Is bacteria the least intelligent form of life?

Question

Is bacteria the least intelligent form of life?

Answer 1

No. Liberals far outwiegh the other vermin!

Answer 2

i think it will be virus as they r more primitive than bacteria

Answer 3

nope half of the people i know have nothing but empty space up there. it's like a pitch black cave,

Answer 4

yeah pretty much but there are minute organisms smaller than bacteria that are inactive and have no body parts except for their plasma membrane. They are sort of "dead" until the come in contact with a host. Example some viruses and fungus etc.

Answer 5

Think so, with no brains at all.. existing from one cell.. Must be.

Answer 6

Next to Democrats yes.

Answer 7

i think theyre pretty s**y

Answer 8

Might depend on whether you consider a virus "life".

Answer 9

well, i bet so, im no bacteria expert tho

Answer 10

For the most primitive beings in the web of life, some researchers claim, “simple” might not mean “stupid". Bacteria are by far the simplest things alive, at least among things generally agreed on as being alive. Next to one of these single-celled beings, one cell of our bodies looks about as complex as a human does compared to a sponge. Yet the humble microbes may have a rudimentary form of intelligence, some researchers have found.

The claims seem to come as a final exclamation point to a long series of increasingly surprising findings of sophistication among the microbes, including apparent cases of cooperation and even altruism.

But there is no clear measurement or test that scientists can use, based on the behavior alone, to determine whether it reflects intelligence.

Some researchers, though, have found a systematic way of addressing the question and begun looking into it. This method involves focusing not so much on the behavior itself as the nuts and bolts behind it—a complex system of chemical “signals” that flit both within and among bacteria, helping them decide what to do and where to go.

Researchers have found that this process has similarities to a type of human-made machine designed to act as a sort of simplified brain. These devices solve some simple problems in a manner more human-like than machine-like.

The devices, called neural networks, also run on networks of signals akin to those of the bacteria. The devices use the networks to “learn” tasks such as distinguishing a male from a female in photographs—typical sorts of problems that are easy for humans but hard for traditional computers.

The similarities in the bacterial and neural network signaling systems are far more than superficial, wrote one researcher, Klaas J. Hellingwerf, in the April issue of the journal Trends in Microbiology. He found that the bacterial system contains all the important features that make neural networks work, leading to the idea that the bacteria have “a minimal form of intelligence.”

Bacterial signaling possesses all four of the key properties that neural network experts have identified as essential to make such devices work, Hellingwerf elaborated. The only weak link in the argument, he added, is that for one of those properties, it’s not clear whether bacteria exhibit it to a significant extent. This may be where future research should focus, he wrote.

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Answer 11

well u cant actualy answer that question because we havent discovered EVERY form of life! :)

Answer 12

Oh god no! I know some academics who make bacteria look like ******* Bertrand Russell.