cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, October 16, 2020, 11:59 (1497 days ago) @ David Turell

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

dhw: Why is it a huge gap? The article states explicitly that bacteria form multicellular organisms.

DAVID: You have swallowed their take. What they described is a step toward multicellularity, nothing more. It is all another forced extrapolation which your bias prefers to accept.

Why is every confirmation of my proposals regarded as “swallowing a take”? Do you or do you not agree that bacteria are single-celled organisms, and they join together in a single cooperative community which performs coordinated activities? If you do agree, how does that NOT count as multicellularity?

DAVID: And the process is mirrored in your latest post on bees:

dhw: 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.

DAVID: What I see is God's instructions, and how intelligently they are designed to guide organisms. Further it again enforces toe concept of why God stated life with bacteria and used them to add to support of advanced life by playing an intricate role.

I have no quarrel with the concept that life started with bacteria and they continue to play an intricate role in all forms of life, and I have no quarrel with anyone who believes in a God who designed the whole mechanism. I am, however, sceptical about the idea that 3.8 billion years ago, this God provided the very first cells with instructions not only for the creation of bees but also for their symbiotic relationship with a certain type of bacterium. I am equally sceptical about the thought of him stepping in to give the bees and bacteria personal tuition in how to cooperate. Bearing in mind the higgledy-piggledy history of the vast bush of life forms, 99% of which are extinct, it seems to me more likely that he gave organisms the means with which to fight their own battle for survival.
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Under Theodicy: humans can treat a bad bug

QUOTE: The fact that Helicobacter pylori can colonize such a hostile environment as the stomach so successfully is also due to a special genetic strategy: Like other pathogens, H. pylori uses a strategy known as phase variation to adapt as flexibly as possible to changes in its environment. Phase variation means that the bacteria constantly switch expression of a gene at random through genetic mutations, meaning that some bacteria in a population will always be ready to express the important gene when it becomes important—a sort of 'bet-hedging' strategy.

So here we have bacteria adapting to changes in their environment. I’m surprised that the authors consider these “variations” to be random, which suggests that millions of bacteria press the wrong button, but the lucky few get it right. I wonder if the authors have counted the number of dead ones found in the hostile tummy. I would suggest that the bacteria know what they’re doing.

DAVID: The bug is nasty and this article explains how it works, but I can tell, while I was in practice the bug was found as well as how to treat it, which I did. It is interesting that half of us carry it and only a few of us get into trouble from it. Does this mean God designed it and also gave most of us a form of immunity? Very possibly. Is this a challenge? Possibly. We can only guess.

Congratulations on your success. But “immunity” suggests to me that the cells themselves have created their own defence against the bug, but sometimes the bug wins the battle. Hence the disease. The “theodicy” angle is covered on that thread.