We Are Mystified by Eric Holloway

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@Argon

1. A bacterium runs into an environment where streptomycin is present. Growth is inhibited to a degree.
2. A few daughter cells acquire mutations that mitigate the effect of streptomycin.
3. Better/faster growth of those carrying these mutations increases their numbers in the population.
4. We can say that those cells have acquired (internalized?) some form of information about their particular environment. Of course this has to be considered with respect to any particular environment…

Quite. Natural selection has long been viewed as a mechanism for transferring information from the environment into an organism.