Biological complexity: protozoa sans mitochondria (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, June 05, 2016, 13:08 (3093 days ago) @ David Turell

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. 
DAVID: 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.-Theism versus atheism means whether God exists or not! The intelligence of the cell has absolutely no bearing on that subject. Your God could have made the cell an automaton or could have given it intelligence.-DAVID: 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.-You are back to your nebulous “guidelines”. If organisms have been given a “free complexification mechanism”, act independently in initiating an innovation, and God only dabbles to solve problems, the organisms must have an autonomous intelligence. The alternative is that they haven't a clue what they are doing and yet still manage to produce perfectly functioning organs - which is the same principle as Darwin's random mutations.-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. 
dhw: I would not be surprised either. Our focus, however, is on his belief in cellular intelligence.
DAVID: 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. -Why must we measure the “depth” of his belief in CI? He says he believes cells are intelligent. Isn't that enough? (Of course he could view it as God-given. As an agnostic I also accept that possibility.)-DAVID: …His work does not imply your cellular intelligence theory of invention…
dhw: ...I have found the following in Wikipedia: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_genetic_engineering-"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.)" 
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!-DAVID: 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.-You said his work did not imply that cellular intelligence was the driving force behind innovation, and I have found a quotation that shows it does. I know you disagree with his view.