Biological complexity: more on siphonosphores (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, April 16, 2020, 11:35 (1683 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The new entry confirms what I wrote above:

QUOTE: "Resembling a long piece of string, siphonophores—a group of creatures related to jellyfish and corals—may look like one organism, but they are actually made up of many thousands of individual, specialized clones that come together to form a single entity. […]There are about a dozen different jobs a clone can do in the colony, and each clone is specialized to a particular task…"

DAVID: I've changed my view. More research and this guy is much more of a multicellular organism than bacterial mats, as I first suggested. Another example of an econiche system with strange participants. I accept it as another God-design example.

dhw: So do you or do you not agree that this guy’s body works in the same way as our own bodies: communities of cells with different functions working as a team?

DAVID: It seems to be an early experimentation in simple multicellularity, by having different organisms work cooperatively. Each individual must reproduce itself slowly over time to continue its contribution.

I will take that as an agreement that this guy’s body works in the same way as ours, but you can’t bring yourself to say so.

Under “Immunity system complexity”:
DAVID: A fantastic system, designed for great protection. Yes, designed, not by chance. The author is wrong about how IGG was used. I was one of several senior medical students in the summer before school started up again, who worked for the N.Y. State Health Department and gave hundreds of well kids the IGG by injections in the butt. Hard to do. My hand was sore each day from pushing ice cold thick liquid into the kids. They did n't enjoy it either, but it broke the epidemic in the areas we visited over weekends, being bused from our regular jobs in Syracuse, N.Y.

The system, really is fantastic, and brings to mind my own pet analogy of the ant colony, though this is vastly more complex. It’s always the same story: individuals working together in a team, and the team working together with other teams. The mind boggles, and once again you present the strongest possible case for design. I love the autobiographical piece as well! Thank you.