autonomy v. automaticity (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, January 23, 2018, 12:56 (2494 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The authors I quote – McClintock, Margulis, Shapiro, Bühler – (have) all spent a lifetime studying cellular behaviour, and I have no idea why you should think their unequivocal conclusions are “infected” by Darwin. I don’t recall Darwin ever mentioning cellular intelligence, let alone proposing my own hypothesis that cellular intelligence was the mechanism that enabled evolution to advance. Perhaps you can give me a reference.

DAVID: Darwin scientists, like those above, try to squeeze their findings into a preconceived Darwin schemata. You might see my point by reading the following:
http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2010/12/elliott-sober-and-enemy.html

Quoting Elliot Sober: "This last result provides a reminder of how important the contrastive framework is for evaluating evidence. It seems to offend against common sense to say that E is stronger evidence for the common-ancestry hypothesis the lower the value is of [the probability of E given the common-ancestry hypothesis]. etc. etc.

No, this does not help me to see your point. I am not denying that some “Darwin scientists” try to squeeze their findings into preconceived schemata, just like some theist scientists. The scientists I quote believe that cells are intelligent. Please give me a reference in Darwin to indicate that he believed in cellular intelligence, and please tell me what preconceived Darwin schemata their belief fits into, bearing in mind the fact that my own hypothesis allows for the existence of God - though not for your preconceived schema that God either personally dabbled or preprogrammed the first cells with every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in order to produce the brain of Homo sapiens.

dhw: The term “work out” was your own, used in relation to the behaviour of a parasite plant, and was emphatically confirmed by you, as below:
DAVID’s comment (under “parasite controls plants’ defense"): The evolution of this arrangement must have been stepwise with the Dodder partially independent until it worked out a way to silence the plant's defenses and then become totally obligate. Living organisms show purposeful behavior. I think that was programmed into life when life originated. God at work. (dhw’s bold)

DAVID: You artfully did not bold my italics above: God at work!

Nothing artful about it. In the context of our discussion I have no objection if you say that right from the start it was God’s work to provide all forms of life with the means of working out their own solutions (= autonomous intelligence) and behaving purposefully (as opposed to him programming them all with given solutions). And you then went on to confirm that this was exactly what you meant:

dhw: Thank you for another fascinating natural wonder, and also for the long awaited acknowledgement that the Dodder must have worked out a way to silence the plant’s defences. Yes, indeed, living organisms show purposeful behaviour, and it may well be that when life originated, your God gave them the means to behave purposefully and to work out their own solutions to life's problems, as opposed to preprogramming their behaviour and all the solutions. Hallelujah! (David’s bold)

DAVID: Hallelujah ha! The bolded sentence fits my theory perfectly. "Gave them the means" simply implies that God preprogrammed them with an inventive mechanism, as we have discussed before.
dhw: What fitted your theory perfectly on a Friday was rejected on the Saturday.
DAVID: Only in your interpretation of my written words.

If it fits your theory perfectly that God gave organisms the means to work out their own solutions, as opposed to preprogramming all the solutions himself, I doubt if there is an English-speaker in the whole wide world who would interpret that as meaning you believe in preprogramming.