Biological complexity: teaching bacteria new tricks (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, April 29, 2016, 16:20 (2913 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: My hypothesis: conditions changed, and some intelligent bacteria - with their intelligence possibly God-given - worked out the internal engineering for themselves (perhaps horizontal gene transfer plays a role here?). These hypotheses must apply to all innovations throughout the history of evolution. They produce the same results, though there is no evidence for any of them, and nobody knows how any of them would actually work. -DAVID: I just don't see how your hypothesis would work, since proper results require planning, unless God given guidelines are present.-Since nobody knows how any of the hypotheses would work, or how innovations could be “planned” (especially if changing environmental conditions were not “planned”), it is hardly surprising that you don't see how mine would work. Our only clue is that some organisms survive by adapting swiftly to seemingly unpredictable changes in conditions, so maybe some can also innovate. I myself have difficulty trying to work out how your God could have preprogrammed every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in evolutionary history to be passed down by the first few cells, or how he could have personally dabbled with the genome of every individual organism that ever produced an innovation, not to mention giving personal tuition to every organism that produced a new lifestyle or natural wonder.
 
dhw: Finally, your response still doesn't explain how the researcher's manipulation of the genome, enabling bacteria to swim, supports your contention that bacteria can't think for themselves (take their own decisions, work out their own solutions to problems). If your God intervened and changed my legs into flippers, would that mean I couldn't think for myself? I see no connection between the two processes.-DAVID: For me it is simple. Put in proper genes and automatically swimming begins, without lessons or thought!-But putting in the proper genes for swimming does not prove that the bacterium is incapable of thought!