Human Beings are Complex Colonies of Individual Cells

[MineralMan]

Billions upon billions of them. Each cell has evolved to perform a specialized function. At one time, all life on earth consisted only of individual cells. It wasn't long, though, before individual cells got attached to each other. The evolution game began.

Billions of cells, and many of them that keep us alive are not even human cells. We're also host to a vast, vast arrays of other lifeforms, most of them living in our digestive tract. They're responsible for turning the junk food we eat into nutrients. We don't think about them. They evolved to perform those functions, while living their lives inside the cell colonies that we are. It's pretty freaking amazing, really.

And the whole shebang started with single-celled organisms. Every year, we understand more and more about how our enormously complex collection of cells evolved. It's amazing. Far more amazing, I think, than a few words in a book that dates back a few thousand years and offers no details. Our history really dates back 4 billion years or so, long before deities were invented by clever cell colonies.

Science is teaching us about the cell colony each of us is. If we are interested, we can learn. If we aren't interested, we can read Genesis. I'm interested. I've been interested all my life.

How about you?

[Rollo]

1. Which is why it's so important to be kind to colonials... or they might stage a revolution...

[thbobby]

2. I love similarities between

single cells in our body forming a human lifeform and ants working collectively to form a colony. Or humans working together to form a society. It illustrates a phenomenon know as emergence. Any one cell is not self-aware, but a human is. Is an ant colony self-aware or could it ever evolve to become self-aware? Is a society self-aware?

[MineralMan]

3. There are lots of things to think about.

It's a life-long journey.

[Nitram]

4. I agree with most of what you write, but I think you re mistaken when you write that human beings

are complex colonies of individual cells. The thing is, the cells that make up our bodies are not a colony, and they are not "individual" cells in the sense that they cannot survive on their own. We are actually a single organism composed of billions of cells, not a colony of individual cells. Biologically speaking, there are single-celled organisms, there are colonies of single-celled organisms, and then there are complex organisms made up of multiple cells.

According to Wikipedia:

In biology, a colony is composed of two or more conspecific individuals living in close association with, or connected to, one another, usually for mutual benefit such as stronger defense or the ability to attack bigger prey.[1] It is a cluster of identical cells (clones) on the surface of (or within) a solid medium, usually derived from a single parent cell, as in bacterial colony.[2] In contrast, a solitary organism is one in which all individuals live independently and have all of the functions needed to survive and reproduce.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(biology)

[MineralMan]

5. OK. However, we are made of billions of individual, specialized

cells. So is a rotifer or a flea. Each type of cell has specific things to do. Muscle cells, for example contract when stimulated. The cells in the retina of your eye generate an electrical impulse when light hits them. They are far less alike than they are different.

You are correct that most human cells cannot survive outside of the organism. Sperm cells are about the only ones that do that, and they survive for only two or three days. Still...

Our cells are specialized and there are thousands and thousands of different types of cell in our body. We are a cell colony, just like a rotifer is a cell-colony, or a jellyfish. It is the types and organization of the cells that make each organism what it is.

[Nitram]

6. A rotifer is not a cell colony. It is an organism composed of many cells.

By the way, what did you mean by "They are far less alike than they are different?"

[MineralMan]

7. My own terminology, which I've been using for years.

I'll stick with it. I don't always use standard terminology.