Innovation and Speciation (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, May 03, 2011, 22:49 (4734 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: The only flaw I see in this whole grand picture, and the part that makes me doubt, is that no where in the animal kingdom(that I am aware of) have we seen an example of invention. Adaptation to a stimulus, sure, we see it all the time. Innovation, as in refining a pre-existing mechanism to be more efficient, is also in evidence. However, invention, the act of spontaneously generating something new from abstract ideas, is not something that we have ever witnessed.-Thank you for this thoughtful response. I am, of course, groping in the dark, but so are we all. We know that invention has taken place ... that new organs and new species have come into being, but none of us have witnessed the process in action. We do not know how eyes, legs, wings came into existence, or how single-celled creatures managed to develop into dinosaurs, whales, eagles, humans...The Darwinian theory is random mutations, but have we ever witnessed new organs, new species being created by these, or by God's pre-preprogrammed mutations? Your perfectly justified objection applies to all the theories.
 
TONY: Contact, even communication between similar species does not account for invention either, as almost every known species communicates in one shape, form, or fashion. (Which, by the way, seems to be as something that should now officially go on the list as something that defines a living being - communication.) Using the article referencing bees, while I will gladly concede a hive intelligence, I have never seen a bee hive that show any meaningful changes to its design that would show signs of creativity.-I used this only as an analogy. At some point, bees gathered into a community and invented a new architecture and a new social system. THAT was the act of creativity. The analogy is with cells at some point gathering into a community and inventing a new organ, a new species. Once established, the species remains as it is, adapting to change or being destroyed by it. However, in due course, a set of cells comes up with another invention, and this in turn leads to another species. If evolution happened, it can only have happened in this way, through innovation. All I'm suggesting is an alternative theory to that of random or God-given mutations: namely, mutations created by the intelligence of the cells themselves. The process is the same ... only the driving force is different (chance, God, innate intelligence).
 
TONY: All of this is to simply define the limitations of intelligence as opposed to self-aware consciousness.-I have tried to make that distinction, but only because self-awareness is an added complication that will divert us from the main thrust of my suggestion. Single cells communicate and show signs of intelligent behaviour. That is enough to give us a mechanism for innovation as well as adaptation. (But of course it tells us nothing about the origin of the mechanism, which is a different question.)