be reviewed:-QUOTE: "it is startling to realize that the entire brief for demoting human beings, and organisms in general, to meaningless scraps of molecular machinery — a demotion that fuels the long-running science-religion wars and that, as “shocking” revelation, supposedly stands on a par with Copernicus's heliocentric proposal — rests on the vague conjunction of two scarcely creditable concepts: the randomness of mutations and the fitness of organisms...” etc.-Do by all means let us review Talbott's conclusions, but let us bear in mind that our subject is whether or not evolution is driven by an autonomous inventive mechanism within the cell (to be more precise, within the genome). You and I have long since, and ad nauseam, dismissed the theory of random mutations. “Fitness” is a different subject which we needn't dwell on here as I'm sure we both agree with Talbott. The rest of this conclusion is summed up by your own comment: “He is crying for a recognition of purpose.” Yes he is, but his purpose has absolutely nothing in common with yours, which I will sum up as being that God preprogrammed every innovation and complex lifestyle 3.7 billion years ago in order to create and provide for human beings, and the “brain” in the genome is capable of nothing more than minor adaptations. You have conveniently overlooked a number of Talbott's statements, as well as those I quoted yesterday concerning the intelligence, cooperation and control exercised by microorganisms (cells). Here are some more extracts from the essay you recommended so highly:
 
Quote: "Overlooking all this, we are supposed to see — somewhere — blind, mindless, random, purposeless automatisms at the ultimate explanatory root of all genetic variation leading to evolutionary change."-Perhaps you would like to take this as meaning that “automatisms” are governed by God's purpose and so are not random, but Talbott says that current research endorses McClintock's views concerning “the extent of knowledge the cell has of itself, and how it utilizes this knowledge in a ‘thoughtful' manner when challenged”. They are therefore NOT automatons in his opinion, and they do not merely implement God's programmes. If you still think Talbott's arguments support yours, please read again this passage, which we discussed last time we dealt with his essay:
 
QUOTE: “Although the word has its legitimate uses, you will not find me speaking of design, simply because — as I've made abundantly clear in previous articles — organisms cannot be understood as having been designed, machine-like, whether by an engineer-God or a Blind Watchmaker elevated to god-like status. If organisms participate in a higher life, it is a participation that works from within — at a deep level the ancients recognized as that of the logos informing all things. It is a sharing of the springs of life and being, not a mere receptivity to some sort of external mechanical tinkering modeled anthropocentrically on human engineering.”-He goes much further than I would by actually rejecting the God hypothesis, but in the context even you can hardly avoid linking “a participation that works from within” to an autonomous inventive mechanism (as opposed to a mechanical automaton obeying God's instructions). It in fact ties in neatly with panpsychism, but that is another subject: we are dealing with the mechanisms that drive evolution, and not with their origin. Here is another passage that contradicts your own view just as emphatically as it contradicts Dawkins and Dennett:-QUOTE: “Where, then, do we find dumb, lifeless mechanisms blindly engendering new life forms? Where do we see anything other than the elaborate, interwoven, overwhelmingly meaningful activity of living beings, playing out at every level, from the molecular to the ecological?”-Margulis, McClintock, Shapiro, Albrecht-Buehler also tell you that cells are living, sentient, cognitive, intelligent beings. Talbott clearly agrees and is proposing that these qualities have combined at all levels to deliberately drive evolution onwards by producing new life forms. Of course there is a purpose behind their deliberate actions - and we can see the fulfilment of that purpose when organisms survive and flourish.