Rapid evolution or epigenetics? (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, March 05, 2011, 01:40 (5013 days ago) @ dhw

However, we do not know if the evolution of the Earth, adding water, adding plasmatismals, adding atmosphere, having continental plate movement and subduction, etc. is under control or on its own.-Sometimes my typing doesn't listen to my brain. In the above it should be PLANETISMALS. Sorry. -> I'm surprised that you link direct drive to a bush form. As I have no sense of direction, that is frequently the pattern of our excursions, but by direct drive I would understand the shortest possible route.-No, the 'bush' comment is due to direct observation. the so-called tree of life is really a bush. Look at it. Why that form? The organisms have epigenetic responses to many threats and respond to htem, creating the bush.- 
> Still in the context of this discussion, I was struck by an unrelated but, in the wider context, extremely relevant comment in the article on consciousness: 
 
> Think of termite mounds. I do not believe that the first termites were shown how to do it by clever old Adam. No matter what evolutionary stages their mound-building went through, each one was decided by the termites themselves. Within our bodies are even more complex structures, and many of them function independently of our own conscious minds. -We don't know how those termite activities arose. Possibly invented by the bugs, and by the way both of us have seen those structures in Africa. Humongous! But we also don't know how instinct is carried: is it coded in the DNA? Was it pre-coded? That sounds like a stretch. All the animals in the ant family do this burrowing. Some ancestor started it and it became automatic instinct. We literally don't know how this works. Consciousness? No way. It was coded in by epigenetics and carried forward genetically.-As far as our automatic function go, do you really want to have to think to breathe? But each of us can become conscious of our breathing. Renal function hepatic function, oxygen exchange all go on automatically. Heart beating. I can take my pulse, but if I get very quiet and concentrate I can feel my body pulse.-Those functions have no relation to consciousness. I don't really know why you related them to the consciousness discussion. They sure suggest design to me.