David's theory of evolution: James A. Shapiro's view (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, December 04, 2019, 12:29 (1814 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: My fight is with unthinking Darwinists. During Darwin's time many of his contemporaries fully disagreed with him with arguments I use.

dhw: I have pointed that out many times. This website arose out of my own critique of what I consider to be Dawkins’ “unthinking Darwinism”. However, there is no need to bring that into every thread, and it is no excuse for repeating personal attacks on Darwin himself, as you have done with your racist slur.

DAVID: Darwin thought Africans were inferior. Perhaps that was OK in his time. It is claimed that Nazi racial cleansing was based in his works, which isn't his fault.

I have found the thread on which this vicious slur was demolished: November 10 2012, under “Darwin and atheism”. It ended with your comment: “Thank you for this interpretation. I am educated.” You have forgotten your education. Here is another more recent demolition drawing on the same material. But I do wish you wouldn’t allow your obsessive antipathy towards Darwin and Darwinism to keep sidetracking us. (You have done the same on the thread concerning dark energy, which again has nothing to do with Darwinism.)

Was Darwin a racist, and does evolution promote racism ...
https://www.skeptical-science.com/people/darwin-racist-evolution-promote-racism-darwin...

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DAVID: Shapiro did fabulous work. He is a wonderful scientist. You have made him 'poor' by what I think is misusing his theories, and you haven't read the book, only reviews.

dhw: You have quoted him abundantly in your own book, and his theory is that “living cells are cognitive (sentient) entities that act and interact purposefully…”, they “have the ability to alter their hereditary characteristics”, and “evolutionary novelty arises from the prosecution of new cell and multicellular structures as a result of cellular self-modification”. That IS his theory. How am I misusing it?

DAVID: you have grabbed and run with his theories when I don't think from my readings of his articles that he would agree with your conclusions.

dhw: I have quoted his conclusions, which you reproduced in your book, and they exactly express my own theory. Since I agree with him, please tell me which of my conclusions he would disagree with.

DAVID: You have applied it to multicellular organisms and claim cells in those organisms can design future advanced forms. Shapiro never went that far, so you have bastardized his contribution to research in the process of evolution.

I have repeatedly denied that cells design “future advanced forms”, and I see nothing in the above quotes about such forms. Over and over again I have stressed that the designs are IN RESPONSE to environmental changes, not in anticipation of them. The crystal ball is part of your own theory. Please note that Shapiro includes “multicellular structures”, and please tell me which of my conclusions Shapiro would disagree with.

DAVID: I'll continue: the chemical signals represent information/instructions, not thought in design or planning design. Cell A might ask cell B to produce something which B knows how to do from the instructions it carries.

dhw: Yes, that is your prejudiced conclusion, though you agree that cellular intelligence has a 50/50 chance of being correct.

DAVID: 50/50 is the probability I have presented, which is what the evidence allows so far. Thus it is open to interpretation using other points in living biochemistry, since all we ever see is exchanging info through a series of expressed proteins with the desired results to keep life going.

In other words, the intelligent behaviour of cells may be caused by your God’s instructions or by their own intelligence.

DAVID (under “pathogenic bacteria”): S protein is a great tool for Strep on the attack. That bacteria can be this inventive supports Shapiro's findings.

Thank you for this article and your comment. The inventiveness of single-celled organisms ties in very neatly with the proposal that multicellular organisms may also be inventive.