Biological complexity: teaching bacteria new tricks (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 27, 2016, 01:01 (3133 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: It has been observed that narcotics, medication, alcohol, diseases and other interventions can have such an influence on the human body that they change a person's behaviour. That plays a strong role in some people's contention that human behaviour is all automatic. Other people contend that without such interference, human behaviour is controlled by autonomous mental processes. For the latter group of thinkers, the fact that interference can change the behaviour of non-human organisms can therefore hardly be taken as evidence that those organisms are incapable of autonomous mental processes, even if those are of a different and less complex nature.-Apples and oranges! You are comparing chemical effects on functioning organisms, not the question of when the controlling genome is manipulated directly to force change in function. Swimming is an athletic activity, not a 'behavior' in the sense you are using it.