Cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, February 22, 2022, 09:06 (1003 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Thank you for telling me what I have been telling you for months: speciation is a response to new conditions and does not take place in anticipation of them! […]

DAVID: [...]I agree that advancing evolution at some stages requires new conditions (oxygen for Cambrian), but Habilis to Erectus to Sapiens did not...
And:
DAVID: That does not explain our giant, capable brain arriving so far in advance of ts massive use today.

We have no idea what caused the jumps, but I have given you a list of possibilities: new ideas, inventions, discoveries, changes to local environments etc. (Speciation can start in a single community and then spread). Since you keep coming back to the brain, I can only repeat that of course the sapiens jump occurred in advance of its use today, just as all evolutionary changes occurred in advance of their future! But you want your God to operate on the brain before there is any need for its expansion, whereas I propose that it would have expanded (just like speciation) IN RESPONSE to new requirements, and not in anticipation of them.

DAVID: I don't know how you interpret my views that way? God prepares species for new lifestyles.

dhw: But according to your own theory, he does not produce the species in anticipation of the new conditions that will require or allow new lifestyles. The new conditions (e.g. oxygen) must come first. You have just said so: evolution “is a biological response to what is available to use”.

DAVI: Of course oxygen had to come first. It doesn't explain the Cambrian gap, just allowed it to appear. You look at necessary conditions in a strange way. Conditions are not biological evolution but can be only antecedent requirement as God designs.

Thank you for your continued agreement that speciation – whether designed by your God or not - does not take place in anticipation of changing conditions but in response to them. Biological evolution is the process by which organisms adapt to new conditions or use them to create new methods of survival.

Immunity system explaining B cells.

dhw: Let me help you: your answer to my question whether all the scientists you know “tell us that all cellular behaviour is governed by God’s instructions” should be “no”!

DAVID: Word game playing. All scientists are not IDers. I follow all.

dhw: I have found the original quote, and I exaggerated slightly, for which I apologize. You wrote: “…immunity is seen as automatic by most scientists I know.” You did not say “all”. However, it makes little difference to my scepticism, because I very much doubt whether even the majority of your known scientists would declare that cellular behaviour is governed by “God’s instructions” – this being your explanation for the “automatic” behaviour of cells, even when they are called upon to absorb and process new information, communicate with other cells, and take decisions to deal with new problems.

DAVID: I started in college biochemistry being taught that biochemical reactions were automatic. Same in Med school, and ID supports my belief.

As I keep pointing out, most reactions, once established, will have to be automatic, to preserve the organism’s identity. Your teachers, a lifetime ago, could only teach you what is there now, not how it came to be there. Perhaps they would not have agreed with you that your God designed each one. And did they tell you that God provided cells with a list of instructions on how to deal with all illnesses for the rest of life’s history? So why do we need doctors? Because of your God's inadequacies, or because cellular intelligence sometimes can't cope alone? Furthermore, intelligence will only be needed if conditions change – for instance, an attack by a new virus. Then the cells will have to absorb and process the new information, communicate and cooperate in devising a defence against the intruder. Some folk would say these actions indicate intelligence. Many of us will die, though, which suggests that there is no list of instructions already available to all cells.

How genes are read and produced

QUOTE:. "The process is universal, affecting every cell and every mRNA molecule in the body," (DAVID’s bold)

DAVID: totally automatic and precisely controlled. Irreducibly complex, which means designed. This process is in every cell in our bodies, acting at necessarily high speed.
And under “Cell death controls”:
DAVID: the need for such precise controls implies it has to be a designed mechanism, as it is irreducibly complex.

As above. If you want to discuss cellular intelligence, you need to discuss those circumstances in which it is demonstrated, not those which have to work automatically.

Magic embryology

QUOTE: Embryonic stem cells and other pluripotent cells divide rapidly and have the capacity to become nearly any cell type in the body.

Whenever you post an article about stem cells, I get the same impression that these are absolutely key to our understanding of how evolution works. They must certainly play a huge role in the ability of cells to form new combinations, and hence new organs and new species. And just to reassure you, David, this suggestion does not exclude your God who, if he exists, would certainly have been the designer.