posted 09. March 2002 00:51                   

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Originally posted by Nelson Alonso:

Nelson:
This is not an assertion, there is no evidence that the Darwinian mechanism can produce such complexity. We have observed no such thing.

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posted 09. March 2002 01:01                   

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Originally posted by Nelson Alonso:
Francis:
One has to be careful when using the term 'random' and 'non-random'. As far as I can tell the non-randomness refers to position in the genome not function.

Nelson:
Non-randomness as it is discussed here is "not an accumalation of mistakes". This refers to function, mutations that are not mistakes. These are changes that are made to overcome a particular problem. There is growing evidence of this:

Kiely, Tom. 1990. "Rethinking Darwin." Technology Review.

Lipkin, Richard. 1995. "Stressed Bacteria Spawn Elegant Colonies," Science News.

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Francis:
Initially there seems to have been some excitement about adaptive mutations but the recent findings seem to suggest that adaptive mutations are due to hypermutations.

Nelson:
Hypermutations are incompatible with most models of Darwinian evolution. Usually they either kill off the organism or are too limited to an area of the genome. In this context hypermutations are obviously "neutral" although restricted to only a small part of the genome.

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Francis:
Secondly even assuming that mutations are non random in function, how would this provide support for ID? Are you saying that the intelligence is present in the organism?

Nelson:
I'm saying that the robustness of the organism, the ability for these colonies to compute better than any parrallel processor that even exists today, is due to intelligent design.

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Nelson:
If such primitive creatures are capable of such complex tasks then what we are seeing could be the makings of a paradigm shift, from a reductionist perspective, to a teleological perspective.

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Francis:
I would not call bacteria 'primitive'. They might be single cellular but they have undergone the longest period of evolution.

Nelson:
Perhaps you misunderstood. By primitive I meant "old". Darwinian evolution goes from simplest to complex, so the older the organism, it is usually, said , the more simple it probably is.

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Shapiro's views don't just amount to a important functional role for "junk DNA" and the growing irrelevance of the Modern Synthesis, but they also hold great potential for a very positive fruition of a robust teleological interpretation of life's history. As science moves in this direction, its difference from ID dwindles.

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Nelson:
What we could be seeing is a glimpse of the designer's engineering skills, much like those of AI programmers.

Francis:
In this case the designer(s) seems to be the bacteria. How does the bacteria being a 'designer' help us determine if something designed the bacteria?

Nelson:
The bacteria is the parrallel processor. In that it is a designed computer, we can see a concept of how the designer designed these computers to proliferate life billions of years ago.

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Francis:
Shapiro's work shows us how bacteria are organized, provide for signaling etc. How does this relate to ID though?

Nelson:
Shapiro's work doesn't show that bacteria are organized. What he showed was that with respect to solving complex problems, we are:

"thinking of genomes as complex interactive information systems, in many ways comparable to those involving computers."

J. A. Shapiro. Natural genetic engineering in evolution. Genetica, 86:99-111, 1992.

Francis:
To me the question is: Is this analogy structural or superficial?

Nelson:
This is a false dichotomy. If we view these packages of genes as information processors, then it is absolutely correct to call them computers.

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Francis:
I agree that GA systems when applied to a large variety of problems are not always that succesful but in case of evolution we are talking about a relatively simple algorithm that has been shown to work quite efficiently.

Nelson:
Perhaps you misunderstood. My point was not that genomes are not always successful, but that they are able to change themselves, form a "super-mind" in order to solve new problems. It is not a "simple algorithm" that works efficiently. The quotes below don't seem to have any relevance to my discussion here either.

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posted 09. March 2002 13:27                   

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To conclude, I hope I was successful in convincing the reader that Vitalism is not the only alternative to Darwinism. I propose a new option, that of cooperative evolution based on the formation of creative webs. The emergence of the new picture involves a shift from the pure reductionistic point of view to a rational holistic one, in which creativity is well within the realm of Natural sciences.

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In nature, bacterial colonies often must cope with hostile environmental conditions. To do so they have developed sophisticated cooperative behavior and intricate communication capabilities, such as: direct cell-cell physical interactions via extra-membrane polymers, collective production of extracellular "wetting" fluid for movement on hard surfaces, long range chemical signaling such as quorum sensing and chemotactic signaling, collective activation and deactivation of genes and even exchange of genetic material. Utilizing these capabilities, the bacterial colonies develop complex spatio-temporal patterns in response to adverse growth conditions. We present a wealth of beautiful patterns formed during colonial development of various bacterial strains and for different environmental conditions. Invoking ideas from pattern formation in non-living systems and using generic modeling we are able to reveal novel bacterial strategies which account for the salient features of the evolved patterns. Using the model, we demonstrate how bacterial communication leads to colonial self-organization that can only be achieved via cooperative behavior of the cells. It can be viewed as the action of a singular feedback between the micro-level (the individual cells) and the macro-level (the colony) in the determination of the emerging patterns.

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