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

by David Turell , Tuesday, December 02, 2014, 17:40 (3642 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Your own hypothesis is that from the very beginning God preprogrammed all the innovations and complex lifestyles that have punctuated evolution from bacteria to humans. THAT is our subject. So please find me a reference in Talbott that supports your preprogramming hypothesis as opposed to my intelligent mechanism hypothesis. Bet you can't. See also my post under “Evidence for pattern development; mulling”, and mull some more.-I've said that I am not going to quote Talbott. His writing is verbose, but some of his opinionated quotes fall in line with my thinking and some with yours. He discusses beautifully the problems with the atheistic approach to Darwinism and he ascribes an inventive mechanism to evolved organisms, but it is a nebulous description. They seem to do it be he can't describe how. And that is because none of us know how it is done, or the limits in capability to do the job. Our debate is over the degree of modification. You thinks it is lots, and I think it is much more limited. I'm afraid we have to agree to disagree. There is no doubt epigenetic changes play a role in furthering evolution, but that is as far as Shapiro, the champion of epigenetics, can go. We are forced to wait for further research to clear up the issue if it can. To be precise: an epigenetic IM exists, its limits for invention are unknown.