Genome complexity: stem cell controls (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, November 02, 2015, 09:01 (3309 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Stem cells are the source of all cells. They can differentiate into any type of cell or simply reproduce themselves. They are the cells that make the embryo, but also are crucial for repair and maintenance during life. Gene control is shown here:
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-prkci-gene-stem-cells.html-David's comment: Another example of the layers of control that must be present to manage the mechanisms of life. How can this be developed in new species, such as those in the Cambrian, without planning? The key to analysis is the fact that prior animals were very simplistic and lacked the organs of the Cambrian denizens. How do you get from stem cells in the pre-Cambrian producing two-three cell types to stem cells that produce 200 cell types? Oh, I forgot, committees of intelligent cells in the pre-Cambrian.-Perhaps by a change in environmental conditions which suddenly allowed for a far greater variety - the same change that would presumably have triggered your God's 3.8-billion-year old computer programme suddenly to “switch on” 200 cell types instead of 2-3, or that inspired your God to personally dabble and do the same thing.
 
Here, though, is a possible clue to how it was all doneAVID: Close study shows some of the termites have differing personalities and the colonies have some sort of group think:
http://www.livescience.com/52644-the-collective-mind-of-the-termite.html?cmpid=NL_LS_we... 
David's comment: dhw will like this. Not convinced he is not anthropomorphizing them.-Yes, I love it. Thank you for the article and for your fair-mindedness in presenting it. Some scientists believe this is precisely how cell communities behave. One tiny quote will sum it up: "The collective intelligence of the colony is quite real, as real as our own intelligence, and we are far from comprehending either.” 
Substitute cellular community for colony, and we are back to your 50/50 acceptance that cells are sentient, cognitive beings, which means they are intelligent and potentially just as capable of complex design as termites are. -Sneer if you like at “committees of intelligent cells” (see under “More about how evolution works” for more about how sneering works), but your comment might be seen as a vivid illustration of what Shapiro calls “large organisms chauvinism”. I must confess to a feeling of puzzlement whenever people talk of “anthropomorphism” in relation to the humanlike behaviour of other organisms. Individuality, sentience, cognition, decision-making, survival strategies, communication and in this particular context cooperation (as we find in “committees”) did not originate with humans, so if you believe in common descent reaching back to bacteria, why is it so difficult to accept that these characteristics and procedures may have been inherited from them?