bacterial intelligence shown to be DNA driven (Animals)

by dhw, Saturday, October 21, 2017, 15:01 (2589 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: When we have discussed cell intelligence I have said God supplies the intelligent instructions. I don't see any other way.
dhw: If you think cells can only act intelligently by following your God’s instructions, you clearly believe he is incapable of giving them autonomous intelligence!
DAVID: He is not incapable. He didn't want to.

So you can see no way that cells might act intelligently other than through your God’s instructions, because although he was capable of giving them autonomous intelligence, you happen to know that he didn’t want to. Whatever happened to science?

DAVID’s comment (under “ultra-tiny bacteria”): These findings indirectly support Margulies theory about mitochondria. This is a strange branch of the tree of life, but these organisms are not fully independent organisms, but do represent the experimentation that goes on within evolution. I am unsure about God's role here. Does God allow these guys to play together on their own or does He take control? I don't think this advances evolution but it does support balance of nature. The arrangement of mitochondria is only tangentially related, and I suspect He controlled that advancement in complexity.

All living organisms “support balance of nature” until they fail to “support balance of nature”, or balance of nature fails to support them, and then they go extinct. However, I like your reference to Margulis and your willingness to consider the possibility that God might “allow these guys to play together on their own”. Here is an extract from an interview with Margulis:
Discover Interview: Lynn Margulis Says She's Not ...
discovermagazine.com/2011/apr/16-interview-lynn-margulis-not...

(Ugh, ugh, my usual technical problem: I can't get a direct link. Sorry!)

INTERVIEWER: When you talk about the evolutionary intelligence of bacteria, it almost sounds like you think of them as conscious beings.

MARGULIS: I do think consciousness is a property of all living cells. All cells are bounded by a membrane of their own making. To sense chemicals—food or poisons—it takes a cell. To have a sense of smell takes a cell. To sense light, it takes a cell. You have to have a bounded entity with photoreceptors inside to sense light. Bacteria are conscious. (My bold)


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