Cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, March 26, 2022, 12:31 (971 days ago) @ David Turell

I have switched “bird migration” to “More miscellany” as it has no direct connection to cellular intelligence.

How cells communicate
This discussion has also diverged from the theory of cellular intelligence itself, but that theory is directly linked to the discussion on how immunity works.

DAVID: You're catching on to how immunity works: the cells can recognize an invader by God's instructions and they add standard killing biochemical agents to the invader. The agents are produced following God's instructions in their cellular DNA.

dhw: Oops! No, that’s not how I envisage immunity working. I don’t see your God telling the cells the name, rank and number of each new invader, or providing a list of invaders covering the rest of time. Ditto the biochemical agents that will be required for each and every new invader. I think that would be just a little far-fetched. What I can envisage is your God giving cells the ability to recognize danger when it hits them, and to cooperate in working out what “biochemical agents” might kill the invaders. But they can’t always do this (think of pandemics), whereas you’d have thought that if an all-powerful God provided your list of instructions, they could hardly go wrong.

DAVID: Thank you for recognizing immunity. [...]

dhw: Of course I recognize immunity, and I recognize as you do – though you tend to forget it – that there is a gap between becoming aware of a new danger and the discovery of a means to eliminate it.

DAVID: You are mixing how we respond scientifically with how innate immunity works. Lots of times our onboard stuff works just fine immediately. Covid is the kind that takes our scientific intervention with our God-given brains.

I have no doubt that lots of times infections are recognized and immediately dealt with, because they have been dealt with in the past and the remedies are already present. The problems arise with NEW dangers and the need for NEW means of eliminating them. Then it turns out that what you call your God’s “instructions” don’t work.

dhw: The cells responsible for finding the means sometimes fail to do so. (In your theory, your all-powerful God's "instructions" are inadequate.) Hence 6 million and more deaths from Covid, and untold millions of people suffering long-term effects. I know you think these are just a minor blip and we should dismiss them from our minds, but I still can’t help wondering why your God decided to design such viruses in the first place. Especially since you have called him “kind”.

DAVID: In med school, exposed to all sorts of new knowledge of all the disasters that exist, you easily could be as frightened as you sound, until you look around and see 99+% of all of us are just fine. My glass is full, yours half empty. And covid may be Chinese design.

Covid is only one example. As usual, you are desperate to divert our attention from the issue of why your God deliberately designed the type of virus that kills millions of people, and damages even more millions. Knowing you as I do, I cannot for one moment imagine you as a doctor telling your suffering and dying patients that 99+% of us are fine, and your glass is full so what are they complaining about?

DAVID: See article how God's immunity works by itself with covid:
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-potent-alpaca-nanobodies-neutralize-sars-cov-.html

QUOTE: "Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have developed a novel strategy for identifying potent miniature antibodies, so-called nanobodies, against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants. The approach led to the discovery of multiple nanobodies that in cell cultures and mice effectively blocked infection with different SARS-CoV-2 variants."

DAVID: So stop sneering at the immune system God provided. Our God-given brains can use God's immune mechanism system producing useful antibpdies and boost its effectiveness.

I am not sneering at the system. I am asking why you think your God designed a system that created such suffering in the first place. But I do sneer at your theory that your all-powerful, kind God would try but fail to provide protection against “bad” viruses, and would have to rely on humans to achieve what he failed to achieve. I would find it far more convincing if he endowed cells with the intelligence to work out their own cures, but THEY sometimes fail, as opposed to him failing.