cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, October 15, 2020, 09:02 (1499 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTE: "Surprisingly, we found that the development of bacterial biofilms is comparable to animal embryogenesis. This means that bacteria are true multicellular organisms just like we are. Considering that the oldest known fossils are bacterial biofilms, it is quite likely that the first life was also multicellular, and not a single-celled creature as considered so far," says Prof Tomislav

QUOTE: "microbiologists have recognized that bacterial cells live a rich social life in biofilms."

DAVID: There is no question here is an imitation of multicellular organisms. Perhaps a step to multicellularity. We know amoeba can form colonies that create stalks and spores. but I think they are straining too much to see this as true multicellularity.

dhw: In my view not an “imitation” but probably the first step to multicellularity. If Shapiro & Co are right, bacteria are intelligent organisms, and just like later multicellular organisms, they found that forming a community in which they pool their intelligence cooperatively had certain advantages. This would be the blueprint for the whole of evolution, as intelligent cells find more and more ways of pooling their intelligence to cope with or exploit ever changing conditions and what you call “challenges”.

DAVID: Yes, it appears to be a step toward multicellularity, but still leaves a huge gap.

Why is it a huge gap? The article states explicitly that bacteria form multicellular organisms. And the process is mirrored in your latest post on bees:

QUOTES: 'The importance of this paper is that it's one of the first papers that actually shows that the microbiome is involved in the basic social biology of honey bees—and not just affecting their health," Vernier said. "The microbiome is involved in how the colony as a whole functions, and how they are able to maintain nest defenses, rather than just immune defense within an individual."

"The gut microbial community—or microbiome—supplies humans and other animals with vitamins, helps digest food, regulates inflammation and keeps disease-causing microbes in check. Increasingly a topic of research interest, scientists have discovered many ways that the microbiome blurs the borders between a host and its bacteria.

Post after post emphasizes the cooperation of cell communities, and here we have a community of bacteria also pooling their intelligence with the cell communities of which we ourselves are composed. There is no gap! You yourself have said that evolution progresses from simplicity to increasing complexity. And this comes about through cells and bacteria (which of course are single cells) joining together to create all the different communities. If this really is the way evolution works, a theist will quite rightly shake his head in amazement at the sheer ingenuity of his God’s invention of the intelligent cell.