Rapid evolution or epigenetics? (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, March 02, 2011, 11:21 (5015 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: why not an inside intelligence? What would be the difference in procedure and outcome between chance or pre-programmed mutations and self-initiated mutations?-DAVID: This suggestion is not really different from my theory that the UI has put into the evolutionary code, all the advanced planning for evolutionary complexity, to be tested against the geochemical change as the Earth also evolves.-I'm still confining myself to innovation, and for me testing against geochemical changes means adaptation. You move onto epigenetics again before returning to what I see as the crucial question: How do we suddenly have entirely new species? "Darwin's guess is not supported in the fossil record as Gould has shown. Your focus on innovation is extremely important to the current discussions in science. And this is why Darwin may be totally wrong except for the modification of existing species to new environmental challenges."-If my suggestion (that innovation is powered by intelligent cells) is not really different from your theory (that cells are pre-programmed to innovate), may I take it that there is no scientific objection? If so, it frees me to pursue further non-scientific speculations. Each body is a community. In the human community, every so often an inventor comes up with something new. Ditto the body community. The human invention can only function within its social context. Ditto the body invention. A new organ, even in its most rudimentary state, must be integrated into the rest of the body: a rudimentary eye would be no use if it was disconnected! And so just as human society connects with the new invention (if it is to survive), the body society adjusts to it. And from this new invention spring further inventions. From the wheel in due course there developed a million different species of machine. From legs there developed a million different species of animal. But the machines didn't develop by chance ... each one needed intelligence: a deliberate adjustment of existing technology to produce new technology. Perhaps it's been the same with "mutations" ... that the cells themselves work on what they have, to produce something new. Far less intensively than in human society, almost certainly less self-consciously, but following the same principle.-My suggestion would actually support Darwin's theory, with the important exception of his gradualism. New inventions (self-engineeered mutations) would be sudden, even in their most rudimentary form, and there could be golden ages of inventiveness (e.g. the Cambrian Explosion ), perhaps inspired by major changes in the environment. Hence "punctuated equilibrium". But otherwise, the theory stands: a few forms to begin with, innovations that natural selection allows to survive and develop, more innovations leading to ever increasing complexity ... just like human society and human technology. The intelligent cell or community of cells therefore adapts (epigenetics), invents (self-engineered mutations), and survives while the not-so-intelligent cell communities perish (natural selection).-What, then, is the advantage of this suggestion? It doesn't solve the mystery of how "intelligent", "inventive" cells originated, but it does explain the origin of new species. Such cells also eliminate the need for chance in the assembly of complex mechanisms, which removes one layer of improbability (random but functioning mutations) from the atheist scenario. They also eliminate the need for pre-planning, since just like humans they would forge their own destiny. They invent what they invent. Out goes the anthropocentric teleology of religion, and in comes the unpredictable unfolding of history that marks just about every phase and every aspect of existence on Earth. Still too far-fetched?