An inventive mechanism; developing multicellularity (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, November 07, 2014, 13:18 (3452 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

DAVID: Trying to find a way to get to multicellularity, a tiny step:
"Beginning with single cells, the researchers show how simple cooperating groups of bacteria can reproduce via a life cycle that incorporates 'cheating' cells as a primitive germ line. Read more at: -http://phys.org/news/2014-11-multicellular-life.html#jCp-QUOTE: "When cheats were embraced we discovered something surprising," Dr Rose says. "Evolution saw a new kind of entity—a group comprised of two different cell states: cheating and cooperating cells. Evolution couldn't focus on just one state or the other; for lineages to persist, evolution had to see both types—it had to work on a developmental programme.""-TONY: One interesting there is, that is slightly off-topic, is the personification of Evolution being used here, as well as the contradictory assumptions. I also find the mention of links to Cancer interesting, because that would mean that this effect is overall deleterious to the organisms over time.-Like Tony, I'm not sure what to make of this, but I agree that the personification of evolution is a fudge. I'm grateful to David for the article and for putting it on the inventive mechanism thread. In the context of my hypothesis, it's the cells themselves that have to work on a developmental programme. If they fail to embrace the cheats, they will not survive. This may apply to cancer, but it doesn't mean that the cheats always win, so over time, when the cheats have been successfully embraced, the organism will flourish, as follows:
 
QUOTE: "Dr Hammerschmidt explains: "When this happened, the groups became better adapted, but they did so at the expense of the individual cells that made up the groups. This might seem nonsensical, but it is precisely what is thought to happen during major evolutionary transitions: the higher (group) level subsumes the lower (cell) level, with the lower level eventually coming to work for the good of the collective. Nothing so remarkable happened when we performed the same experiment, but with a life cycle in which we got rid of cheats.""-In the context of the inventive mechanism (origin unknown, but let us for argument's sake assume God designed it), I see this as yet another instance of cells as sentient, cognitive beings that cooperate in order to form increasingly complex, smoothly functioning units. (I always think of the analogy with ants.) The unit will fail to function if the cheats dominate. There is a wonderful moral and social parallel to be drawn here! But I don't know what to make of that final sentence. Could it be that instead of cheats, these are rebels. Too much rebellion leads to disorder, but rebels bring new ideas. And so maybe “during major evolutionary transitions” (which we have never witnessed) it's not a matter of higher subsuming lower, but of existing systems adopting new ideas “for the good of the collective”. In other words, the rebels are not always the baddies, and their inventive mechanism takes beneficial control of the organism's genome.