Cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, February 23, 2022, 11:58 (1002 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: That does not explain our giant, capable brain arriving so far in advance of ts massive use today.

dhw: […]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: So we are back to future design without a designing mind, a blank. How do simple cells do it?

Yet again: I propose that simple cells do NOT design for the future. They respond to new requirements. The brain complexifies IN RESPONSE to these, and earlier brains expanded when their existing cells could no longer cope with new requirements. But like all species, once the new cells exist, they continue to exist and function as the future becomes the present!

DAVID: 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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: Of course anticipation. Back to whales. No deep diving unless body prepared to do so.

So you still have your God preplanning deep diving 3.8 billion years ago, or popping in to operate, though when asked if that was the case, you described the question as “facetious”. You accept autonomous adaptation to new conditions, but reject the possibility that the same autonomous mechanism might also be capable of major changes leading to the innovations that make for speciation. Instead you opt rigidly for the “facetious” alternatives.

Immunity system explaining B cells.

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

dhw: 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.[…] 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.

DAVID: Most of us don't die because of the cells acting on their God-given information can respond to all infections, but I admit some unsuccessfully.

I can’t follow your sentence structure, but I shall still presume that your teachers did not discuss the origins of all the working systems, and did not inform you that God had provided all the cells with instructions to cope with all the problems thrown up by his designs.

How genes are read and produced

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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: The implication is all is automatic.

Which you say means obeying your God's instructions. Some scientists say the implication is that cells have autonomous intelligence which enables them to solve new problems or exploit new conditions.

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.

dhw: 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. […]

DAVID: In embryology it is apparent stem cells follow in strict instructions. Why can 't you recognize all cells do?

Why can’t you recognize that some cells absorb and process information, communicate with other cells, and take decisions in order to cope with new conditions, and these qualities are hallmarks of intelligence? As for stem cells, my focus is entirely on the fact that they can change their identity, which is obviously a crucial factor for speciation, in which one form changes into another.