Smart animals: bees trained to pull strings for treat (Animals)

by dhw, Thursday, October 06, 2016, 13:03 (2969 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: … in spite of all the tests and observations of scientists who specialize in all these fields, proving over and over again how intelligent all these organisms are, you insist that the weaverbird is too dumb to have designed its own nest.
DAVID: I suggest you look up an article on the nest, and make your own copy of the nest using straw for the knots. It will take you longer than the birds take, by far. - I have seen the articles and do not doubt the complexity of the nest, or of the nests of bees, wasps, termites, or of the monarch's lifestyle, or of the behaviour of the parasitic wasp and the parasitic fly. The fact that I can't do things that other organisms do so easily suggests to me that they have a different kind of intelligence from mine. And I wonder why your God should have found it necessary to give them all special tuition in order to balance nature to keep life going until humans arrived. - dhw: The admirable method of testing intelligence through setting problems, and then observing how organisms not only solve them but can also learn and copy from one another, echoes the equally mind-boggling example BBella gave us: - https://www.wired.com/2016/09/gorgeous-unsettling-video-evolution-action/?mbid=nl_91216... - dhw: Apparently bees prove their intelligence by solving a problem, but bacteria can only solve a problem if they are preprogrammed by God…
DAVID: The bacteria had some individuals with partial immunity already on board as I have previously explained and you have forgotten or ignored. - Your comments on partial immunity were on a different thread and concerned the Tasmanian devil. The first few colonies in the E.coli experiment actually died. Not much immunity there. Here is your comment, and I stand by my response: - DAVID: “Research has shown that bacteria have more than one metabolic pathway at their command to stay alive when attacked by antibiotics….Those that stay alive simply switch over and use them. It takes some effort and time so the colonies pause…” - Dhw: “Those that stay alive simply switch over…It takes some time and effort”. Hardly “simply” if it takes time and effort and lots of them die, and what sort of “effort” do the survivors make? How do you apply effort if you haven't a clue what you're doing because God has organized it all for you? And if your God preprogrammed all the different “metabolic pathways”, why do some bacteria die and others survive? Did the first cells faill to pass on the right instructions to the unlucky ones? Or if God dabbled, was it HIS time and effort, and he only spent it on the lucky few? - You did not answer any of these questions, but preferred to concentrate on the fact that life is a miracle.