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

by dhw, Sunday, October 09, 2016, 13:06 (2966 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: In e. coli experiment advances paused. If all colonies died there would have been no experiment.
Dhw: I presume the researchers replaced the first colonies with new ones.
DAVID: No, the colonies paused and then advanced.
I have found the quote: “It took some doing (the first few colonies succumbed to contamination and water condensation) but eventually they had the movie you see here.” Did I misunderstand something?
DAVID: Yes. 'Contamination and water condensation' are problems with experimental design, not at all the issue of the experiment, response to antibiotics. -Thank you. I did misunderstand it. However, this makes me wonder if it wouldn't be worth studying the sources of the contamination and the powers of water condensation in our quest to be rid of E.coli!-dhw: I wonder how many alternative pathways there are, bearing in mind the millions of problems bacteria have had to solve over the last 3.7 billion years. As for their “capacity”, one possible description of it is “intelligence”.-DAVID: These are alternative biochemical processes which have been found to exist in bacteria.-I do not doubt that bacteria are capable of using different biochemical processes to deal with all the different problems they have faced during their 3.7 billion years of existence. All organisms use biochemical processes! Every action we humans take entails biochemical processes. And when we have problems to solve, the biochemical processes are set in motion by thought. But according to you, when bacteria have problems to solve, the biochemical processes are set in motion by a divine dabble or by a 3.7-billion-year-old computer programme which God installed in the first living cells, along with programmes for every evolutionary innovation and natural wonder. Hard to believe.