Evolution of multicellularity (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, October 25, 2012, 18:50 (4413 days ago) @ dhw


> Both this article and the Shapiro one lay emphasis on single cells that combine. The cells also communicate with one another. If we anthropomorphize them for the sake of our own understanding, we have A & B saying to each other, "Hey, let's get together and build something new." And if the environment offers conditions suitable for a vast variety of innovations, you may have thousands of individual cells deciding to get together and build something new, while others just carry on as before. The Cambrian problem disappears, and of course there are no steps ... a new combination either works or it doesn't. We are back to the intelligent cell (or the Margulis concept of cooperation), and David if you could cloak my little fairy tale in suitably complex scientific jargon, you could then challenge the scientific community to find a better explanation.-Unfortunately a living organism contains million of cells and many different kinds of functioning cells. The cells themselves are very complex expressions of different parts of DNA. How they would negotiate to combine and organize from single cells to a mass of cells as described is beyond my comprehension. All examples we have of cooperation are relatvely simple. A cell swallows another cell and we have mitochondria. I'd love to know how a cell could swallow another cell and make a heart. That is a simple organ, a muscular sack with an electric system. Try for a liver or a kidney. They are both entire chemistry laboratories, disposing of waste and making hormones and other products at the same time, all under feedback loop controls. Yes, cells are obviously using intelligence. I keep asking where did the intelligence come from?