Intelligence & Evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, November 10, 2013, 19:27 (4029 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: We are learning how the biochemistry works, and the more we learn, the more automatic it is seen to be.-Strange, I was under the impression that the more we learn, the more complex and mysterious it is seen to be. And the more difficult it becomes for scientists to avoid using terms like "intelligence", as below (under "Quorum sensing")AVID: I've presented this before I think: Bacterial colonies use chemicals to communicate and to adapt group behavior. It is all at the molecular level, and I conclude DNA manages it since sRNA (small) are used:-http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17390-why-microbes-are-smarter-than-you-thought.html-QUOTE: "But many bacteria and protists also exhibit behaviour that looks remarkably intelligent. This behaviour isn't the result of conscious thought ... the sort you find in humans and other complex animals ... because single-celled organisms don't have nervous systems, let alone brains."-Margulis also warned against equating this kind of intelligence with the human type, and the description of them as "biological computers" is probably a term you like. But I like some of these observations:
 
"Bacteria talk to each other with chemicals. They do so for a host of reasons, some of them hard to understand unless you are another bacterium." 
"In response to these chemical messages, the other bacteria set themselves up further away, completely changing the shape of the colony." 
"Pathogenic (disease-causing) bacteria often use quorum sensing to decide when to launch an attack on their host." 
"Not only can bacteria be talkative and co-operative, but they also form communities."-Very similar to ants, and considerably less similar to computers. This is not human "intelligence", but intelligence of their own kind.-DAVID: As a writer you like the romanticism of the scientists' anthropomorphic descriptions. -They don't seem to be able to find any other form of description. It's as though our own intelligence is simply a vast extension of the intelligence we have inherited from the cellular communities that were our ancestors. It always surprises me when people accept the idea that we are descended from lesser organisms and yet can't quite accept the idea that what we are derives from them. I suspect it's a throwback to the days when folk believed in special creation.