Evolution: the newly-found bacterial role: (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, August 16, 2019, 18:45 (1924 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Shapiro and the others considered cellular intelligence to allow for minor adaptations. You are the one stretching it to major species modification. Not likely since so much advanced design is required.

dhw; Since both Shapiro and McClintock champion(ed) the concept of cellular intelligence, how do you think Shapiro’s “natural genetic engineering” works?

Natural genetic engineering - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_genetic_engineering
Shapiro points out that multiple cellular systems can affect DNA in response to specific environmental stimuli. These "directed" changes stand in contrast to both the undirected mutations in the modern synthesis and (in Shapiro's interpretation) the ban on information flowing from the environment into the genome.
In the 1992 Genetica paper that introduced the concept, Shapiro begins by listing three lessons from molecular genetics:
• there is a surprising amount of genetic conservation across taxonomic boundaries,
• the mosaic structure of the genome results in multiple nonlocal genes having multiple phylogenic effects, and, drawing on the work of his friend and collaborator Barbara McClintock,
• the existence of multiple cellular mechanisms (including mobile genetic elements) that can restructure DNA.
From these, Shapiro concludes:
It can be argued that much of genome change in evolution results from a genetic engineering process utilizing the biochemical systems for mobilizing and reorganizing DNA structures present in living cells.[1]

DAVID: All true, but only covers small modifications in his research which is limited within bacteria and nothing more. Please note that most scientific journals do not accept quotes from Wikipedia which is notoriously slanted by biases that are entered from a multitude of uncontrolled sources. But what you presented is OK.

dhw: His theory is not confined to small modifications! Same source:
"Natural genetic engineering (NGE) is a class of process proposed by molecular biologist James Shapiro to account for novelty created in the course of biological evolution."

All based on bacterial studies and therefore an unproven extrapolation. I've read the book.

dhw: Novelty, not small modifications. But of course it’s an unproven theory – just as your divine preprogramming and dabbling is an unproven theory. You refuse to consider it, though, because it conflicts with your fixed belief.

You are unfixed and I am fixed. That is why we debate.