Plant automatic response to climate change (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, December 31, 2018, 13:01 (1948 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Bacteria do everything in one cell, paralleling what multicellular organism do with many organs is all that is imparted. As for brain, don't get exited about bacteria: the bacterial genome contains instructional information to automatically provide necessary responses and to edit its DNA as Shapiro shows, nothing more. (dhw’s bold)

dhw: This was not the reason for my request for clarification, but I feel obliged to repeat that Shapiro, McClintock, Margulis, Bühler and no doubt other scientists too have concluded from their research that bacteria are sentient, cognitive, decision-making organisms. We’ve been over this a hundred times, so please don’t try to downplay their conclusions. Just stick with your 50/50 chance of their/your being right.

The reason why I’m trying to pin you down is my interest in the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm. If the organelles really are primitive forms of the specialist cells, then there is a parallel to the human embryo, which begins as a single cell already containing the potential for every organ in our bodies. It’s as if we are reliving the whole process of evolution from the very beginning. I’m not sure about the ramifications of this, but if it’s true, it certainly reinforces the concept of common descent, whether the process of evolution was “guided” or not.

DAVID: You don't need to pin me down. It is obvious a bacterium must do everything my body does. Eat, defecate, make proteins, etc. and they have special compartments for each job.

You seemed to think my reason was to point out that bacteria must have the equivalent of a brain. It was to pursue the idea of microcosm reflecting macrocosm, with the embryo reliving evolution from single cell to current multicellular form, which would seem to confirm common descent. Do you think this is true?

DAVID: And all I said about Shapiro is that bacteria edit their DNA, which is true. Your response meter needs work.

You have left out your gratuitous final comment: “nothing more” (now in bold). Shapiro & Co claim that their lifetime’s research shows a great deal more, as specified above (also in bold). But you dismiss those findings as “verbiage” and “hyperbole” (Friday 28 December at 18.08) – hence your “nothing more”.

Transferred from “Divine purposes and methods”:
DAVID: Bacterial intelligence is the intelligent information and instructions in their DNA. I have God as a logical source for it. And as a result I believe that bacteria are totally autonomic.

If God exists, then of course he is the logical source. He would also be the logical source of the autonomous bacterial intelligence which Shapiro & Co. believe in.