Bacterial electrical communication (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, September 12, 2017, 12:03 (2628 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Did the ants invent their own classes of societal level?

dhw: Of course. Do you think humans were the first social organisms? Every society from insects to animals, including us, has different levels. Or are you saying that your God has to preprogramme or dabble with every social organism except humans, who follow the same pattern as other social organisms but don’t need God to work it out for them?

DAVID: Our society is settled at a level where everyone is a being like every other. Ants differ in expression of their genome into different forms of body and activity. Different formation of a society.

Nobody would claim that ant society and human society are the same! But ants have different societal levels and so do humans. That is the pattern they and other animal societies, including our own, follow. Theirs is tailor-made by them to suit their needs, and so is ours (though theirs works a darn sight more efficiently than ours). Once again, the real question you are raising boils down to the problem discussed below.

DAVID He knows they appear intelligent. I agree. With provided instructions the outward appearance is the same!

dhw: I wonder why you are always so desperate to deny intelligence to organisms that have no brain or only a small brain. These findings present no threat to your God, who would have designed the mechanisms in the first place. They only threaten your theory that he is a control freak who won’t allow any organism (except humans) to work out its own way of life.

DAVID: Never desperate. No threat to God. My knowledge of biochemistry and biology tell me there are designed epigenetic responses for adaptation.

I don’t know how your knowledge of biochemistry and biology can tell you that 3.8 billion years ago a God preprogrammed (or later dabbled) every innovation, lifestyle, and natural wonder, including the activities of plants, bacteria and ants, but he did NOT give them intelligence, even though you point out that there is no way you can tell the difference between intelligent behaviour and programmed behaviour.