Explaining natural wonders: bacterial intelligence (Animals)

by dhw, Saturday, May 27, 2017, 12:20 (2518 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Not all bacteria have alternative pathways. There are individual differences. That is why I used the word lucky. I was rejecting the idea that Lady luck helped bacteria invent something that did not exist. Perhaps I misunderstood you.
dhw: There is no mention in my post of bacteria inventing something that did not exist. So we're back to some lucky bacteria unknowingly switching on the alternative pathways which God set out 3.8 billion years ago, while the rest either don't know the pathways are there, or press the wrong switch. Or maybe some bacteria are cleverer than others at finding the solutions as problems arise.
DAVID: My point remains the same. Alternative pathways have always existed, stronger in some than others due to individual variability. The lucky ones with stronger pathways survive, cleverness not involved. Clear?

I know you reject cleverness. That leaves you with your 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for every alternative pathway in the history of life on earth, and some lucky bacteria will accidentally hit the right switch, while the unlucky rest either don’t have the programme or hit the wrong button. Your only alternative apparently is that God pops in to give instructions to the lucky few. I find it all rather hard to believe.

DAVID: I am saying He didn't choose instant creation. You are saying He can. Are you now religious?
dhw: No. I am only saying it doesn’t make sense to me to assume that he specially designed ancestors with useless spines (= of no immediate advantage) in order to prepare for proper spines millions of years later. But perhaps once again you are going back to the idea that he couldn’t design the “right” spine because his powers were limited.
DAVID: Have you forgotten that evolution requires steps of improvement? Preliminary alerations are usually required before big changes. I don't undertand your comment.

You wrote, concerning the early spinal changes, that they offered “no immediate environmental advantage, since the change is only a step in a process, but a major complex phenotypic change, allowing eventual bipedalism”. I see no sense in the special creation of something useless, merely as a preparation for something that will be specially designed a few million years later. Nor do I think it would have survived if it had not provided some kind of advantage over the old form. It would make more sense to me if each change were designed (whether by God or by the cell communities themselves) for the sake of improvement at the time.