<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">Continuing the anthropomorphism:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:large;color:#000000">John, out of zillions of chemicals that microbes could make, how did they decide to make something like dopamine? How did they decide to take over the person's temperature regulation? bill w</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 8:47 AM John Clark <<a href="mailto:johnkclark@gmail.com">johnkclark@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 8:50 AM William Flynn Wallace <<a href="mailto:foozler83@gmail.com" target="_blank">foozler83@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><br></div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr"><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:"comic sans ms",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">> </font></span>John, let's anthropomorphize a bit here: how would bacteria get the idea to make anything our body can use, rather than just sit there and eat what we put down the tubes? bill w</div></div></blockquote><div> </div><font size="4">Bacteria don't have ideas but, as I have said, they can make neurotransmitters, and if by random mutation one of a bacteria's genes causes it to make more neurotransmitters than average, and <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">if t</span>hat new ability changes a host's behavior in such a way that it increases the chance the bacteria's mutated gene will get into the next generation, then the mutated bacteria will soon become the predominant type of bacteria in the host. This example is about fungus not bacteria<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">,</span> but it's the same general idea : </font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/how-the-zombie-fungus-takes-over-ants-bodies-to-control-their-minds/545864/" target="_blank"><font size="4">How a Zombie Fungus Takes Over Ants’ Bodies to Control Their Minds</font></a><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><i><font size="4"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">"</span>When the fungus infects a carpenter ant, it grows through the insect’s body, draining it of nutrients and hijacking its mind. Over the course of a week, it compels the ant to leave the safety of its nest and ascend a nearby plant stem. It stops the ant at a height of 25 centimeters—a zone with precisely the right temperature and humidity for the fungus to grow. It forces the ant to permanently lock its mandibles around a leaf. Eventually, it sends a long stalk through the ant’s head, growing into a bulbous capsule full of spores. And because the ant typically climbs a leaf that overhangs its colony’s foraging trails, the fungal spores rain down onto its sisters below, zombifying them in turn.<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">"</span></font></i></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font size="4"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span></font></div><div><font size="4">It's hard to believe but the idea that morality could be found in nature was very popular around 1900 in the <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">S</span>ocial Darwinism movement. Ironically Darwin himself was not a <span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">S</span>ocial Darwinist, and he lost his religious faith because he thought a God that sanctioned a hideously cruel process like Natural Selection did not deserve worship. He writes that he was very disturbed at the reproductive behavior of a species of wasp that he discovered as a young man. The wasp stings a spider enough to paralyze it but not enough to kill it, the wasp then lays its eggs on the poor beast. When the eggs hatch several days later the maggots slowly consume the still living creature, carefully avoiding<br>vital organs for as long as possible and leaving the brain for last.</font></div><div><br><div><font size="4">In spite of the objections of his very religious but loving wife,<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> Darwin</span> says in his 1876 autobiography :</font></div><div><div class="gmail_quote"><br> <i> "Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate but at last was <br> complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have <br> never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion <br> was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish <br> Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text <br> seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would <br> include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be<br> everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine." </i></div><div class="gmail_quote"><i><font size="4"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span></font></i></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:large"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span>John K Clark</span><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span></div><div><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span></div><div><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br></span></div><div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br>
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