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hizgeorgiapeach -> RE: Teaching bacteria to count (5/30/2009 1:38:38 AM)
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ORIGINAL: Ialdabaoth
erm.... well, several issues here:
1. Actually, most things intentionally mutate themselves. It's called "sex". It hasn't destroyed the planet yet. Reproduction - or as you put it "sex" - does not change the DNA sequencing of the organism doing the reproducing. It simply Duplicates that DNA sequence and seperates it off into a seperate organism. Or in the case of most animal life, as opposed to single cell life, it takes partial DNA strands from 2 organisms and mixes them to create a 3rd - still not changing the DNA sequencing of either of the two donating organisms. Mutations are Aberations - things not intended to happen, some good some bad, which inherantly change the DNA structure of the reproduced organism - while still leaving the original in it's original form. They (mutations) are by their very nature caused by a Malfunction in the genetic code as it is passed along, creating an organism that is Not what it was "supposed" to be had a malfunction not occured.
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2. In order for bacteria to be sentient, it'd have to have a MASSIVE amount of processing - which you could theoretically get with a large enough biofilm, but it would be *slow*. There's just no way something that small can encode sufficient information to "decide" how to mutate in the way you're thinking about - except in a very rudimentary way, which many organisms do already. Do we Know this, or is it simply an assumption based upon our inability to measure /comprehend other life forms unless we anthropomorphise them? We - as a species - tend to make the rather arrogant assumption that because we do not understand the thought processes of other forms of life, it must therefore not exist. Personally, I think it's a faulty assumption, and one which will take it's toll eventually.
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3. Anything we can do, Mother Nature can do better. Infectious organisms have been trying to get around immune systems for billions of years now, and immune systems have been trying to outsmart them the whole time. In fact, the tactics both sides use are a form of deliberate mutation. The genes in your DNA that govern antibody production, for example, deliberately shuffle and mutate your genetic code all the time, to produce the widest possible spectrum of different antibody shapes. This ensures that SOMETHING will catch a foreign invader. It's highly unlikely that we could find a better combination to defeat this process than 3 billion years' worth of evolution has come up with, without a MUCH better understanding of the specifics of protein interaction than we have today. Maybe by 2020, but by then I hope to be immortal and made of titanium and carbon nanotubes.
Yes, and various infectious organisms have been Suceeding in Killing our life form for billlions of years now, on a fairly regular basis, despite the best efforts of our immune systems and even despite the best efforts of modern technology and it's attendant anti-virals, anti-bacterials, and anti-fungals. Can we say "Bubonic Plague"? I knew we could. How about "Pnumonic Plague"? Or perhaps something a lil closer to home due to it being more modern - the various Hemophagic Fevers that have come out of the African interior in modern times.... oh yeah, and the ever popular Retro-virus of HIV? Even with our BEST drugs, infection via a multitude of bacterial, viral, and fungal agents still occures on a regular basis - sometimes medicine can knock it back, other times it can't - and one of the things we have to Thank for modern medicine's partial sucess is Already mutated bacteria that are drug resistant and can barely be killed. (Think Flesh eatting Stapholococcus, and MSRV.)
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