Potential falsifications of the theory of evolution

But your interpretation is not. - can you point to where he even implies "planned" in any way shape or form?Do the same for "engineered" as not a completely natural process.If you cannot do this, then you need to accept that your interpretation is not supported by the evidence.

Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true.[Note 1][1] As a result, people gather evidence and recall information from memory selectively, and interpret it in a biased way. ... They also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. ...

You guys really need to combine this with his March presentation on "A signal-responsive (cognitive) systems view of the genome" - he is not saying cells function as intelligent agents in the sense of teleological, goal planning, high order intelligences. There is intelligence and intelligence - one can quite reasonably define Natural selection itself as an intelligent process in a heuristic sense but that doesn't make it a conscious process, people should not confuse the two, and many natural systems have the properties of being able to go beyond simple stimulus-response. He is saying we need to think of cellular processes as interactive systems (as we do with neural nets) rather than one way, linear, cause-effect systems. He is challenging the one way gene centric central dogma by arguing cells have themselves evolved systems for more flexible responses based on "experience" (in the form of epigenetic information amongst other things).http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/2009.SFI.pdf
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Add Monad to Your Ignore List12-19-2009, 07:24 PM #736167 / #16

Originally Posted by Monad
he is not saying cells function as intelligent agents in the sense of teleological, goal planning, high order intelligences.Certainly, it would be in another sense, since the goal planning, teleological capacities of the cell would be minuscule and rudimentary compared to such capacities in a human brain. I do see however that he is indeed suggesting a sort of mental aspect to the cell, which I find quite unproblematic

On this board the possibility of a non-Darwinian theory is never considered. Those who bring up the possibility are "uneducated".

Oh grow up and drop the martyr complex. I wasn't accusing you of being undereducated, I was suggesting that you were mistaken, You are being over-sensitive.

4) Cellular Information Processing. While it is easy to see how advances in our understanding of genome organization and genetic change will impact theories of evolutionary processes, another development in contemporary biology is of less obvious but even more basic relevance. This is the growing realization that cells have molecular computing networks which process information about internal operations and about the external environment to make decisions controlling growth, movement, and differentiation. This realization has come, in large measure, from detailed genetic analysis of cellular processes and multicellular development. The inducible repair systems mentioned above provide a relatively simple, well-studied example. Bacterial and yeast cells have molecules that monitor the status of the genome and activate cellular responses when damaged DNA accumulates. The surveillance molecules do this by modifying transcription factors so that appropriate repair functions are synthesized. These inducible DNA damage response systems are sophisticated and include so-called "checkpoint" functions that act to arrest cell division until the repair process has been completed. When the checkpoints do not function, cell division proceeds before repair is completed, and the damaged cells die or produce inviable progeny. One can characterize this surveillance/inducible repair/checkpoint system as a molecular computation network demonstrating biologically useful properties of self-awareness and decision-making.

Agreed, however he also clearly does not say that "changes are the result of planned, engineered functions" as you have. To go from one to the other requires a "leap-of-faith" rather than a logical conclusion ... or confirmation bias based of beliefs rather than information.

You have things backwards. What evidence convinced you that Shapiro is right?

Based on what evidence?

Cognitive systems view of the genome, shadow. Not "intelligently designed genome".

PubMed Citation
Articles by Shapiro, J. A.
Genetics, Vol. 183, 1205-1214, December 2009, Copyright 2009
doi:10.1534/genetics.109.110007Letting Escherichia coli Teach Me About Genome Engineering
James A. Shapiro1
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Chicago, Gordon Center for Integrative Science, Chicago, Illinois 60637
1 Address for correspondence: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Chicago, Gordon Center for Integrative Science, 979 E. 57th St., Chicago, IL 60637.
E-mail: jsha@uchicago.eduAnecdotal, Historical and Critical Commentaries on Genetics

On this board the possibility of a non-Darwinian theory is never considered

Sure it is. The problem is that the evidence just isn't there, or it is overplayed as in the case of both Shapiro and Koonin.

He, not me, mentions a possible intelligent cellular action in evolution.

Based on what evidence?

Mutations are still observed to be random with respect to fitness which is the whole point. The cell does not sense antibiotics in the environment and then specifically mutate a specific gene to produce antibiotic resistance, as one example. Instead, random mutations produce the resistance which is then selected for.

iarelli
I'm curious about "their non-random operations." Does 'non-random' suggest that the very instructions for all possible morphological changes are front loaded or pre-programmed into living things, needing only a given catalyst to get things going?James Shapiro
No. Non-random means that they operate under certain conditions (e.g. after genome damage or viral infection) and that these systems make characteristic kinds of changes. When a retrovirus-like element inserts in a new genomic location, it carries with it a defined set of regulatory signals that can affect the reading of nearby DNA sequences in very particular ways. This is an example of non-randomness. In addition, some changes (such as those in the immune system) can be targeted to specific locations by the presence of particular signals in the DNA or by activation of transcription. These phenomena show us that cells are capable of altering their genomes in non-random but not rigidly specified or pre-determined ways.

Cognitive system: one that utilizes plausible computational representations of biological processes as a basis for system designs that seek to understand the underlying mechanisms of intercellular communication.Furthermore, Shapiro has expressly denied that his work supports intelligent design.

The point of this discussion is that our current knowledge of genetic change is fundamentally at variance with neo-Darwinist postulates. We have progressed from the Constant Genome, subject only to random, localized changes at a more or less constant mutation rate, to the Fluid Genome, subject to episodic, massive and non-random reorganizations capable of producing new functional architectures. Inevitably, such a profound advance in awareness of genetic capabilities will dramatically alter our understanding of the evolutionary process. Nonetheless, neo-Darwinist writers like Dawkins continue to ignore or trivialize the new knowledge and insist on gradualism as the only path for evolutionary change.

The approach you're taking seems to be:Find someone who you think has a falsification argument against evolution.Convince everyone he's so wonderful that he must be right.An approach you might consider is:Reach agreement with other participants about what Shapiro is actually saying.Discuss Shapiro's actual views to determine whether he actually has a falsification argument against evolution.
--Percy

Just what in the above "falsifies evolution"?

"...our current knowledge of genetic change is FUNDAMENTALLY at variance with neo-Darwinist postulates."And,"...Inevitably, such a profound advance in awareness of genetic capabilities will dramatically alter our understanding of the evolutionary process."