Genome complexity: what genes do and don't do (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, February 05, 2019, 08:57 (1908 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You constantly stick to your interpretations of cell intelligence when below the quotes indicate they use available info.

Of course they use available info. And that is the opposite of your hypothesis that the info uses them by giving them “reaction information” (= instructions). The scientists themselves believe cells create instructions on the hoof, de novo, and since you yourself agree that cells “appear” to show intelligence, there is no reason categorically to say they don’t have it.

dhw: So cells already know all the information necessary for every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of evolution, and along with that, your God has provided them with all the instructions necessary for picking out the one instruction (out of the billions) required for their particular situation. And this is your fixed belief?

DAVID: Unless I see research to convince me otherwise.

So whereabouts in the cell have you found the evidence for a 3.8-billion-year-old library of information and instructions for every single undabbled innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of life?

QUOTES from “How cells use genetic information”, with dhw’s bold:

"[The scientists] found that during embryo formation fruit fly cells use “all information available from the genetic code” to position themselves within a single cell’s width of where they are supposed to be."

“'The theoretical idea is very simple, which is that every cell is using all the information that it can squeeze out of the relevant genes," says physicist William Bialek.

“One can imagine cells as GPS devices which, instead of satellite signals, collect molecular ones to figure out their locations.”

“'This gives us an amazing tool for understanding how decision-making in biology actually works,

DAVID’s comment: Note the automaticity of the cells response to changed directions. The scientists could not have gotten these results if the cells did not automatically follow the substituted gene patterns.

dhw: Where do you find automaticity in these quotes? GPS devices are a form of artificial intelligence. If you changed the information from the satellite, no doubt you would be able to predict which way the GPS would send you. Fruit flies are not man-made: their intelligence is natural. The article says they “figure” things out, and if the information is changed, they change their response. So would you.

DAVID: My bolds are all analogies that are imagined by the authors. The scientists re-directed cell activity by changing genes and the cells changed. The genes told them to change! All we know is the cells know how to interpret gene instructions. "An amazing tool' bold is the scientists praising heir new technique! All comment hyperbole. Remember these guys live by grant money, which they have to justify by touting their results. Please keep that in mind when you swallow the propaganda hook line and sinker. An interesting point: do you fully understand how the grant game is conducted?? I've had grants.

So now we should ignore the findings of Margulis, McClintock, Shapiro, Buehler, and the authors of the different articles you have quoted, because they are/were all only touting these views in order to gain grant money. I hope Shapiro never sees your comments.

DAVID: This still does [not] tell us how genes act to create the final physical results they control. We do see they order the production of certain proteins at certain places b ut we do not know exactly how they exert their controls. We just see beginning and end but not much of the middle molecular activity.

dhw: Precisely. We do not know how cells exert their controls.

DAVID: Misinterpreted. Note I said the genes control cell reactions. We don't know how that is done. Cells access the gene and respond. All we know is from outside the actual process. The gene may precisely tell the cell what to do, which is to make a precise set of protein molecules, and in this case placed at a precise position. An automatic response to direct instructions.

We do not know how the process works, but according to the articles, it is the cells that actively use passive genetic information and create or “figure out” their own instructions. I am not questioning that when the cell issues an instruction, the rest of the system automatically obeys.

DAVID: I still have a totally different interpretation as seen in my current comments.

And of course you have every right to your interpretation. But that does not mean no other interpretation is possible.

Under “How neurons grow their axons”

DAVID: Once again we see the complex controls and the resulting axon formation, but we have no information about how it all works, or how the cell and the cells genes manipulate each other. The inner workings are all a black box. We do not know whether all of this is automatic, or alternatively there must be some independent initiation activity.

After all the above, we now have a glimmer of recognition. Yes indeed, the alternative to your fixed belief is an INDEPENDENT - I call it “autonomous” - activity, whereby the cells independently create their own instructions by using their perhaps God-given intelligence.