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Bacterial Prisoner's Dilemma and Game Theory
dumuzi writes "Scientists studying how bacteria under stress collectively weigh and initiate different survival strategies say they have gained new insights into how humans make strategic decisions that affect their health, wealth and the fate of others in society. The authors of the new study are theoretical physicists and chemists at the University of California, San Diego's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics. In nature, bacteria live in large colonies whose numbers may reach up to 100 times the number of people on earth. Many bacteria respond to extreme stress — such as starvation, poisoning and irradiation — by creating spores. Alternately the bacteria may 'choose' to enter a state called competence where they are able to absorb the nutrients from their newly deceased comrades. 'Each bacterium in the colony communicates via chemical messages and performs a sophisticated decision making process using a specialized network of genes and proteins. Modeling this complex interplay of genes and proteins by the bacteria enabled the scientists to assess the pros and cons of different choices in game theory. It pays for the individual cell to take the risk and escape into competence only if it notices that the majority of the cells decide to sporulate,' explained Onuchic. 'But if this is the case, it should not take this chance because most of the other cells might reach the same conclusion and escape from sporulation.'"
Let me guess, you are a creationist. Your comparison is fallacious.
This relates more, in my opinion to an ant colony and is not surprising in the least. Our body communicates via chemicals as well, so why should bacteria be any different?
Sophisticated, maybe not but given options and executing a plan then switching if that plan fails? Well, that is the essence of evolution.
I'll give it a shot. The chemical/electrical processes in his head gets really turned on by the fact that individual bacterium communicate using chemicals. Feedback from the chemicals in his head make him dizzy thinking of the little notes passed back and forth like "good luck" and "you've changed since the last time we talked". Not one to RTFA, the chemicals in his head move on to the next story.
There, I explained how the chemical processes in his head could have not lead him to his decision that there is no decision. Whew, that was one tough sentence to parse. Hope that helped.
The famous 'chemical process in my head' defense. That's right up there with the 'Wookie defense'.