Evolution of multicellularity (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, October 27, 2012, 19:50 (4235 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Where the intelligence came from initially is a separate question.-DAVID: No, it isn't. Teaching your intelligent cells to work cooperatively is a monumental mental job. It takes an enormous amount of information to get that done. I agree cells are intelligent. I'm not willing to take your next step. Team play requires a coach. Ask any soccer team, any football team.-But I have not taken a next step! As I tried to make clear in my summary at the end of my last post, I am only trying to understand the mechanisms that drive evolution, and to answer the difficult questions raised by the gaps in Darwin's explanations. If I were to say that a Universal Intelligence programmed cells to combine intelligently in adaptive and innovative ways, which eventually led to all the complex organs that make up life as we know it today, would you agree or disagree?-DAVID: (under Why no evolution): This strange worm is now in the process of being reevaluated as to classification, but stranger still it raises the question of why some organisms evolve and others don't. This guy is little changed from its beginning in the Cambrian Explosion 520 million years ago or so. We were equal to all the primates 10+ million years ago, but we were obviously more than equal. We evolved and they are still swinging in the trees and dragging their knuckles.-http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=penis-worm-shakes-evolutionary-tree-Perhaps it's because innovations spring from intelligent responses to changing environments. Instead of Darwin's random mutations and gradual improvements, we have SOME cell communities inventing new ways to exploit new environments, while others remain unchanged because they can still manage perfectly well as they are. In other words, the old co-exists with the new. If I were to preface this remark by saying that cells are programmed by a Universal Intelligence to respond in various intelligent, inventive ways to environmental change, would you agree or disagree? What other answer can you offer to your own question?