Proteins, Apes & Us: dhw look!!! (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, April 18, 2012, 21:39 (4580 days ago) @ David Turell

David has proposed a scenario in which tree-dwelling monkeys undergo a mutation leading to uprightness, and then descend to the savannah. I proposed a scenario in which the trees have disappeared, and monkeys are forced to adjust to the savannah by becoming upright. I quoted two articles, one of which cast doubt on whether Lucy was bipedal or arboreal, and the other recorded two totally opposing views by teams of experts who had studied the same evidence and concluded (a) that Ardi was up in the trees, and (b) that he was down in the savannah. I think this leaves ample scientific latitude for my scenario.-DAVID: All paleo scientists whether it is evolution or climate work with proxies. No direct evidence. -Clearly the proxies that we do have allow for either interpretation.-DAVID: Find a proxy that fits your scenario! And you are all set to turn the world on its ear!-I don't understand why my scenario is so revolutionary. I thought it was your own that was turning the world on its ear!-DAVID: I found it for you. Some rare chimps are ground sleepers.-You are a true sportsman and gentleman. But wouldn't gorillas ... which spend most of their time on the ground ... also count as proxies? In any case, even the uprightness theory is part of a much bigger idea which started with Lynn Margulis's symbiotic relationships.-So please be patient with me ... as you always are ... and pick this argument to pieces, not by demanding direct evidence for (as you say, there is none for any of the theories), but by citing direct evidence against.-Cells cooperate. That is a fact. We have no idea how they do it, but their ability to form working communities indicates some kind of intelligence. (You may attribute that to God if you like.) Thanks to epigenetics, Lamarckism ... inheritance of acquired characteristics ... seems to be making a comeback. One of the weakest of all factors in the evolutionary theory is innovation. We know that major changes in the environment coincide with major changes to flora and fauna, with species becoming extinct and new species emerging. This suggests a possible link between environment and innovation. There are in fact two possibilities here, one of which I think has been proven: some species survive by adapting to environmental change. (I remember you giving us the example of a fish that did just that within a couple of generations.) This can only mean that organs undergo changes in order to preserve the status quo, and organs are communities of "intelligent" cells. But supposing we go one step further, to changes in the environment that allow for new ideas ... i.e. that allow cell communities to form totally new combinations. -To illustrate this, and stay within our uprightness framework, let me slightly revise my original thesis. Maybe the monkeys didn't HAVE to stand upright. After all, there are plenty of quadrupeds that manage perfectly well in the savannah. Supposing instead, some monkeys found that standing upright simply gave them an advantage ... to get a better view of predators, to reach the tops of bushes...in fact, whatever advantages your own brand of hominin had from its lucky or pre-planned mutation. Greater success would bring a greater survival rate, and the cell communities would adjust accordingly, with all the necessary changes to the pelvis, the shoulders and the rest of the anatomy (again, the same process that your own brand of hominin had to undergo). These acquired characteristics would then be passed on à la Lamarck. Such a scenario gives evolution two different types of impetus: not only NECESSARY but also USEFUL adaptations and innovations, all in accordance with what the environment demands or allows, and all organized by the cells within existing organisms. The beauty of this is that instead of Darwin's random mutations and unrelieved gradualism, and your pre-planned mutations with no necessity other than God's will, we have an intelligent response ... adaptive or innovative ... dictated by variations in the environment. If the Cambrian Explosion*** coincided with huge environmental changes (e.g. increase in oxygen), it may be that the cell communities found hitherto impossible ways of combining ... again bearing in mind that all species must evolve from existing species apart from the very first (unless you believe in special creation). -Design versus chance? No-one knows how the intelligent cell came into being, so that remains wide open. Proxies? Every species you can think of. If you believe in common descent, there has to be an internal mechanism (the "intelligent" cell) that governs innovation, and there has to be a trigger to set it in motion: your trigger is God's will, Darwin's is random mutation, and mine is the environment. All theories involve joining the dots of whatever information we have. Does this one leave out any of the dots?-
*** Thanks for the latest reference. The website is currently "experiencing difficulties".