Cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, March 12, 2022, 01:40 (774 days ago) @ dhw

Immune system

DAVID: I believe the current system of living biochemistry is the only one available to God. He had to choose the best.

dhw: Then let’s go one step at a time. You described life’s history as a “constant war to survive by eating”. Do you think it is impossible for animals (including ourselves) to obtain energy without eating other animals?

Cows eat grass helped by gut biome. Your point?

Evolution of consciousness (This article is a review)

QUOTE: They [the authors] argue that minds of a sort have existed since the first archaea colonized the planet, billions of years ago.

DAVID: Note 'minds of a sort'.

dhw: I do indeed note it. I can’t believe that anybody would equate a bacterial mind with a human mind, but it is what Shapiro calls “large organisms chauvinism” to claim that microbial life forms can’t think in their own different way.

Shapiro found bacteria edit DNA? So do we. Bacteria do not think n or do we mentally methylate in DNA,

dhw: Why would The AUTHORS say minds have existed since archaea, and then say that insects and bacteria do not have minds? I have bolded the apparent discrepancy.

DAVID: My answer below fits the problem.

dhw: I am pointing out that the reviewer says the authors believe bacteria have minds, and then later says that the authors believe that bacteria DON’T have minds. There must be something wrong with the review.

Re-read the review. The reviewer has his pint of view like mine.

DAVID: You simply do not understand secondhand design doesn't work.

dhw: You keep hiding behind the meaningless term “secondhand”. You believe your God gave humans the autonomous ability to design a thermostat. Why then can you not believe that he could give cells the autonomous ability to restructure themselves?

Because that is exactly secondhand design, or an original designer gives the job an assistant with some instruction. but I'll bet in real life the real designer checks it before releasing it.

Carnivorous plant origin

DAVID: Again you ignore 'stepwise'. Just saying it perfected itself means you do not understand the problem. The parts all have to work together or the eating system is worthless.

dhw: Again you ignore the possibility that such changes may entail old systems continuing to work in tandem with the new system until the latter finally takes over. On the other hand, I find it excruciatingly difficult to believe in a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for certain plants suddenly to switch to meat-eating, and I have the same problem imagining your all-powerful God suddenly popping in at various times to insert various meat-eating mechanisms in various plants as preparation for humans and their food millions of years later.

Carnivorous plants can't create digestive enzymes without also simultaneous creating self-protections. Multiple coordinated mutations all at once? Not stepwise Darwinism as you favor.