Horizontal gene transfer: DNA transfer mechanisms (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, June 23, 2018, 10:25 (2345 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Awareness is not equal to intelligence. Plants react intelligently to noxious events. That can simply be an intelligently designed programmed event as with other organisms without brains. Brained organisms obviously have awareness and intelligence.

dhw: You have echoed the Margulis quote above, except that her criterion is movement, not brains. “Of course it has to be moving life, or you can’t tell. You can’t tell if a plant is thinking, but in organisms that move, you can tell their intelligence.” And that includes bacteria. I know you don’t agree, but the fact of the matter is that even when organisms have brains, you refuse to believe that they are capable of intelligently working out their own natural wonders. Your God has to dabble or design a special programme for every one, including my favourite example: the weaverbird’s nest.

DAVID: I believe those with brains can work out simple traits on their own. My dog does. At the single cell level it still remains 50/50: it can be explained by automatic activity due to a codex of instructions or very simple autonomous responses. If one is theistic, the anser is obvious.

The answer is not obvious at all. I am happy with your acknowledgement that organisms with brains can work out simple traits on their own, but not with your assumption that they cannot be intelligent enough to work out any of the natural wonders you describe (e.g. the weaverbird’s nest). I am satisfied with your acknowledgement that single cells may (50/50) be capable of autonomous responses, which for me are good enough odds to warrant very serious discussion about the possible implications (as with the 50/50 existence of your God). I see absolutely no reason why theists should not believe that their God is capable of giving all these organisms different degrees of intelligence through a brain or brain equivalent, and this actually seems to me far more likely than the theory that their God preprogrammed every natural wonder 3.8 billion years ago or gave personal tuition to each organism involved.