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

by dhw, Tuesday, April 09, 2019, 08:34 (2055 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Where are cell communities in the paragraph? Bacteria are individuals in colonies , and are programmed to dictate necessary mutations, as if with purpose..

dhw: A colony is a community, and the above specifies that the process is “translated across the tree of life” when all “cells/organisms are maladapted to their environments”. I don’t know why you refuse to recognize that organisms consist of cell communities. It is your belief that they are programmed, whereas many scientists believe they work things out for themselves.

DAVID: Just because bacteria live together, doesn't mean they cooperate. However there are special forms of amoeba that show great cooperation. It is a step up in evolution.

So different individual cells form a community (e.g. a biofilm), and we know that they communicate, and we know that they can play different roles within that community which can then perform feats which the individual bacterium cannot perform on its own, but according to you that doesn’t mean they cooperate.

DAVID: We're back to the same argument about the possible presence of purpose and design.

dhw: Of course there is purpose and design: in my hypothesis, the purpose is to adapt to or exploit new conditions in order to improve chances of survival, and the design is done by the cells/cell communities themselves with their possibly God-given intelligence. The question of your God’s purpose in setting it all up continues to be debated under “Big brain evolution”.

DAVID: I can accept God-given instructions, as usual.

You can believe in them if you wish, but that does not alter the fact that my hypothesis provides purpose and design.

DAVID: The issue is how did bacteria develop the ability to self-mutate?

dhw: The issue in this post is whether bacteria do their own designing using their (possibly God-given) intelligence, or your God provided the first cells with programmes to be passed on for every single mutation throughout the history of life. I really don’t know how often I have to repeat that my hypothesis of cellular intelligence leaves open the question of origin, but I usually append “possibly God-given”. Please stop changing the subject and setting up straw men!

DAVID: Not a straw man. You can postulate cell intelligence, but can't tell me where it came from. Intelligence requires Thinking and a mind.

Nobody can tell us where life came from, and no believer can tell us where his God came from. That is why we theorize. The fact that you believe God exists, and that he provided the first cells with programmes for every single undabbled life form, econiche etc. does not in any way invalidate the postulation of cellular intelligence. I agree that intelligence requires a form of thinking, but that does not mean the cell has to have a brain like ours.