More Denton: Reply to David (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, July 30, 2015, 18:37 (3404 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw:..... My hypothesis explains the diversity because in its theistic version, God gives organisms the wherewithal to do their own thing.
DAVID: You are reasonably close to my view. We mortals cannot tell the difference between God helping organisms evolve either by direction or by an onboard mechanism for planning that He gives them.-This sounds too good to be true. You have actually accepted my view: namely, it is possible (I stress that it's a hypothesis) that organisms have an inbuilt, autonomous, intelligent, inventive mechanism - or “onboard mechanism for planning” - which may have been provided by your God. -dhw: The issue is not the origin of the original code (which may or may not be God's doing), but the mechanism that drives evolution. In my hypothesis, once the intelligent cells existed they would have learned from experience, and once they cooperated, they would also have learned from schooling (i.e. from one another's experiences).
DAVID: Do we know how cells transmit learned information and process it without brain function? Very nebulous to me. But we do know how cells function through biochemical reactions.-Back we go. We do not know how cells think. Nor do we know how human intelligence/consciousness works, though we do know how the brain functions through biochemical reactions.-dhw: Once more: the theory of evolution does not deal with the source of life and intelligence (which may or may not be your God), and nor does my hypothesis of the intelligent cell as its driving force. 
DAVID: Granted we don't know how life started, but the origin of life is entirely a part of what we must study. The first DNA must contain the information that drives evolution from the simple start to the more complex. -Or as you so rightly imply in your first comment, the first DNA must contain a mechanism that will autonomously gather and process the information necessary to drive evolution from the simple start to the more complex.
 
DAVID: That is what evolution has accomplished. Is that intelligence hiding in an undiscovered organelle in the cells we study or just part of the original DNA?-You can ask the same question about your undiscovered 3.8-billion-year computer programme containing all the innovations from bacteria to human. Where is it hiding?-dhw: ...the first cells would have had to pass on millions of computer programmes that would switch themselves on automatically in billions of individual organisms, thus creating every innovation leading from bacteria to us, including a sudden flurry of switching on during the Cambrian etc. etc. 
DAVID: And I don't see all of this as too complex for God, but you have doubts about God.-Nothing is too complex for the God you believe in. But you had asked “What is wrong with the simple concept of God guiding everything?” I was pointing out that the concept was anything but simple.-dhw: Let's try a different analogy. .....And his cells also work out that he'll get around much better if they do some rejigging, so they produce legs where once he had fins.
DAVID: The point you persist in missing (as obvious as your nose should be to you), is the geologic layers provide no time for experimentation. The new complex Cambrians are JUST THERE, as if out of thin air.-I answered that in the comment below. We are not talking about experimentation over a long period of time. If the experiment doesn't work, the organism dies! (However, in my example the breathing mechanism must change immediately, whereas fins to legs could undergo refinements.)
 
dhw: My (hypothetical) intelligent mechanism exploits the opportunities provided by a new environment. A sudden major change in the environment could lead to a sudden burst of major innovations, but innovations that don't work straight away won't survive. That is the simple logic.
DAVID: Then why was Darwin so worried about the 'Silurian' and posited that intermediate forms would be found, which they haven't? There is no known explanation for the GAP in steady development which is present throughout evolution at all other times.-Why do you always go back to Darwin? We have long since agreed that on this point Darwin was wrong - hence the theory of punctuated equilibrium. The Cambrian was the biggest punctuation mark of all.