Biological complexity: how stressed bacteria go dormant (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, November 14, 2016, 12:01 (2931 days ago) @ David Turell

David's comment: A good example of alternatives mechanisms bacteria have on board. This is why they have survived since the beginning.

dhw: Or if you follow the work of such experts in the field as James A. Shapiro, a good example of the manner in which intelligent bacteria take decisions and change their own chemicals in order to cope with different environmental conditions. (Not an argument against design, since God may have given them this ability in the first place.)

DAVID: What is involved is a mechanism which puts them into a dormant state and then allows them to wake up when the danger is past. This has to be fully planned in one step when the mechanism is set up at the beginning. Lots of intelligent thought is required to plan this out properly, or they will never wake up in survival. Shapiro has shown simple adaptations with DNA manipulation, not something this complex.

Lots of intelligent thought is required for most processes of survival. Your superb list of Nature’s Wonders bears testimony to that. This one sounds rather like a form of hibernation. What I find quite simply unbelievable is your insistence that the millions upon millions of such processes, plus the innovations, plus the natural wonders at every level of organic existence all had to be preprogrammed in the very first cells or personally dabbled by your God.