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

by David Turell , Thursday, January 09, 2020, 19:20 (1778 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: That is his theory and mine. How am I stretching his theory? Of course it’s not proven, and why should ID scientists’ unproven theories have priority over Shapiro’s?

DAVID: ID is no more untrue than yours and Shapiro's.

dhw: Thank you. This makes your comment about ID scientists totally irrelevant.

It makes both irrelevant in your sense of things. No one has the answer and Shapiro has not proved one any more than anyone else.

DAVID: It is your so-called designing cell committees to which I object as a distortion of Shapiro's point of view.

dhw: You call them committees, and I call them communities. Do you deny that multicellular organisms consist of different cell communities? Please answer.

They consist of organized organs, no more than to produce different products, under strict rules.

dhw: Shapiro explicitly states that it is the cognitive cells that combine to create evolutionary novelty. I do not see any distortion in my presentation of his theory. You now refer us to an article he wrote in 2017. I’ll only repeat one quote, for brevity’s sake:

These examples show that core biological capacities for self-modification in response to ecological challenge have been integral to the history of life on earth (dhw's bold)

DAVID: Note the lack of the exuberant descriptions of how cognoscent individual cells are. A true scientific paper will not make those claims as in his book, or as in Margulis comment about his book.

dhw: Margulis says in the quote that “it is entirely scientific”, the above quotes alone confirm that his theory attributes innovation to the cellular capacity for self-modification in response to ecological challenges, he believes that science will in future confirm the non-randomness of cellular activity, and he believes in cellular intelligence, as I have quoted over and over again. You keep providing evidence that his theory and mine are the same, and the only objection you have to its reasonableness is (a) your prejudice against a 50/50 chance, and b) like all theories, it is not proven.

DAVID: You avoided commenting on my point that his scientific review article in 2017 totally avoids the hyperbole in his book. Two different audiences with two different requirements for honest conclusions. His article is excellent! You have swallowed the hyperbole of a book written for a partially lay audience.

dhw: And you have avoided commenting on all the above rebuttals concerning my presentation of Shapiro's theory. Meanwhile, what hyperbole? Do you honestly think that his talk contradicts his theory? Look at the heading of the first section of the article:

1. Living Organisms Regularly Facilitate Their Own Evolution
dhw: Yes, the article was directed at a different audience – it is highly technical and scientific. Please find me one sentence that contradicts the theory expounded in his book. If organisms, which are composed of cell communities, facilitate their own evolution, they facilitate their own evolution. They do not automatically obey divine instructions.

I didn't bring up the divine. The title doesn't tell how evolution works but offers a mechanism that may be in play, somehow, and you have not answered my point about the hyperbole in the book itself. The theory is presented in a measured acceptable scientific way in his talk as it should have been. It is a piece of evidence to be evaluated as science moves forward in sorting out how speciation might occur, and we have no evidence it can occur naturally, only variations.