The biochemistry of cell communication (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, September 06, 2016, 15:05 (2786 days ago) @ David Turell

David: Not every attribute organisms carry are useful. They become useful when needed. 
dhw: This would mean the Tasmanian devils already “carried” their immunity to the new form of cancer, but the immunity “attribute” only became “useful” when the new form of cancer arrived.
DAVID: We carry two kinds of immunity. Generalized and specific. Specific is learned by changing the DNA in T an B cells. Generalized is carried in huge molecules called globulins, which are in the beginning of life come to babies thru their mother's first milk, colostrum. Later we continue to make them on our own. This is probably where the Tasmanian devils had some hidden partial immunity. Remember all living beings fall under a bell shaped curve of variability. The devils who are creating a new immune population were at the high end of the curve.-Thank you for this explanation. If DNA is changed, and if we continue to make globulins on our own, presumably this means that the development of both types of immunity is ongoing - which makes perfect sense, as we are continually exposed to new threats. But how does this preclude even the possibility that the changes are guided by cellular intelligence responding to environmental conditions? This a genuine question - I am not disputing your explanation! (But I still don't understand the point of partial immunity, since you have said that this would not enable organisms to survive.)-Your second post supports your argument concerning pre-existing useful attributes. -QUOTES: 
“Menna Jones at the University of Tasmania, Australia, and her colleagues recently analysed the genomes of almost 300 devils from three separate regions in Tasmania.”
"The researchers compared genetic samples taken from the three devil populations before and after the cancer arrived in each area.”
Populations affected by the disease differed from pre-disease ones in two regions of the genome - both with known links to cancer and immunity.” "
“These gene variants would have been around before, but there was no evolutionary advantage to them being at high frequency…” (David's bold)-I'm in no position to dispute this, but the disease first struck in 1996, and the article is dated 2 September 2016. If the researchers only “recently” analysed samples before and after the arrival of the cancer, I can't help wondering how long the gap would have been between before and after. How certain could the researchers be that the disease had not already reached the regions? They seem more concerned with the speed at which the variants spread, but I am pondering the origin of the variants. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but these are the only origins I can visualize: 1) the variants were already present, and it was sheer luck that they happened to produce immunity; 2) the variants were already present, and your God had planted them there with a dabble, or had preprogrammed them in order to produce immunity to this particular cancer; 3) some of the devils were aware of the cancer, and worked out their own variants by altering their genome. Again, I am simply trying to understand how you think it all works.-XXXX -Dhw: …as a dualist, you keep telling us that intelligence is not the product of the brain.
DAVID: You are confused about my beliefs. Intelligence is the product of the brain plasticity. Consciousness is not. The brain is required to receive it.
dhw: I certainly am confused. I can't see how natural (as opposed to artificial) intelligence at any level can exist without consciousness (not to be confused with human self-awareness).
David: Of course our intelligence is part of our consciousness. I was just sorting out how I think the brain handles both.-My point was that if you believe in an afterlife, it doesn't make sense for the brainless you to be conscious without your intelligence (plus other attributes such as memory). And yet you insist that cells cannot be intelligent because they do not have brains. Either intelligence/consciousness/memory etc. can exist without the brain or they can't.