The biochemistry of cell communication (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, September 10, 2016, 13:13 (2784 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: …your bell curve does not explain this improvement. 
DAVID: You are missing the point about variation. The slightly immune devils parent offspring that either pick up some of the immunity or they don't. if they don't they die, but some will get an additive effect from each parent and have a better immunity. Some of these will survive, mate and by the same mechanism some offspring will appear with an every greater immunity until we reach a generation with good immunity. This is selection pressure, and an accepted mechanism for the evolutionary development of an improved characteristic.-I don't see what use slight immunity would be. If they are not immune they will die. What is this “additive” effect? Why should two slightly immune parents give birth to offspring which are slightly more “slightly immune” than them? What do you mean by “selection pressure”? Organisms that develop immunity will survive, and so eventually there will only be organisms that are immune. If there is no immunity, the species will become extinct. That is how selection works. What you have described is Darwinian gradualism, of which you so heartily disapprove. See your comment under “ants”: “Step-wise is problematic if survival is an issue.” It certainly is. But apparently survival through immunity can develop step by step, with the slightly immune organisms “staggering thru”, as you put it so beautifully! Kind of only slightly dying. I suggest that perhaps some individual cell communities (that's your “variability”) work out how to combat the new threat, and the formula is passed on to the survivors' offspring (though I certainly wouldn't rule out improvements, e.g. as cell communities learn to combat non-fatal effects). Natural selection does the rest, as described above.-xxxx-DAVID: Remember I'm a dualist who believes that a brain is necessary as a receiver for conscious intelligence. Brainless organisms have no chance of having their own intelligence. They operate under intelligent instructions.
dhw: If conscious intelligence is not engendered by the brain, and if a brainless organism can receive and implement instructions, there is no reason why those instructions should not be issued by a similar conscious intelligence not engendered by a brain. Merely repeating your beliefs does not remove their inconsistency.
DAVID: You miss my point. If an organism has an onboard mechanism they are not receiving instructions, they are already present for use. Not inconsistent.-Of course, you are right. IF those instructions are there, they are there. My argument is that IF intelligence is not engendered by the brain (as you believe), there is no reason why brainless organisms should not issue their own instructions. Your statement that “brainless organisms have no chance of having their own intelligence” depends entirely on IF they already contain instructions to counter every single possible change in their environment for the rest of time. You treat your own IF as an established fact. The inconsistency is your belief in brainless intelligence, which conflicts with your insistence that intelligence is not possible in an organism without a brain.