Complexity of gene codes (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, March 24, 2011, 13:27 (4802 days ago) @ David Turell

Once again, many thanks to David for alerting us to new findings concerning the makeup of cells:-http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-molecular-cell-identity.html-"If a big bunch of your brain cells suddenly went rogue and decided to become fat cells, it could cloud your decision-making capacity a bit. Fortunately, early in an organism's development, cells make firm and more-or-less permanent decisions about whether they will live their lives as, say, skin cells, brain cells or, well, fat cells. -Those decisions essentially boil down to which proteins, among all the possible candidates encoded in a cell's genes, the cell will tend to make under ordinary circumstances. But exactly how a cell chooses its default protein selections from an overwhelmingly diverse genetic menu is somewhat mysterious.-A new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine may help solve the mystery. The researchers discovered how a particular variety of the biomolecule RNA that had been thought to be largely irrelevant to cellular processes plays a dynamic regulatory role in protein selection."-May I make two brief comments on this? Firstly, it seems to be happening more and more frequently that what had previously been thought to be x is now thought to be y. At the risk of being a bore, let me say yet again that even though it's heartening to see science constantly correcting itself, every correction should sound a warning signal that we can take nothing for granted when the "experts" make their pronouncements.
 
Secondly, it's striking that the article talks of cells making decisions and choosing. Once again, I feel there's a parallel here between bodies and societies. Ants and bees and other social organisms also make decisions and choose. Our cells are not under our control, and if it's the biomolecule RNA taking the decisions, the question still remains as to what kind of "thoughts" govern the process, and where they come from. David thinks it's all been pre-programmed by a universal intelligence. I suggested earlier that all living things including cells may be endowed with some sort of intelligence and even inventiveness - hence new combinations leading to innovations leading to new organs and new species. Just as great-grandpa termite and colleagues invented and built the first hill, maybe great-great-grandpa Geniucell and colleagues (cooperation is essential in all contexts) invented and built the first leg, wing, eye etc. The net outcome would be the same, but my scenario leaves open the origin of the mechanism. Fantasy? Is it any more fantastic than a universal and eternal intelligence, or unthinking blobs of matter just happening by chance to create all these amazing machines?