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

by dhw, Sunday, April 22, 2012, 20:25 (4599 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: 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?-DAVID: I think your triggers are correct, but least likely Darwin. My version of God's will is within DNA: a drive to become more complex and to be inventive; the environment calls forth epigenetics; and Darwin is luck of the draw, and occasionally something works. Your cell intelligence and cooperation is reasonable, but is still a theory in infancy.-I'm delighted with this reply. I see little difference between the inventive drive of DNA and the intelligence and cooperation of cells. Your inventive DNA will get nowhere if it doesn't suit a particular environment, and my inventive cell gets going when the environment is suitable. I agree that Darwin's random mutations seem the least likely of the three, and in view of all the unanswered questions I would say that all three theories are (still) in their infancy. That is where they will remain until science comes up with some direct evidence of how innovations are caused.