bacterial intelligence shown to be DNA driven (Animals)

by dhw, Sunday, October 15, 2017, 09:05 (2595 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Just because we don't know how it works, does not mean it is not automatic. And it is too complex for chance. Intelligent design instructions are just that. The mind of God at work.

dhw: So you have quoted yet more of your opponents in order to tell us you disagree with them all. As I keep saying, there is no consensus, and therefore cellular intelligence remains a possibility. If, as you say, Shapiro is a theist, I’m sure he will agree that bacterial intelligence is too complex for chance and must have been created by your God.

DAVID: Which is my point: whether it is all automatic or bacteria can somehow make decisions all looks the same from outside. The very point of my entry quoted below.

You didn’t know if Shapiro disagreed with you. I showed you that he does, as do the other experts you kindly quoted. My point was that if there is no consensus among the experts, one should not reject the possibility that Shapiro & Co are right, which leaves open the possibility that (perhaps God-given) cellular intelligence is the driving force behind evolution.

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David’s comment: The riboswitch has a sensor which is following protein levels. It senses and automatically acts. This is the 'intelligence' a bacteria exhibits. All comes from intelligent design and planned instructions.

dhw: Humans have all kinds of control elements via which they switch this, that and the other on and off. Humans, like bacteria, are physical beings, and there are automatic processes as well as directed processes. Shapiro and his colleagues tell us that the latter (such as decision-making, in your quote from the microbiologist Jeffrey Stock) are directed by intelligence and are not automatic. You disagree.

DAVID: All it needs are automatic intelligent instructions. Scientists find the molecules doing the deciding. Molecules work automatically according to the chemical principals.

1) I can’t deny that if, 3.8 billion years ago, your God preprogrammed the first cells to provide bacteria with the solution to every problem they would face for the rest of time, that’s all they would need.
2) I can’t deny that if your God stepped in to solve every problem bacteria have faced, are facing and will face, that’s all they would need.
3) You can’t deny that if bacteria had the (perhaps God-given) autonomous intelligence to solve every problem they would face for the rest of time, that’s all they would need.
It would seem that a number of experts in the field who have spent their careers studying bacteria are convinced that 3) is correct. Other experts disagree, though I wonder how many support your 1) or 2).