Explaining natural wonders: bacterial intelligence (Animals)

by dhw, Sunday, May 21, 2017, 15:33 (2742 days ago) @ David Turell

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: […] How do you know they are not “blessed” with a (perhaps God-given) means of working out their own alternatives?
DAVID: Because the alternative pathways exist in advance of the switch. Studies have shown that.

I’ve had to do some googling on this, and it’s not clear to me how you distinguish between the automatic day-to-day processes (e.g. processing food into energy), and those involved when bacteria are confronted with new problems. For example, one website lists various strategies for countering antibiotics:
• One effective way to keep a drug from reaching its target is to prevent it from being taken up at all. Bacteria do this by changing the permeability of their membranes or by reducing the number of channels available for drugs to diffuse through. Another strategy is to create the molecular equivalent of a club bouncer to escort antibiotics out the door if it gets in. Some bacteria use energy from ATP to power pumps that shoot antibiotics out of the cell.
• Changing the target Many antibiotics work by sticking to their target and preventing it from interacting with other molecules inside the cell. Some bacteria respond by changing the structure of the target (or even replacing it within another molecule altogether) so that the antibiotic can no longer recognize it or bind to it.
• Destroying the antibiotic This tactic takes interfering with the antibiotic to an extreme. Rather than simply pushing the drug aside or setting up molecular blockades, some bacteria survive by neutralizing their enemy directly. For example, some kinds of bacteria produce enzymes called beta-lactamases that chew up penicillin.

Bearing in mind that vast numbers will die before bacteria come up with these strategies, are you saying that your God preprogrammed every one of them as an “alternative pathway” to cope with dangers that would arise 3.8 billion years later?

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: 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.
DAVID: You are again implying the leap from epigenetic changes to speciation.

Yes, that is the HYPOTHESIS. Epigenetic changes offer us a possible clue. We do not know the extent to which epigenetic change can operate.

DAVID: 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.

I know you are insisting on the correctness of your own hypothesis that 3.8 billion years ago your God preprogrammed every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of evolution, except when he dabbled in advance of environmental changes, though these may have “initiated” (your word) the organic changes. And furthermore, I know you insist that every single innovation etc. extant and extinct was “related to” (your words) the production of humans. I’m sorry, but I just can’t accept insistence as a substitute for logic.