Magic embryology: requires exact timing for every tissue (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, February 08, 2020, 18:59 (1750 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I'm surprised that you do not recognize epigenetics as part of the adaptive mechanism. As for cell committees, no evidence, and extremely unlikely. I'll stick with design.

dhw: Intelligent cell communities ARE a theory of “design”. Where is your evidence for divine dabbling and/or preprogramming? What on earth makes you think I don’t recognize epigenetics as part of the adaptive system?

DAVID: Note this statement of yours:"it does not explain how cells adapt to changing conditions in order that the species can remain the same".

dhw: Why must I note my own statement? Why don’t you note it? Epigenetics does not explain how cells adapt! My proposal is that the cells themselves have the intelligent autonomous ability to adapt. Why did you raise the subject of epigenetics in the first place?

To answer, epigenetics is the only proven mechanism we know. As you seem to point out, we don't know how the mechanism is managed with the organisms, but, as I view it, it must be germ cells changing the next generations through reproduction. At your theory level they receive pleading messages from somatic cells to please fix things.

dhw: As for your “cell committees” (your term, not mine), do you deny the existence of cell communities, and do you deny that those communities are in constant contact with one another in all multicellular organisms?

DAVID: Cells are constantly in communication running the automatic processes of life.

dhw: Thank you. The cells run the show,whether automatic or non-automatic, and maybe it was your God who gave them the ability to do so. You’re cottoning on at last.

See comment above.

DAVID: Only changes in germ cell DNA can speciate. These are the only cells to which you can reasonably refer, and they do not think and plan designs. A thinking mind must be present to design needed future changes.

dhw: There we go again. How do you know they don’t think? And I am tempted to carry out my threat and fill a page with the statement you keep ignoring:
MY THEORY IS THAT CELLS DO NOT PLAN DESIGNS NEEDED FOR FUTURE CHANGES. CELLS RESPOND TO NEEDS AS THEY ARISE. THEY DO NOT ANTICIPATE NEEDS.

I fully know and understand your theory which I totally reject. Again note my concept above dtaht germ cells have to respond, if they can. I think God speciates directly.

DAVID re ants: We can only tell they act intelligently, just as from the outside of cells all we can see is activity that looks intelligent or is the result of intelligently planned in automatic responses.

dhw: Yes, yes, we’ve been over this a thousand times. They act intelligently, and you say there is a 50/50 chance that they are intelligent or they are automatons obeying your God’s instructions. You refuse to allow even a 50/50 chance of your being wrong, and so you reject 100% the possibility that they are intelligent.

As always I agree they act as if intelligent, but their intelligence is not proven, only an outsider's impression!