Immunity system complexity: how T cells are triggered (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, April 07, 2019, 09:38 (2057 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: “Intelligent instructions” means a 3.8-billion-year-old programme for every single undabbled cellular action in the history of life. I find that considerably less likely than cells acting with an intelligence given to them by your God.

DAVID: And yet there are new findings that show the programming:
https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1007995

"Abstract
Mutations drive evolution and were assumed to occur by chance: constantly, gradually, roughly uniformly in genomes, and without regard to environmental inputs, but this view is being revised by discoveries of molecular mechanisms of mutation in bacteria, now translated across the tree of life. These mechanisms reveal a picture of highly regulated mutagenesis, up-regulated temporally by stress responses and activated when cells/organisms are maladapted to their environments—when stressed—potentially accelerating adaptation. Mutation is also nonrandom in genomic space, with multiple simultaneous mutations falling in local clusters, which may allow concerted evolution—the multiple changes needed to adapt protein functions and protein machines encoded by linked genes. Molecular mechanisms of stress-inducible mutation change ideas about evolution […]

This whole paragraph shows that cell communities respond to environmental conditions, and although it focuses only on adaptation, the implication quite clearly is that these non-random mechanisms may also be responsible for the major changes that result in evolution. The question for us is what regulates the mechanisms. You claim it is a divine 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme. I propose cellular intelligence. The “new findings” do not support or reject either hypothesis.

QUOTE: What keeps on being left out is a discussion, quantitatively, of whether these mutations are targeted to potential future benefit.

Why future? Stress-induced can only be a response to the present. And I would also argue that stress may not be the only outcome of environmental change. A new environment may offer new opportunities – but the mutations will still result from interaction with the environment, and will not take place in anticipation of future change.

DAVID: Stress-induced mutation certainly points to underlying automatic mutational programs to create necessary responses. If you go to the article many different such automatic mutational responses are listed among different organisms. Nothing chance about these mutation mechanisms.

The two articles and your final sentence show that the authors and you are still obsessed with disproving Darwin’s theory that random mutations (in a regular, gradual process) are the cause of evolutionary change. You and I have long since agreed that they are not. The theory of cellular intelligence is a counter to the chance theory. Intelligent action is not a matter of chance. You seem to think that by simply inserting the word “automatic” you disprove the theory that cells are intelligent. You don’t. Nor does the attack on chance go anywhere near supporting the theory that your God provided the very first cells with programmes for every single undabbled action in the history of life.