Novelties and evolvability

Margulis did not only posit endosymbiosis as a source of organelles. REF? She posited that all novelties in eukaryotes are caused by endosymbiosis. In her opinion, bacteria are involved in an intelligent network covering the whole planet. In addition to working to the best for eukaryotes in a teleological manner it also supports our planet and maintains it in best possible ways. This theory was worked out in cooperation with James Lovelock. It is the "Gaia theory".  The intelligence in her model is thereby Gaia herself.

This way to regard bacteria can be seen as a solution to a serious problem in her scenario for cellular evolution. The problem is the origin of bacteria. According to the endosymbiosis theory their fusion starts evolution in a colossal tempo in eukaryotes. But the bacteria hardly evolve at all. That could be explained by the combination being so powerful. But there is another major problem. With Darwinian evolution even the bacteria must have evolved from single molecules. If Gaya created bacteria, then the problem is solved. Margulis criticized Darwinism especially because it is based on random mutations, which as she said:

 “Neo-Darwinism, which insists on (the slow accrual of mutations), is in a complete funk.”

I have illustrated Margulis´ way of thinking in the figure below: 

and my way in this figure: 

Organisms are illustrated by circles where complexity is the size of the circles. Evolvability is illustrated by the thickness of the arrows that show the direction of evolution. My theories do not rely on any intelligence. Instead they rely on evolvability, which is present in eukaryotes today, and which has been present almost from the beginning. There are a range of mechanisms that are typically present in eukaryotes and which are parts of the evolvability apparatus. They are: sex, diploidy, introns and protection against too high selection pressure. These mechanisms give organisms access to ingenious variants (e.g. through new combinations) and avoids stagnations at suboptimal solutions.