Natures wonders: bees cooperate just as ants do (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, September 21, 2018, 15:22 (2253 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I'll add only that I have no idea how termites worked it out, and coupled with God is charge, He played a role.

If you have no idea, then it might be worth considering the possibility that your God’s role was to give them the intelligence to work it out for themselves

DAVID: Read this article for a wonderful description of termite society:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/sep/18/a-giant-crawling-brain-the-jaw-dropping-wo...

Thank you. I love these articles.

DAVID: I propose they [referring to the actions of blind organisms] are automatic as based on observation. How can they make decisions if blind and simply working by feel?

Blind organisms will base their decisions on what they feel. Bacteria do not have eyes either.

dhw to Tony): I don’t know why you have changed the subject to evolution. We are talking about intelligence versus automaticity.

TONY: So am I. There are some behaviors that are shared by wasps and bees, some by ants and wasps, and some by bees and wasps. My point was thatthe directionality of the information transfer would preclude this happening by evolutionary means. This firstly implies inherrently different 'design'. Secondly, I am proposing a multistep methodology for comparing and contrasting these three different groups, Wasps, Ants, and Bees, to help determine which, if any, behaviors are pre-programmed genetically or otherwise. It could well be that some of that non-coding DNA actually helps by an organism by creating a on-demand information resource.

Dhw: I can only say that in the dispute between common descent and separate creation of species, I consider the similarities between bees, wasps and ants to be evidence of common descent, and can well believe that diversification will have occurred over millions and millions of years and generations and changing environments. (See also under “Junk DNA".)

DAVID: Phenotype comparisons are not as important as gene studies of relationship. Phenotype is old school.

TONY: If what you are looking for is evidence of a universal programming language, and evidence that the same code is being reused across non-ancestoral species divides, then you have to look at both the phenotypical AND behavioral data, and compare the results to the genome.

This is followed by more discussion of the different factors to be considered, and by the usual snipes at Darwin. Nobody knows what caused speciation (we agree that this refers to organisms that cannot interbreed). Here are four theories:

1) David’s belief that it was either preprogrammed by his God 3.8 billion years ago, or his God dabbled (which would still allow for common descent, as he would have dabbled with existing organisms).
2) Tony’s belief that his God created each species separately.
3) Darwin’s belief that it came about through chance mutations and gradual refinements, always taking place in existing organisms (common descent).
4) Dhw’s hypothesis that it came about (always in existing organisms = common descent) through cellular intelligence – possibly invented by your God – responding to the needs and opportunities offered by ever changing environmental conditions both local and global.

There is no conclusive evidence for any of these theories, each of which throws up unanswerable questions. Dead end?