Explaining natural wonders: bacterial intelligence (Animals)

by David Turell , Saturday, May 20, 2017, 16:09 (2743 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: What you have not mentioned is that bacteria are blessed with existing alternative pathways of metabolism, and they can automatically shift to that alternative when the primary quits working.

dhw: All adaptation and innovation must entail “alternative pathways”. And when under threat from new conditions, organisms that can’t find or devise “alternative pathways” will die. How do you know that they are “blessed” with a given programme of alternatives (= your God preprogramming them) which automatically does (or doesn’t switch) itself on at the required moment? How do you know they are not “blessed” with a (perhaps God-given) means of working out their own alternatives?

Because the alternative pathways exist in advance of the switch. Studies have shown that.

DAVID: Automatic relationships of cells are illustrated by my entry on zebrafish. In all organs the cells are automatically organized to cooperate, as in pre-Cambrian simplistic forms, and Cambrian forms. The mentation is in the planning of those organisms and the required cooperative automatic relationships.

dhw: Yes, we know, you think your God preprogrammed the zebrafish 3.8 billion years ago as part of his great plan to keep life going until humans could evolve. You always slip in “automatic” as if somehow it proved your point. Once a system is established, of course it will be repeated automatically, or every species, lifestyle and natural wonder would be changing every five minutes. The question is how they all originated, and one possible clue is the fact that when an established system comes under threat from a changed environment, some cell communities cease to act automatically, and make changes to themselves in order to counter the threat. (Others don’t, and perish.) This departure from automaticity opens up the possibility that they may also be able to change themselves in order to exploit the opportunities offered by a new environment.

You are again implying the leap from epigenetic changes to speciation. I am insisting the leap requires advanced conceptualization of future form and a planned coordination of all the new required parts and processes. Only advanced mentation can do this.