horizontal gene transfer: the real IM? (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, December 15, 2014, 17:21 (3631 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Here's another possibility for the IM issue;
" In fact, horizontal gene transfer has happened between all kinds of living things throughout the history of life on the planet - not just between species, but also between different kingdoms of life. Bacterial genes end up in plants; fungal genes wind up in animals; snake and frog genes find their way into cows and bats. It seems that the genome of just about every modern species is something of a mosaic constructed with genes borrowed from many different forms of life."-http://aeon.co/magazine/science/how-horizontal-gene-transfer-changes-evolutionary-theory/-A very illuminating post, for which many thanks. You will certainly have noted that the pioneer in this research was Barbara McClintock, who called for further investigation into the way cells “think”. The emphasis laid by her and Margulis on the way in which cells cooperate is obviously highly relevant here, and the whole article seems to me to confirm the hypothesis of the inventive mechanism.-QUOTE: “Horizontal gene transfer opens the possibility of a creature instantaneously acquiring a gene-trait combo that its own genome would have been unlikely to invent by itself.” 
 
You could hardly have a clearer confirmation of the idea that innovations are caused by cooperation between the inventive mechanisms of different cells/cell communities. The “instantaneous” reference offers an obvious explanation for the lack of so-called transitional forms, and is especially significant for the Cambrian Explosion.-QUOTE: “Rather than evolving from a “last universal ancestor” all life arose from a communal pool of primitive cells with unbridled zeal for exchanging DNA.” -Presumably this means Darwin's “few forms” rather than one, with ever increasing complexity as more and more combinations came into play. Such a process would clearly have led to the higgledy-piggledy bush which is such a problem for your anthropocentrism.
 
QUOTE: “We did not invent gene transfer; DNA did. Genes are concerned with only one thing above all: self-perpetuation [...] Species barriers might protect the integrity of a genome as a whole, but when an individual gene has a chance to advance itself by breaking those boundaries, it will not hesitate.”-You can still hold onto the fact that this whole mechanism is too complex to have arisen by chance, but if you accept these observations, I don't see how you can continue to cling to the idea that the unbridled zeal with which cells form new combinations coincides with your God's meticulous planning of a path leading from bacteria to humans. (See also the quote under “Negative atheism?”)-BBELLA: I can see Sheldrake‘s morphic field and the holographic universe fitting well with the above information. Like minds coming from different angles (with words) toward the same information/images.-I'd be interested to know the extent to which you see morphic fields and the holographic universe fitting in with the panpsychist hypothesis that all things have their own form of “quasi-consciousness” or “intelligence” (inverted commas, because this should not be equated with human consciousness and intelligence).