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

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 01, 2019, 19:57 (2031 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I've admitted my speculations as to how God produced or guided evolution are just that, speculations. I can think of no other processes than massive pre-programming for which there is much evidence, intermittent dabbling (no evidence) or constant dabbling (no evidence). Your proposed inventive mechanism used by organisms to speciate (no evidence) I accept only with guidelines from God, whom I consider wholly in charge of any advances.

dhw: Guidelines are either preprogrammed or dabbled, but there is no evidence for the existence of your 3.8-billion-year-old set of programmes – you simply hope it will be discovered one day. This means you only accept your speculative preprogramming and dabbling hypothesis, although you don’t believe in it, and you refuse to consider autonomous cellular intelligence (possibly designed by your God).

Yes, I refuse to accept innate cellular intelligence. My belief is that cells are programmed to respond properly to stimuli.

DAVID: Cellular intelligence is your totally unproven conjecture. You have every right to it. I try to base every theory on the scientific facts we have uncovered.

dhw: I also “try to base every theory on the scientific facts we have uncovered”. I accept the logic of your scientific design argument (though of course the God hypothesis remains “totally unproven”), but your preprogammed/dabbled, anthropocentric interpretation of evolution’s history is a “totally unproven conjecture” with no scientific basis whatsoever. Cellular intelligence is a conclusion based on scientists’ observations, but its role in evolutionary innovation, if any, remains as unproven as your own hypotheses.

Agreed. I've made intelligent guesses as to how God m ight have exerted control over evolution.

DAVID: God is in charge, created a massively complex genome in all its various layers of control to create all of the evolutionary processes. Precise knowledge of how God exerted controls is unknown but I have presented obvious possibilities.

dhw: This is excellent news. If God exists, obviously he is in charge, in the sense that he would have chosen the method to suit his purpose. A massively complex genome with all its layers of control to create all of the evolutionary processes would be just as apt a description of cellular intelligence as of a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for all undabbled changes. Since you do not believe in the computer programme hypothesis, your new description seems to suggest that you are now open to my alternative.

DAVID: Your alternative is pure speculation. I start with what science shows us as established.

dhw: You start with the established scientific fact that there have been countless numbers of life forms. You and I accept that these are the products of evolution (Tony would say this is far from being a fact.) Your above description perfectly matches the hypothesis of cellular intelligence, which is no “purer” a speculation than your hypothesis of a 3.8- billion-year-old computer programme for every single undabbled evolutionary development, from bacteria to whale flippers, cuttlefish camouflage, weaverbirds’ nests and the human brain. Please stop kidding yourself that your speculations are more "scientific" than mine.

The difference is I do my own interpretation of studies I read, and accept author's conclusions judgmentally.