Immunity: Gamma Delta T cells hunt with precision (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 22:31 (2195 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Of course my knowledge is second-hand. But if I quote the conclusions of experts, it is absurd to say that because I didn’t do the research myself, the conclusion I quote is superficial and based on a flimsy understanding. At that rate, everything we learn from others is superficial and flimsy! NB: I am NOT stating cellular intelligence as fact. I am using the findings of "excellent scientists" as a basis for a hypothesis concerning the mechanisms of evolution. I offer it as an alternative to your own hypothesis that there is a God who designed every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder extant and extinct in order to produce humans. Since you have never actually met your God, and I doubt very much whether all your knowledge about innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders extant and extinct is first-hand, would you call your hypothesis superficial and flimsy?

DAVID: As usual in your debate style you are not answering my comment as to its true meaning and intent. Of course you didn't do the research and neither did I, but I am trained by several courses in biochemistry and as a physician I have read biochemical articles ever since leaving medical school. I can make judgments about their conclusions that you cannot make. Of course you can quote them, but that doesn't change the point: they can just as well be wrong about their interpretations of the results as I admit I can be. That is the meaning of the 50/50 statement I have made.

And that IS the point. I quote their conclusion (cells are intelligent), you admit that there is a 50/50 chance of their being right, but because I quote them and did not do the research myself, you tell me that the interpretation is "superficial" and "flimsy".

DAVID: We are on the outside and all we can do is study molecular reactions which show automatic molecular responses. Nothing about controls which is the crux of the discussion. We have never found out how genes control what processes they manage, and we may never. We are showing more and more how complex the various layers are. Intelligent design is just as likely as any other interpretation. All that can be positively stated is cells react intelligently to stimuli. My very logical point is that level of complex design requires a designing mind.

dhw: And you know perfectly well that this disagreement is NOT over intelligent design, and I accept the logic of the design argument. The disagreement is whether, if your God exists, he designed cells with or without the autonomous intelligence which forms the basis of my hypothetical evolutionary alternative to your God-designed-it-all-as-stepping-stones-to-humans hypothesis.

You have dragged God back into the picture with an invented hypothesis that organisms can evolve themselves, even though the definition of design requires an ability to foresee future needs to which to fit the design. For example, the mammal who enters into a watery life knows how to change the physiology and anatomy aforehand!