Biological complexity: more cell pore complexity (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, May 05, 2016, 12:19 (3125 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: First of all, you know as well as I do that although bacteria do not have a nucleus, there are single-celled eukaryotes that do.
DAVID: You are correct. I had forgotten about them. But that makes the point I'm trying to present in this series on pores in membranes. How did single cells create such a complex mechanisms as pores in a nuclear membrane? We don't know but the complexity begs for advanced planning. Those pores allow two direction traffic controls keeping required levels of concentration of molecules in tight ranges. That is just how a cell lives and works.-You are now shifting from the evolution of a membrane to the evolution of a more complex membrane, and your question applies to every post-bacterial complexity you can think of (see below).
 
DAVID: [Margulis's theory of endosymbiosis] does not explain the formation of the nucleus, only why there are mitochondria, which also have membranes, pre-formed when swallowed. I grant that single cells have their outer membrane, but that membrane allows in food sources and spits out waste, but the nucleus membrane is much more complex with all the processes of life being managed.-Again, you are challenging me to explain how the comparatively simple membrane develops into a more complex membrane. And again, nobody knows. Just as nobody knows the extent to which further improvements might be made by intelligent organisms cooperating with one another, as explained by Margulis's endosymbiosis. I wonder how many biologists would agree with the hypothesis that God preprogrammed the first cells or personally dabbled to provide the pores. (See below)
 
dhw: Finally, the hypothesis over which we disagree concerns how evolution works, not how the mechanism for evolution came into existence. Once more, I cannot see how the long acknowledged complexity of the cell provides any more support for your divine preprogramming or direct guidance of all innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders than it does for the possibly divine design of an autonomous, inventively intelligent mechanism to produce the same innovations etc. The hypothesis remains afloat.-DAVID: I feel the complexity demands guidance. the cell nuclear pore is just one of hundreds of examples, perhaps thousands.-Yes, thousands, perhaps millions. According to you, EVERY innovation, plus EVERY lifestyle, plus EVERY natural wonder demands advanced planning and “guidance” (preprogramming or personal dabbling) by your God, because they are ALL too complex for organisms to work out for themselves. When I ask how God did all this, you complain that I am demanding exactitudes which you cannot provide. I cannot provide exactitudes either, which is why the autonomous, inventive mechanism (intelligence - possibly designed by your God) remains a hypothesis. But the hypothesis is not going to be sunk by your feeling that all evolutionary complexities demand your God's “guidance”!