Bacterial Intelligence? self ID virus that kills enemies (General)

by dhw, Friday, April 26, 2019, 10:18 (2036 days ago) @ David Turell

Under: The biochemistry of cell: information delivery

QUOTE: The interior of all living cells is separated from the outside world by membranes. These membranes keep the cells intact and protect them from negative influences. But they also act as a barrier for nutrients and information. For this reason, cell membranes contain mechanisms that enable selective access to desired substances or transmit information from external signals into the cell. (dhw's bold)

DAVID: In this case the stimulus to the cell is meant to initiate a specific required reaction and a series of specific molecules, one of which is especially designed to employ inhibition. The research makes it clear the cell is obviously programmed to make the proper response, no innate intelligence necessary.

Information delivery, like the vast majority of physical processes, is automatic in all forms of life, including ours. Intelligence is required for the use of information, for communicating with other organisms, for making decisions etc. – i.e. for all those aspects of behaviour which you agree are commensurate with intelligence and which you prefer to ignore, as bolded in the following:

EDITED QUOTES: "The team not only found that a bacterial cell uses the SW1 virus to kill bacteria that are its competitors for food […] they found that for a bacterium to be able to use SW1, it needs a protein fossil of a bacterium that came from another virus millions of years ago.

"To be activated and used by E. coli against other bacteria, the virus SW1 needs a protein, YfdM, from a virus that became caught in the E. coli chromosome millions of years ago.

"In addition, the virus is used by the bacterium as an identifier.”

"'Bacteria are frequently thought of as living alone but instead they can forage for food as groups. In order to act as a group, they must be able to distinguish themselves from other bacteria," Wood said. "In one type of social activity, bacterial cells secrete chemical signals to communicate. But now, we show that bacterium cells use viruses to distinguish themselves from closely-related bacteria."

DAVID: Once again it looks like a lucky relationship, with a trapped virus helping a bacteria.

In all walks of life, luck may trigger whole processes, but intelligence is required to use that luck. However, at least your championship of randomness makes a change from your insistence that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every aspect of bacterial behaviour. Or do you think he preprogrammed E-coli’s response just in case it ever met up with SW1?