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

by David Turell , Thursday, October 06, 2016, 16:12 (2969 days ago) @ dhw

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.
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> dhw: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. - Because the balance of nature provides the energy for life to continue to evolve. - > 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.
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> dhw: 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. - In e. coli experiment advances paused. If all colonies died there would have been no experiment. My memory may not be reliable about my previous responses. I have trouble finding previous statements on this site. Tell me how do you do it? - > dhw: Here is your comment, and I stand by my response:
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> 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…”
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> 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? - If alternative pathways are on-board switching is not difficult, just like changing gears in your car. Main response blocked, use the secondary backup. Not all bacteria contain them due to individual variability, but some do and survive, and in the end all have the ability to survive. - > dhw: 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? - Simply explained above. Alternative metabolic pathways are a proven fact.