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Mouse, fish, bee gene networks show surprising similarity when threatened

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From Phys.org:

The house mouse, stickleback fish and honey bee appear to have little in common, but at the genetic level these creatures respond in strikingly similar ways to danger, researchers report. When any of these animals confronts an intruder, the researchers found, many of the same genes and brain gene networks gear up or down in response.

This discovery, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that distantly related organisms share some key genetic mechanisms that help them respond to threats, said University of Illinois cell and developmental biology professor Lisa Stubbs, who led the research with animal biology professor Alison Bell and entomology professor and Institute for Genomic Biology director Gene Robinson. More.

Hat tip: Timothy Kershner

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Comments
I can also add that “behavior of matter” is from subatomic forces that are invisible to our eyes, which is not exactly visible “material” and it is not in this case scientifically precise to say “matter” alone.
What do you mean? Can you 'see' forces which you think are 'larger' - like gravity ? (In fact it is the weakest force)Me_Think
December 8, 2014
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I can also add that "behavior of matter" is from subatomic forces that are invisible to our eyes, which is not exactly visible "material" and it is not in this case scientifically precise to say "matter" alone. Materialism is where it is taken on faith that matter-didit. Naturalism adds to that to make big-questions seem beyond science to ever answer. The ID theory sorts out what is now scientifically known in a way that something either exists or it does not, period. There is then no barrier to what we can ultimately better understand. No big-questions are left scientifically unanswerable, including those pertaining to afterlife and/or futurelife.Gary S. Gaulin
December 8, 2014
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Good questions ppolish:
Gary, Multicellular Intelligence completes a trinity. But at what level would you put Conscious Intelligence?
Although at this time there is no known way to test my hypothesis: the theory suggests that consciousness exists at all three of the biological intelligence levels and is emergent from behavior of matter (which does not need to learn its behaviors like we do and its model qualifies as all-knowing).
The intelligence that can design and build a battleship. Would it be level 4 in the framework? Or are there steps in between?
There are no steps in between. Adding a fourth level of intelligence would be the result of something like human intelligence designing intelligent self-replicating biological systems to live inside while colonizing our solar system and others. It would be more than just writing an Artificial Intelligence program for a computer, our intelligence would have to create a new form of intelligent life that a macrocosm of human intelligence collectively develops into. Technology could be a part of it but I'm not talking about machines, it would be an extension of biology and itself be biological (at a level that is not yet even imaginable but sci-fi writers will likely try). For the sake of theory I must avoid speculations about things that are not yet testable. It is assumed that human multicellular intelligence is conscious, but what else may be conscious is not yet reliably known.
Also, so far we have matter then life then consciousness. ID would predict “something” beyond consciousness. NeoDarwinism would not. They call that “woo” I believe. Or “Bronze Age Myths”.
It's possible that all "life" is somewhat conscious, or at least conscious enough for the levels that sum to become human intelligence to be the cause of the consciousness that we experience. There is nothing "woo" about that, at all. Regardless of what is in the future discovered about consciousness the logical construct/framework of the theory remains the same. We just have more added detail about each level, to better answer the big-questions with. In regards to the (capital T) Trinity from religion the (small t) trinity of intelligence levels evidenced by the scientific theory were all caused by a "behavioral cause" making four behavior levels, where the first does not need to necessarily be intelligent to be the source of consciousness. This makes the behavior of matter the cause of the other two levels causing the third intelligence level (from human brains). If it is assumed that what was there "in the beginning" (God) is intelligent then we get a paradox from questioning where this intelligence (God) slowly learned everything there is to know to become "all-knowing" of everything in the universe? Intelligence learns over time or it's not intelligence. Therefore did God go to a university for Gods, slowly learn everything on their own, or is "all-knowing" something more than that and was already there too? The only way for everything to make sense according to religion is how the scientific theory turned out for all available reliable scientific evidence to make sense.Gary S. Gaulin
December 7, 2014
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Gary, Multicellular Intelligence completes a trinity. But at what level would you put Conscious Intelligence? The intelligence that can design and build a battleship. Would it be level 4 in the framework? Or are there steps in between? Also, so far we have matter then life then consciousness. ID would predict "something" beyond consciousness. NeoDarwinism would not. They call that "woo" I believe. Or "Bronze Age Myths".ppolish
December 7, 2014
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The paper looks good, even though all the "evo" words did not help explain how the system works:
Significance In some cases similar molecular programs (i.e., conserved genes and gene networks) underlie the expression of phenotypic traits that evolve repeatedly across diverse species. We investigated this possibility in the context of social behavioral response, using a comparative genomics approach for three distantly related species: house mouse (Mus musculus), stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus), and honey bee (Apis mellifera). An experience of territory intrusion modulated similar brain functional processes across species, including hormone-mediated signal transduction, neurodevelopment, chromosome organization, and energy metabolism. Several homologous transcription factors also responded consistently to territory intrusion, suggesting that shared neuronal effects may involve transcriptional cascades of evolutionarily conserved genes. These results indicate that conserved genetic “toolkits” are involved in independent evolutions of social behavior.
In the theory I have the intelligent cause is explained as:
Conclusion This theory has explained why we are a product of intelligent design that contains a trinity of emergent levels of biological intelligence, as follows: (1) Molecular Intelligence: Behavior of matter is a self-assembling behavioral cause of molecular intelligence, where RNA and DNA genome-based biological systems learn over time by replication of their accumulated genetic knowledge through a lineage of successive offspring. This intelligence level controls basic growth and division of our cells, is a primary source of our instinctual behaviors, and causes molecular level social differentiation (i.e. speciation). (2) Cellular Intelligence: Molecular intelligence is the intelligent cause of cellular intelligence. This intelligence level controls moment to moment cellular responses such as locomotion/migration and cellular level social differentiation (i.e. neural plasticity). (3) Multicellular Intelligence: Cellular intelligence is the intelligent cause of multicellular intelligence. In this case a multicellular body is controlled by an intelligent neural brain expressing all three intelligence levels at once, resulting in our complex and powerful paternal (fatherly), maternal (motherly) and other behaviors. This intelligence level controls our moment to moment multicellular responses, locomotion/migration and multicellular level social differentiation (i.e. occupation). The combined knowledge of all three of these intelligence levels guides spawning salmon of both sexes on long perilous migrations to where they were born and may stay to defend their nests "till death do they part". Otherwise merciless alligators fiercely protect their well-cared-for offspring who are taught how to lure nest building birds into range by putting sticks on their head and will scurry into her mouth when in danger. For humans this instinctual and learned knowledge has through time guided us towards marriage ceremonies to ask for "blessing" from an eternal conscious loving "spirit" existing at another level our multicellular intelligence level cannot directly experience. It is of course possible that one or both of the parents will later lose interest in the partnership, or they may have more offspring than they can possibly take care of, or none at all, but "for better or for worse" for such intelligence anywhere in the universe, there will nonetheless be the strong love we still need and cherish to guide us, forever through generations of time...
What the paper is explaining was predicted to exist by the ID theory. It's excellent to see progress being made in this emerging area of scientific research.Gary S. Gaulin
December 7, 2014
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Common design would predict like systems for like needs. I got a hunch this will become the norm in the future as more and netter research is done.Robert Byers
December 6, 2014
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"Obviously due to common descent." "Obviously due to common design." At least it's obvious.ppolish
December 6, 2014
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