Genome complexity: what genes do and don't do (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, January 24, 2019, 10:20 (2130 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I can’t follow your analogy. We’re dealing with the invention of the machine (the "fully functioning being" or species) not how the invention is to be used! You have told us the article is an exact expression of your thoughts, and the article quite specifically states that the DNA code is a passive data base (= passive information) “cannot possibly serve as instructions”, cells “learn” and “create instructions on the hoof” and create instructions “de novo”. Now you’ve reverted to your belief that information means instructions, and lower down (bolded) you will tell us it is active.

DAVID: Very simply information can do both, supply instruction for new speciation and how it should react to challenges. DNA is just the code level of protein production. There must be other levels of the genome to contain that function, and some may be hidden in the vast size of DNA inthe non-coding regions (96-98%).

So you agree with the article that DNA is a passive data base which cannot possibly serve as instructions for “putting proteins together into a fully functioning being”, but all the same DNA might contain the instructions. If it doesn’t, the instructions are hidden somewhere in the genome. And “very simply”, information (active – see below) can use information (passive), although the article with which you agree specifies that cells use their genes, the organism uses the information, and cells “learn” and “create instructions on the hoof”. I can’t find any reference to information using information.

DAVID: Shapiro tells us that the cells in all of this massive activity can modify their genome to alter their function. This implies that the instructions for life are used and malleable. You appear to approach information as descriptive, but in life it is a central active component which makes life emerge. (dhw’s bold)

dhw: And Shapiro tells us that cells are sentient, intelligent, decision-making beings, and anyone who thinks otherwise is guilty of “large organisms chauvinism”.

DAVID: Shapiro studied bacteria which he interpreted as having a read/write control over their DNA. There is no way he could tell if this was independent activity or acting under response instructions.

And there is no way you can tell either, but you insist that Shapiro (not to mention Margulis, McClintock, Buehler et al) doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Why not keep an open mind if neither of you can possibly know the truth?

DAVID: It is a concept. Just as you have an idea that cells contain their own inventive mechanism (IM) I can see it existing with God-imposed limits to the degree of modification.

dhw: And apart from limits imposed by the environment and by their own capabilities, what “limits” do you see?

DAVID: They cannot speciate themselves into a new form.

That is the subject of the debate, and is your fixed belief to which I am offering an alternative!

dhw: In passing, I don’t like the word “advances” on its own. I don’t regard whale fins as an advance on pre-whale legs, or toothlessness/baleens as an advance on teeth, but I do accept your own contention that evolution is a bush and not a tree. The higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution sprawls outwards (not an advance) as well as upwards. And yes, our DNA has lots of room for rearrangements, and the articles suggest that only small rearrangements are necessary for large changes, but if DNA is a passive data base, it is the active organisms (comprising cell communities) that use the passive information.

DAVID: Your invention of cell communities does not prove there is any evidence of cells having any ability to communicate new design plans for advancing modification or speciation. Your entire idea is based on the tenuous conclusion Shapiro made after studies of single cell bacteria which can do specific gene transfer for specific purposes like antibacterial resistance.

"Invention of cell communities? What do you think your organs consist of, if not cells cooperating with one another? What does your body consist of, if not organs (cell communities) communicating with one another? Come on, Dr David, cell communities are not my “invention”. But I don’t know how often you want me to repeat that we don’t know whether their intelligence can extend to innovation, which is why my idea remains an unproven hypothesis, just as your divine 3.8 byo computer programme for all innovations and your divine dabbling remain unproven hypotheses.

On the subject of “humanizing”, see the post under “Little Foot”.