Intelligence & Evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, November 07, 2013, 02:18 (4033 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: But more to the point, they are professionals working in a field which you claim provides the basis for your own faith. A 90% no is not much of an endorsement, is it?-They have made a choice to be atheists. They have a position which will not agree with me. You won't choose.-
> dhw: If you mean that cells follow a plan devised BY a mechanism of unknown origin within their DNA, we might strike a deal,-I can agree that cells follow a plan and no proven source of the plan is at issue.-> dhw;but if you mean the plan has been placed there by your God and cells are automatons (which of course you have always maintained), you are missing my point, which is quite simply that we DO NOT KNOW. This is admirably illustrated by your misinterpretation of the sentence you bolded in one of the three quotations supporting the concept or at least the possibility of the intelligent cell. The sentence begins: "Though the researchers do not understand the process(es) by which bacteria code messages and send them...."-But that is exactly my point: the coded messages are biochemical series of reactions. We don't fully understand the DNA control of those messages.
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> dhw: Your comment: "...the cells work by biochemical code processes, as in the bolded sentence above." That is the MEANS of communication (like us using voices, birds singing, bees dancing, ants using chemicals etc.), but the researchers don't understand how they do the coding and messaging.-They and I know it is a series of biochemcial reactions. no one yet understands the controls over this.-> dhw: Do you understand the processes by which your brain and body translate your thoughts into spoken or written words?-No one does.-> dhw; The researchers do argue, however, that it implies a shared knowledge of the semantic meanings, which suggests that bacteria are sentient (by choosing), intelligent (by communicating) and socially organized. Of course you prefer not to "bold" that.-I have a perfect right to disagree with their far out interpretation.-
> dhw: You should consider her research on cells and her conclusion in the context only of her science.-A fair criticism. To me some of the ideas seem like a wooly extention of reality. But on the other hand living organisms emerge as more than a sum of their parts. Life itself is an emergent process.I just think Margulis pushes the point romantically too far.