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

by dhw, Friday, January 10, 2020, 10:36 (1777 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: 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.

DAVID: 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.

You accused me of stretching his theory, which I have not done, and I keep agreeing that it is a theory not a fact, so there is no point in your harping on about it not being proven.

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.

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

So do you deny that these organized organs consist of different cell communities?

DAVID: You avoided commenting on my point that his scientific review article in 2017 totally avoids the hyperbole in his book. […] 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.

DAVID: 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.

I asked you what hyperbole? Are you now telling us that Shapiro does not believe that cells are cognitive, sentient, decision-making beings which produce evolutionary novelty through a process of self-modification?

DAVID: 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.

Yes, he has said so himself: “the years to come likely hold surprising lessons about how […] natural genetic engineering may operate non-randomly to enhance the probabilities of evolutionary success”. Your claim that we have no evidence does not mean that Shapiro has changed his theory that natural genetic engineering arises from cells’ ability to modify themselves and hence to produce evolutionary novelty. If you have evidence that he has changed his mind, please produce it.