Instinct - evolved or better answer?

Let us assume that darwinists are unable to address the problem of the evolution of instincts (Dawkins might be slightly perturbed at such an assumption given he has written several books which focuses on this phenomenon).Let us look at the three different answers that are possible.Nature did it.
God did it.
Some other entity (a murky cloudy being called a Designer) did it.The only difference between the three is that 'Darwinists' are not looking for evidence that nature did it, they are looking for evidence on how nature did it. The other two camps "Goddists" and "Designists" are still trying to convince us that their entity did it, and have no evidence for how EntityX did it. DNA is a stockpile of experience. It is a recipe for what has basically worked in the past. It is put together by trial and error. If one gene predisposes one organism to travel towards heat, and its allele to travel away from heat - the alllele which replicates itself more often as the result of this 'instinct' will become more frequent and will as such become the predominant instinct in the population. Learning isn't wired into the DNA, the lessons are wired into the DNA - the learning part is called natural selection.

Correct. It seems rather pointless to list thousands. So there is a food gene that determines in some manner what the worm should eat and when. Those worms have a gene that predisposes them even slightly towards eating those poisonous leaves when they are attacked by said parasite - would have an obvious advantage. Natural selection will take place and that gene (or suite of genes more likely) could end up getting rather refined. Chimpanzees differ from worms in that they have culture. That is - they pass on information. It could be that Chimps have an instinct to explore and investigate, and upon doing one chimp found itself feeling better after doing something, and it shared that information. Simply because the choice is not binary does not make it any different. In the temperature example it could be that there is a specific range of temperatures which are good. Thus we would have too hot, too cold and just right. The example still stands under this trinary example. Remember as well that it is no good to mushrooms that they are poisonous unless other animals are aware of that fact. As such, they generally evolve warning signals (red with white dots for example). Animals that are attracted to eating red and white dotted mushrooms don't survive quite so well as animals which find red and white dots alarming in a fungus.I'm no expert in the matter. However I would be keenly interested if any anti-evolutionists have an alternative.

I didn't say the worms only had the gene 'slightly'. I said that the gene only needed to slightly predispose the worms that have it towards eating the leaves. Not all organisms have to have certain advantageous genes to survive. It has been done for various things, but I don't know about this particular behaviour. And yet I stated that it was trinary not binary - and stated that it was not necessary that it was a simple instinct, only that it was easiest to explain in this medium. That's the position of 'Darwinists'. I was hoping your explanation would be different. A better word might be that things are for the most part in a sort of evolutionary equilibrium. This equilibrium is punctuated with with comparatively rapid moments of 'creativity' or 'change'. That'd be a quick and easy description of punctuated equilibrium. I was hoping for an anti-evolutionary explanation rather than a Darwinist explanation. The question I asked though - what is the explanation? Darwinists can explain how their proposed mechanism works, can you give a similar level of detail?

Possibly - without knowing the full details of the evolution of this suite of genes neither of us is in a position to know. Since I don't know the name of this worm, I'm at a disadvantage here - if you want specifics dig up the name and I'll see what I can find. It could be the solution is much simpler - the presence of the parasite breaks down the aversion to poisonous leaves. If the parasite is essentially fatal - this kind of mutation would have little effect on the survivability of the worm unless some leaves are more deadly to the parasite than it. That's right - not all worms get infected with the parasite I assume? More information about the worm would help. I wouldn't say benevolent, I'd say that reality is oftentimes more complicated that simple illustrations. Not all members of a population have a beneficial allele from the outset - otherwise no evolution would take place. Clearly, these worms don't need the alleles to survive since you pointed out that worms exist that don't have them.If any of these particular worms gets the parasite, things don't look quite so benevolent anymore.I note with interest that you have yet to put forward an alternative mechanism (a better answer) for instinct.

Thank you. I guess that is why I couldn't find any info - they're caterpillars! Anyway, I don't see anything in there that drastically changes what I've said already - though it doesn't seem the hemlock harms the caterpillar or the parasitic wasps, which is interesting (I assume that the parasites want their hosts to live for a little while, so the parasites and the host share at least one goal which makes for some interesting evolutionary developments. Now it could be that the parasites themselves direct the caterpillar to eat the hemlocks, but I can't find much in the way of information on this specific scenario to judge it any better). Yes indeed. I am no 'expert' on the 'Manifesto', but from what I have read there is no observed mechanism proposed in it. Edited by Modulous, : parenthesis

Not really. It wouldn't be the first time parasites have been shown to influence behaviour of their hosts. Some parasitic worms cause the host to scratch themselves and spread the eggs around. Viruses can cause the host to sneeze, be afraid of water, the list goes on. Given that the idea proposes mechanisms which we have observed, can understand, test and even manipulate....it's not so crazy. I don't know if this particular parasitic interaction has been the subject of molecular study so I can't tell you what the actual cause of the behavioural change is.However, I can tell you - based on the pool of knowledge collected about other parasite/host interactions - what might be going on in this specific case. I'm using what I do know to draw some educated guesses about something I don't know about.Reading some of the literature I find that these caterpillars eat toxic plants anyway. For example

quote:

---

We experimentally demonstrate that the value of enemy-reduced space supersedes that of food quality in determining the diet and host preference of the polyphagous woolly bear caterpillar Grammia geneura (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae). Caterpillars sacrificed superior growth efficiency in choosing a mixed diet that included toxic host plants and provided resistance against parasitoids. The resistance of individual caterpillars was associated with the relative amount of defensive plants eaten as well as with the sequestration of pyrrolizidine alkaloids from one such plant (Senecio longilobus).

---

I see you have yet to draw upon the body of knowledge to explain how PEH might explain the phenomenon.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Ctrl-N->Submit Post leads to double posting. Naughty me.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.