Biological complexity: protozoa sans mitochondria (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, June 04, 2016, 02:45 (2883 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You cannot shake my dogma!
> 
> dhw: That is not a reasonable argument.-You cannot shake my view of cellular function, which I have had for over 50 years. You must be content with the observation that no one outside the cells can tell if they run on intelligently planned information automatically, or have some independent decision making process. All Shapiro shows in his work is the cell's ability to have some simple epigenetic adaptations and responses, which in my view are built in following an algorithmic set of patterns. A bacteria has a limited number of functional responses: approach food, retreat from something noxious, sense others, passively transfer DNA, split into two daughters, etc.
> 
> dhw: But if you are now willing to concede that your God may have given organisms an autonomous “complexification” mechanism - and you will be the first to agree that the invention of liver and kidneys is a complexification - then instead of marvelling at your God's wonderful dabbles or 3.8 billion-year computer programme, perhaps you can marvel at his ability to endow cell communities with the intelligence to come up with these complexities! You are forever saying how smart “Nature” is, when you can only mean how smart living organisms are.-I am getting to like the complexity idea more and more, not your version of course, of free rein cell committees.
> 
> > dhw: You said you would love to interview Shapiro because “I think we actually believe the same things.” I repeated the quote to point out that with regard to the issue we are discussing, you do not believe the same things.-I don't know that we don't. Shapiro was president of his Jewish Temple. He may sound atheistic in his scientific work, but I would not be surprised that he really is agnostic or a believer based on his personal history. He recognizes the epigenetic adaptations in bacteria and shows they turn on of off mechanisms. He does not show any mechanism of speciation, so what he presents is a very limited ability to adapt, not permanent change. His work does not imply your cellular intelligence theory of invention, only that they are seen to make intelligent choices when challenged, which choices may simply be a series of available appropriate fixed responses.