Biological complexity: protozoa sans mitochondria (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, June 04, 2016, 15:53 (3094 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: But as you know, he (Shapiro) has come to the opposite conclusion from yours (see below). You are not alone, however, and I only ask for 50/50 instead of your dogmatic 100-0, especially since it has no bearing on theism versus atheism. -But it does bear on theism. The point is: God implanted the proper intelligent responses for stimuli into bacteria, which makes it look like they are picking and choosing. They either approach and engulf, fight or run away.
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> dhw:If organisms have an autonomous “complexification” mechanism which results in complex functioning organs, you are left with a choice between the sheer luck of Darwin's random mutations (i.e. organs produced by a non-intelligent mechanism), and design which requires the mechanism's autonomous intelligence. Which do you think it is? -I think the mechanism would have intelligent construction guidelines coming from God, but act independently in initiating an innovation. Thus the h-p bush would appear. God then steps in to solve resultant problems if any.-> DAVID: Shapiro was president of his Jewish Temple. He may sound atheistic in his scientific work, but I would not be surprised that he really is agnostic or a believer based on his personal history. 
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> dhw: I would not be surprised either. Our focus, however, is on his belief in cellular intelligence.-Understood. And we don't know the depth of his belief in CI. He could view it as I do as God-given. But that might be at his personal level, not his scientific persona. 
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> DAVID: …His work does not imply your cellular intelligence theory of invention…
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> dhw: Nobody knows how innovations happen. However, Shapiro suggests that it is the product of what he calls “Natural Genetic Engineering”, and this is guided by the intelligent cell. I have found the following in Wikipedia: 
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> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_genetic_engineering
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> "Within the context of the article [in the Boston Review] in particular and Shapiro's work on Natural Genetic Engineering in general, the "guiding intelligence" is to be found within the cell. (For example, in a Huffington Post essay entitled Cell Cognition and Cell Decision-Making[11] Shapiro defines cognitive actions as those that are "knowledge-based and involve decisions appropriate to acquired information," arguing that cells meet this criteria.)" 
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> You don't have to believe him, but his work certainly does imply my “cellular intelligence theory of invention”. And he obviously got there long before I did!-It won't surprise you that I have read each and every one of his Huff post articles, and his book, and I still have my same view of intelligent cells, as he describes them.