[MD] Quality Conversations

[David M]

 Engineering is a metaphor in
> evolution, but there is no engineer involved. Biological genes may
> "engineer" brains, but they do not engineer intelligence - they
> engineer biological pattersns more or less capable of supporting
> intelligence. (I repeat my caveat, naturally.)
> 


Hi Ian

I see no reason to imagine that there is a grand designer in
evolution, although it depends on how interconnected 
and conscious all things are, but we cannot currently get a 
clear idea about this. More interestingly I wonder how
able life itself is able to engineer its own bodies. Darwinism
assumes no feedback loop from active life to what it passes
on to the next generation in bodily form and behaviour.
But is this correct? Do bodies have more capacity
to alter genes and their switches than is usually assumed.
Some people seem to be exploring this possibility.
The negative feedback loop that natural de-selection, as it
should be called, offers is very limited and makes life's
evolution out of the slime very unlikely, of course we are
here, but is the Darwinian orthodoxy enough? We should
keep asking.


Of course, Sheldrake suggests another possible mechanism.

David M