Extended Evolutionary Synthesis; another view (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, August 10, 2015, 17:08 (3392 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: You are - thank heavens! - more polite than Dawkins, but perhaps my use of the word will make you hesitate to dismiss completely the many years of research into what after all is a highly specialized subject. I am not denying your right to your opinion - I just wish it was a little less firm!-But I've read Shapiro's book and still have the same conclusion.
> 
> dh: I like the example of the Egyptian plover and the Nile crocodile because it doesn't involve biochemical relationships - only communication and cooperation between the two organisms.-Of course you like it. Cooperating animals are light years apart from symbiotic biochemical relationships.-> dhw: Not so complex, but perhaps a guide as to how the process develops. Yes, all symbiotic relationships raise the chicken and egg problem, but I don't agree that each organism has to plan its response in advance of the experiment. I don't see why they shouldn't (sometimes) follow the same path as we often do, when we set out to see what will happen if....The first step might simply be communication and an agreement to cooperate. Tony's explanation (if he rejects autonomous intelligence) apparently entails God's preprogramming both variations of their respective prototypes at the same time,-I'll buy Tony's approach, but not yours which uses comparisons to how humans approach the problem. The symbiosis involves intricately planned biochemical interactions.