New Miscellany 1 &:2: bio, evolution, intelligence, eco (General)

by dhw, Sunday, May 11, 2025, 08:59 (9 days ago) @ David Turell

The smelly hoatzin

DAVID: this is a best example of an inefficient, cumbersome evolutionary system. One weird bird!

Wrong attribution. You apply the terms messy, cumbersome and inefficient to your God, who designed and culled 99.9 out of 100 species that were irrelevant to his one and only purpose. You have now added the hoatzin to the list of survivors. Why do you think your God designed this weird bird?

Immune responses

DAVID: Immune responses are formulaic. Choose an enemy ligand, add a chemical killer and an antibiotic is produced.

dhw: Whereupon your intelligent bacteria often find means of defence, and your unintelligent immune system has to automatically and unthinkingly produce a new antibiotic. We have discussed this many times before. If it’s that simple, how come humans have died in their millions from diseases such as influenza, malaria, AIDS etc, not to mention animal deaths from foot-and-mouth disease and bird flu? Are you blaming God for not providing a programme of antidotes that switch themselves on automatically? Or is it possible that cellular intelligence (including our own) is not powerful enough to devise antidotes? In time, though, immunity cells have built up what I believe you called a ”library” of responses, which cell memory may call on once the cure is established.

DAVID: Not all antibodies are perfect defenses all the time. Organisms do build a library of antibodies over a lifetime.

So how does this make immune responses “formulaic” if each new challenge creates a new volume to be added to the library? Once again: every new challenge will require a new response, and this in turn will require the intelligent processing of the new information, followed by a decision on how best to counter the threat.

You have now answered the questions I posed a couple of days ago, as follows. Thank you.

Evolution and intelligence

dhw: All life forms must protect themselves against predators and harmful environments and yet you insist that the possum could not possibly have used its intelligence to devise its play-dead strategy, and the weaverbird could not have designed its own nest. If you have now changed your mind, and agree that they can think for themselves, please say so.

DAVID: I have not changed my mind.

You wrote:”All prey animals think, as can all predators.” The possum is a prey animal. You believe it can think, but you believe it can’t think how to defend itself. What do you think it can think about, if not its own survival?

How bacteria control phages

dhw: You have agreed many times over that bacteria have autonomous intelligence. The article and the quote above tell us how both bacterial and animal cells USE molecules to defend themselves. Since when did “using” something mean that the user can’t think?

DAVID: Animals have autonomous thought. (dhw: Apart from the poor old possum and presumably the weaverbird!) All bacteria do is edit their DNA.

They edit their DNA in order to counter new threats and to ensure their own survival, which even you have agreed many times requires autonomous intelligence.

Mind and cosmos

DAVID: The theory is we use His consciousness structure to form our consciousness.

dhw: How about putting it a different way: if he exists, he has provided our cells with consciousness? Doesn’t that make more sense?

DAVID: Consciousness requires a brain of neurons.

This is even more confusing, but very illuminating, since you keep referring to the consciousness of NDE patients who have lost the use of their brain of neurons. But I was responding to your theory that we use God’s consciousness to form our own, as opposed to the theory that your God may have given us part of his consciousness.

Theoretical origin of life

DAVID: For the umpteenth time, God evolved us in a cumbersome way, but that was His choice. It was quite effective. We are here running the world.

dhw: […] you “first choose a God I wish to believe in. The rest follows.” Why do you wish to believe in an inefficient designer?

DAVID: See real statement above.

What I quoted was a “real” statement. You ridicule your God for his inefficiency. Do you wish him to be inefficient? Of course you don’t. Your wish is that your illogical theory, whereby we plus food are his sole purpose, were the truth, but it can only be true if your God is inefficient.

eco-disaster

DAVID: Fools' logic! Fossil fuels will never be stopped in use.

dhw: I really can’t see why it’s fool’s logic to advocate the practical approach I have outlined, and I’m afraid I do not have much faith in your gift of prophecy. “Never”? How about a hundred/thousand/ten thousand years from now (if humans are still around)?

DPA (the answer I proposed for you): You are right. I accept your wish for a practical approach, and withdraw my prophecy.

You didn’t change my proposal. I take that as a tacit agreement.

dhw: NB These questions all revolve around your fixed beliefs, but none of them challenge your faith in your God’s existence.

DAVID: Agreed.

Thank you..