Immunity: Gamma Delta T cells hunt with precision (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, November 23, 2018, 01:02 (1980 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: And you know perfectly well that this disagreement is NOT over intelligent design, and I accept the logic of the design argument. The disagreement is whether, if your God exists, he designed cells with or without the autonomous intelligence which forms the basis of my hypothetical evolutionary alternative to your God-designed-it-all-as-stepping-stones-to-humans hypothesis.

DAVID: You have dragged God back into the picture with an invented hypothesis that organisms can evolve themselves, even though the definition of design requires an ability to foresee future needs to which to fit the design. For example, the mammal who enters into a watery life knows how to change the physiology and anatomy aforehand!

dhw: I have not dragged God back into the picture. He has always been in this particular picture as the possible inventor of the intelligent cell. (You keep forgetting that I am an agnostic, not an atheist.) Why do you call it an “invented” hypothesis? It is no more and no less “invented” than your own view that 50,000 spider webs are “stepping stones” to humans (though at least the concept of cellular intelligence has the backing of some experts in the field). And it is you who insist that the anatomy of the whale has to be changed before it can enter the water. As repeated over and over again, my proposal is that organisms change IN RESPONSE to changing conditions, as vividly illustrated by minor adaptations. NOT “aforehand”. I use the term “design” as a counter to “chance” (I suggest that the cell communities deliberately change their structure), but I have always accepted that my hypothesis, like your own, is unproven: nobody knows the extent to which adaptation to new conditions may lead to the major, more complex changes required for speciation. That is why, like your own, my hypothesis remains a hypothesis.

What you blithely constantly overlook is the complexity of design required by my prime example of mammals entering a watery environment and changing both physically and physiologically to enter the new situation. Somehow your brilliant cells can figure out how to change themselves to handle the new way of living. It cannot be step by step, as you should believe by accepting design, but then you do invent the idea that since cells/ animals do minor adaptations, they can somehow create giant changes. I find your concept totally illogical. And the fossil record only shows giant jumps in form and function. The fossil record at this point only supports my view. Beware the gaps. Your idea does not cover them.