Genome complexity: what genes do and don't do (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, March 24, 2019, 18:38 (1861 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Yes indeed. More to the point, as above, is that the non-evolution of some bacteria is irrelevant to the question of whether they are intelligent or not.

DAVID: Not relevant. My main point still persists: bacteria were purposely preserved to play a role now, innately intelligent or not.

dhw: You have forgotten the starting point of this particular discussion, which was your entry under “Horizontal gene transfer”:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-018-0174-y

QUOTE: "Natural transformation is a broadly conserved mechanism of horizontal gene transfer in bacterial species that can shape evolution and foster the spread of antibiotic resistance determinants, promote antigenic variation and lead to the acquisition of novel virulence factors.” (dhw’s bold)

DAVID: Bacteria can alter their responses with this mechanism, but, for example, E. coli will stay E. coli. Doesn't solve speciation.

dhw: Nobody has yet solved speciation, but if you believe that all species descended from other species, that does not mean that all their antecedents have to die out! Of course E.coli are still E.coli, just as apes are still apes. The proposal is that SOME single cells formed multicellular communities, and over billions of years SOME multicellular communities changed themselves into different multicellular communities. And since we now know that bacteria can change their responses, MAYBE that same mechanism is capable of producing “novel factors” which have “shaped evolution”

dhw: The subject was not the purpose of bacteria but whether they were capable of shaping evolution by producing novel factors (linking up with our heading: what genes do and don’t do). Nobody can possibly dispute the essential roles that bacteria have always played in life.

Whatever the original subject was we agree on the observation that bacteria were purposefully preserved for future roles.