Natures wonders: social amoeba's immunity (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, March 03, 2016, 15:47 (3185 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: Many thanks for yet another fascinating discovery. The ramifications are enormous: single cells cooperate to form an efficient community, different ones take on different functions, some even sacrifice themselves for the good of the others. I see no reason why we should not take this as a model for how the whole of evolution has worked: cells link up to form multicellular organisms, with cells deciding among themselves which ones are to perform which functions. - This is the first hint of how a mechanism for multicellularity might have developed. - - > dhw: The “earliest organisms” first devise the particular system (innovative thinking), and because it works, it survives. But then, when the environment allows, some of these cell communities form new combinations to create new functions, while others remain as they were. Hence diversification, and in the course of approx. 3,800,000,000 years every innovation from the single cell to the ant, the eagle, the elephant, humans and the duckbilled platypus - all are achieved through the inventiveness of cooperating cell communities following the same principles laid down by the amoeba. The beautiful logic of common descent. - Common descent may be logical but I cannot accept your cell communities doing logical planning for complex advances, which in a sense is solving problems in advance.