Biological complexity: managing cellular oxygen levels (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, October 31, 2019, 11:22 (1851 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Your guess that He taught ants to think for themselves is not supported by the bridge study. why do you keep ignoring that study? Because it won't support your ant thought theory.

dhw: I have not ignored that study at all, but have constantly pointed out to you that the bridge strategy, just like all strategies, must have had an ORIGIN. When confronted with a problem, ants – like every other organism – must either work out a solution or they perish. Once they have worked it out, it is passed on and automatically re-used by subsequent generations. And that is the basis of all evolutionary development: whatever works survives. (Yes, that is Darwinian, and perfectly logical.)

DAVID: Each ant in the bridge study grabs another ant, each in the same way, to pass over a gap. Undoubtedly an instinct for the colony. It is an exact parallel to ants marching, each ant doing exactly the same thing.

Why do you persistently ignore the fact that each strategy must have had an origin? According to you, your God planned every single one 3.8 billion years ago, and the programme automatically switched itself on when the ants were first confronted by the problem (bridging a gap or having to avoid bumping into one another). I suggest that they worked out for themselves how to bridge the gap and how not to bump into one another.

DAVID: Humans are taught to march and have introspection about it. Ants march spaced, simply because they 'know' not to touch each other, no thought involved.

I am not claiming that ants have introspection, which we have agreed may well be unique to humans. I suggest that both ants and humans “know” from experience that bumping into one another is not a good idea, and both species have therefore knowingly devised a method to avoid bumping. This method has been passed down to succeeding generations. Since you acknowledge the impossibility of judging from the outside whether behaviour has been preprogrammed or is the result of autonomous thought, the very least you can offer my suggestion is a 50/50 chance of being right.