Explaining natural wonders: bacterial intelligence (Animals)

by dhw, Tuesday, May 23, 2017, 14:11 (2740 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Bacteria have known how to combat them from the beginning or they wouldn't be here. Since I think God invented life, He gave them these pathways.
Dhw: The means of combating them must be present as a potential, but that applies to every measure and countermeasure you can think of. However, since billions of bacteria are killed by antibiotics before some of them come up with their different countermeasures, billions of them didn’t know how to combat them. And that is why we can hypothesize that some bacteria might be better at finding solutions than others.
DAVID: You are skipping over our previous discussions. Bacteria are variable. Some easily switch on the right mechanism, most don't and die. The survivors repopulate.

You are merely repeating what I have said. They are all confronted with the same problem, some solve it and some don’t. Of course they are variable – that is my point. But instead of some of them unknowingly turning on your God’s 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for countering antiobiotic number 150 while the others miss out, I suggest some of them work out how to do it because they are cleverer than the others.

DAVID: We have not found epigenetic steps to speciation so far. That is possible, but the gaps in the fossil record imply it does not exist.
dhw: No, we haven’t found them. That is why is it is a HYPOTHESIS. If we could find fossils for every single stage of speciation from bacteria to humans (not asking much, are we?) we wouldn’t need to hypothesize.
DAVID: You are back to Darwin hoping the missing tiny steps would be found. Gould famously said they didn't exist and invented punctuated equilibrium to explain it, but it doesn't.

That was not my point, and you know it. You keep saying that evidence for my explanation has not been found, and I keep pointing out that ALL these explanations are HYPOTHESES (i.e. there is no proof), as is patently obvious from the continuation of my post:
If we could find God’s 3.8-billion-year-old software for every single stage of speciation from bacteria to humans, we wouldn’t need to hypothesize. If God came down from heaven to earth and explained everything to us, we wouldn’t need to hypothesize. Unfortunately for poor old Dawkins and Co, there are no “ifs” that can prove God doesn’t exist, so at least that’s one argument you can’t lose!

DAVID: Once again you have talked around the need for future conceptualization and planning to explain the gaps in the fossil record. Isn't that a requirement for species gap advancement? Let's address that issue, before attacking my conclusion.
dhw: I have already addressed that issue, but you take no notice. Once again: in my hypothesis there is no future conceptualization and planning. Evolution progresses through the intelligent RESPONSES of organisms to the opportunities (and dangers) presented by changes in the environment. The gaps in the fossil record can be explained by saltations, and a major environmental change (e.g.maybe Cambrian oxygen) may trigger major innovations.
DAVID: The same old suggestions. Yes, more oxygen allowed for more energy utilization and the appearance of more complex body forms, but that does not explain what drove the complexity to appear. Simple forms taking advantage of it is not an answer. It assumes they have an intelligence which has not be demonstrated.

You accused me of dodging the issue of future planning, and I have given you the same answer as I gave you before, and now you complain that I am giving you the same answer as before! And as I have already explained umpteen times before, environmental change offers opportunity, and the drive for improvement (which you call complexity) is what leads to speciation. Cellular intelligence is a HYPOTHESIS, just like your own, “which has not been demonstrated” either.

DAVID: Yes, you hypothesize, but I prefer to follow what is known and demonstrated. Saltations in biology require major complex mutational changes and prior planning. If you look back in today's comments, you keep hoping for tiny steps. So did Darwin.

I do not keep hoping for tiny steps – you edited my post to change its meaning – and I have repeatedly accepted saltations. Yes, they require major changes, but that does not mean they must be planned beforehand (they may be a RESPONSE to environmental change). It is not "known" and has not been "demonstrated" anywhere at any time by anyone that God exists, let alone that God planned every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of evolution, let alone that he did so for the sole purpose of producing humans.