Let's discuss evolution and instinct

[Rebecca Moise]

As a psychotherapist I work every day to help people change response patterns that are partially instinctive. It would be sad to deny the possibility of change and choice. I have a problem defining instinct as a fixed and unalterable. The pattern itself may be fixed, but how this translates into behavior can change.

There are, however, limits. There is a response sometimes called the "sauce Bearnaise" effect, a genetic behavior pattern shared by humans and many animals. Sometimes one develops an aversion to eating again a particular food if one experiences severe nausea shortly after consuming this. The response may offer instinctual protection against poisoning. The effect has been studied with rats, probably other animals as well.

My daughter once developed severe stomach flu shortly after eating a kind of submarine sandwich which, until then, she had particularly enjoyed. She would not again eat that kind of sandwich. She knew perfectly well the sandwich was not the cause of her nausea and vomiting; she knew her illness was unrelated. Her mind, however, could not, or at least did not, overrule the physiological response. I've heard this can be a problem for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, when there may be many different kinds of foods they come to associate with nausea, so their diet becomes uncomfortably restricted. If they really tried could they learn to disregard this instinct-driven behavior? Could they find ways to change this? I don't know.

Some instincts may be easier to overrule than others. Some may be impossible. Sometimes there is cost to an individual's mental health if one tries to thwart completely an instinct-driven behavior. Better to reach some kind of compromise.

I suppose that possibilities for change and choice are more limited for animals than for human beings.

 

[JorgeLobo]

more BS

 

[BoomBoom]

Sometimes one develops an aversion to eating again a particular food if one experiences severe nausea shortly after consuming this.

...just the mention of Southern Comfort makes me gag to this day! lol

I've heard this can be a problem for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, when there may be many different kinds of foods they come to associate with nausea, so their diet becomes uncomfortably restricted. If they really tried could they learn to disregard this instinct-driven behavior? Could they find ways to change this? I don't know.

I believe that's why they get medical marijuana.

 

[Rebecca Moise]

I did not know marijuana could help with this. This introduces a new dimension, the human ability to change or override an instinctual response by the use of drugs or chemicals.

 

[BoomBoom]

I did not know marijuana could help with this. This introduces a new dimension, the human ability to change or override an instinctual response by the use of drugs or chemicals.

It's well known for it's appetite stimulating properties...

Of course, we can suppress instinctive tendencies in many ways. We can also train animals to not follow those behaviors (like training your dog not to "make it's bed" when it lies down, for example).

I think the more interesting question here is how are instincts adapted and passed down? If a change in behavior can be passed down from an adult to it's offspring, and the genetics of instinctive behavior is really no different than than the genetics of physiology, then doesn't that sound a lot like Lamarck's ideas about the heritability of acquired traits?

 

[Rebecca Moise]

Well, yes, the appetite stimulating properties of marijuana is known, the "munchies." I hadn't thought of it in this context, but makes sense.

The idea of Lamarckian transmission emerges in works on human evolution, including places you might not expect this. Sigmund Freud believed in Lamarckian theories, to the great embarrassment of his followers (who avoid mentioning this), and despite Freud's admiration for Darwin. I think followers of Jung do not suppress this aspect of his thought: "collective unconscious," "archetypes", etc. Even some contemporary theorists writing about human evolution seem to steer perilously close. I still believe this is an error to be avoided, except in perhaps some very exceptional circumstances. Adaptation looks like learning, and one has to look beyond appearances, to try to think abstractly on a subject that does not lend itself to abstract thought. Freud somehow seems not to have mastered the logic of Darwin's natural selection.

 

[Rebecca Moise]

Interesting discussion of the "Sauce Bearnaise phenomenon" in Melvin Konner's 1982 book The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit. Konner explains the term was coined by experimental psychologist Martin Seligman who happened to eat filet mignon with his favorite Sauce Bearnaise 6 hours before becoming violently ill with stomach flu. He then developed. . . well you know what happened next.

Konner also calls this the "Garcia effect" from experiments conducted in the 1960's by John Garcia and collaborators. Here are specifics in Konner's words only slightly abbreviated (sorry for the length. I fear a briefer description would be more confusing than enlightening):

Take 4 groups of rats and subject them to avoidance conditioning. Have them drink water, and while they are drinking, give them a punishment, but precede the punishment with a signal. They will stop drinking when the punishment occurs and, it is expected, gradually learn to stop drinking before the punishment when the signal is given.

Give the 4 groups of rats different combinations of two signals and two punishments. One group gets a noise-and-light signal followed by an electric shock. A second gets a distinctive flavor in the water, followed by an artificially induced feeling of nausea (caused by X rays and having nothing to do with the flavor). Up to this point the experiment and the results are conventional. The rats in Group 1 and Group 2 acquire the avoidance response.

The surprise comes with Groups 3 and 4. In these groups, the pairing of signal and punishment is reversed. Group 3 gets the noise-and-light signal followed by the X ray-induced nausea. Group 4 gets the distinctive flavor followed by the electric shock. These two groups do not learn the avoidance response. In other words, it is very easy to teach a rat an association between taste and nausea, so it will avoid the taste thereafter; and it is easy to teach it to associate a light or sound with an electric shock, with similar results in avoidance behavior. But it is very difficult indeed to make the rat learn the converse associations. It simply will not get the idea that the taste signals a forthcoming shock, or that the light or sound signals forthcoming nausea. As Garcia and co-author suggest, the rat seems to have a "genetically coded hypothesis" when it feels sick to its stomach, "It must have been something I ate." Similarly, when it feels external physical pain, it is not designed to "think" in terms of flavors by way of "explanation."

Consider the kitten using the litter box. Previous discussion suggests this is either totally instinctive or learned very quickly, from cues that are very minor. Either way there is something clicking with the kitten's genetic code.

Consider also that Garcia's original finding was controversial. It first appeared in relatively obscure journals after being rejected by major journals. One investigator, who had worked on similar problems for years, said publicaly, "These findings are no more likely than birdgarbage in a cuckoo clock." Konner comments (p. 28), "They were not only likely, they were true; they have turned up many times in many laboratories."

When I suggested a cat's genetic propensity to bury feces was a behavior mechanism based in instincts for avoiding potentially disease-carrying material, I thought the idea in itself was rather ho-hum. A place, perhaps to build further, starting with something very likely: There is usually a survival advantage to instinctive behavior; here is a plausible survival advantage and here is an instinct. Just put the two together. The behavior, while not universal, is not unique to cats. Also we can sense within ourselves the aversion instinct, including what we experience as a bad smell. Before science taught us about disease-carrying organisms, there was survival value in humans sensing "something bad to be avoided" through smell and other senses.

I don't mean to minimize the value of considering contrary evidence; what seems obvious might be an optical illusion. Also there are numerous other factors to be considered: How does dominance behavior complicate the picture? How similar is this to behavior in other species? Why is it not shown by all species? Why is the behavior pronounced among cats? etc. But perhaps some of the questioning of what I still consider an unremarkable idea is that it seems to imply a level of thought incongruent with what we believe about animals, in other words the same feeling of impossibility that greeted Garcia's findings. Everyday experience seems to show that animals don't "think" like that. I don't believe Garcia's rats were "thinking" in terms of cause and effect, and I don't believe that cats make any connection between feces and disease. Rather the results of natural selection give a deceptive appearance, creating an impression of rational thought where this does not necessarily exist. The behavior may "make sense", but instincts themselves, whether in human beings or in animals, are not sensible. They rather fit, or in some cases don't fit, the environment in which they emerge. It is when they don't fit that we can discern more clearly the irrational force of instinct.

 

[Asyncritus]

The Migration of the European Eels

The recent BBC program about eel migration has highlighted another great defeat for evolutionary theory by the phenomenon of instinctive behaviour.

In essence, eels (which grow to maturity in freshwater rivers, pools, streams, ponds) leave their growing areas, and make their way down to the sea. They even swim across wet grasslands in order to get into the rivers which will take them down to the sea.

Question: How do they know that they have to get to the sea, and how do they know that the rivers are flowing to the sea?

When they reach the sea off the coasts of the UK, they are immediately faced with a huge problem.

Salt water is extremely different in physical and chemical properties to fresh water, and usually, an organism which lives in the one kind of water will not survive in the other kind. The osmotic factors alone are very, very different.

But they survive somehow. How did natural selection produce such an organism one wonders.

They then swim to join one of the great south-flowing currents of the ocean, and in that way piggy-back on it, and save energy, and increase their speed of travel. I wonder how they figured that one out?

"The researchers suggest that what they do is swim down to Africa and then hitch a ride on a fast-moving ocean current which helps them to speed up and get the rest of the way much more quickly." http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/news/news/1817/

They are headed for the Sargasso Sea, no less, all of 3,000 miles away to the south west.

It has not been observed, but scientists believe that they spawn there - and then, the adults die.

Millions of young eels are produced: transparent slivers of tissue: so transparent in fact that they are called glass eels. One can read a newspaper through them, it is claimed.

And these little pieces of living tissue now begin their 3,000 mile journey back to the freshwater pool, stream, lake where their parents came from.

And they make it.

The details are sketchy, but in outline this is what happens, and is well known.

At once, evolution theory is rendered impotent. I have yet to see mention of the word 'evolution' in the accounts I've read - though there's got to be some plank who will mention the E word.There is no number of 'small beneficial variations' which can bring this titanic migration about. Consider - there is a journey of about 6,000 miles involved here.

Underwater, at that.

In the air, as with the Capistrano swallows, it may be possible (though unlikely) for the birds to use visible landmarks to help in their navigation - maybe the stars or whatever.

The eels swim at a depth of 3000 feet during the day, and come up to shallower waters during the night:

"But one of the really intriguing bits of data was that the eels change their height in the water column between day and night. So during the daytime, they swim much deeper. They go down to about a thousand metres and at night time, they come up close to the surface." http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/news/news/1817/

So stars,landmarks, whatever are unavailable - and yet they do it.

Navigating at a depth of 3000 feet in a submarine is a tricky business, requiring some very sophisticated equipment, especially if the destination is 3000 miles away. Yet this is exactly what the eels do, WITHOUT any equipment at all, in that pitch darkness, with nothing visible at all.

Just as remarkable as the Pacific Golden Plover, which we already described http://www.got.to/belligerentdesign", the young migrate back home with no guidance whatsoever, and make it (apart from those, of course, that die, or are trapped in their millions by fishermen).

There is no way evolution can account for the phenomenon. The information is obviously inborn into the fish. But how did it get there? And again, we note that the whole information packet had to spring full blown to birth, or the eels and their young would have been lost long, long ago in the trackless depths and wastes of the deep ocean.

If the information is correct, there are fossil eels dating back 95 million years. So they haven't got lost in all that length of time. Whether they were making the same journey then is obviously unknown, but there's no good reason to suppose that they didn't.

So we have another evolutionary brick wall. When are we going to discard this useless theory?

http://www.fossil-museum.com/fossils/fosil.php?Id=404


One of the mysteries of the animal kingdom is the long-distance migration (5000–6000 km) of the European eel Anguilla anguilla L. from the coasts of Europe to its spawning grounds in the Sargasso Sea. The only evidence for the location of the spawning site of the European eel in the Sargasso Sea is the discovery by Johannes Schmidt at the beginning of the previous century of the smallest eel larvae (leptocephali) near the Sargasso Sea. For years it has been questioned whether the fasting eels have sufficient energy reserves to cover this enormous distance. We have tested Schmidt's theory by placing eels in swim tunnels in the laboratory and allowing them to make a simulated migration of 5500 km. We find that eels swim 4–6 times more efficiently than non-eel-like fish. Our findings are an important advance in this field because they remove a central objection to Schmidt's theory by showing that their energy reserves are, in principle, sufficient for the migration. Conclusive proof of the Sargasso Sea theory is likely to come from satellite tracking technology.
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/news/news/1817/

 

[Chronos]

Er. aside from the logic bombs, circular reasoning, moving the goal posts and assuming facts not in evidence - I think you might be on to something. Are you seeking an autopsy? If so, will you agree to admit to any assertions demonstrated to be unreliable?

 

[Asyncritus]

Er. aside from the logic bombs, circular reasoning, moving the goal posts and assuming facts not in evidence - I think you might be on to something. Are you seeking an autopsy? If so, will you agree to admit to any assertions demonstrated to be unreliable?

Sure. Go ahead.

But remember, the main point is: HOW did the instinct evolve? And enter the genome (if that's where it is).

 

[baywax]

Sure. Go ahead.

But remember, the main point is: HOW did the instinct evolve? And enter the genome (if that's where it is).

Through natural selection.

Similar behaviour is seen in salmon... fresh water to salt water transition and back again.

Their navigation is based on chemical and current sensing. A trait developed over millions of years of trial and error... and natural selection. This is a result of evolution.

 

[Rebecca Moise]

Through natural selection.

Similar behaviour is seen in salmon... fresh water to salt water transition and back again.

Their navigation is based on chemical and current sensing. A trait developed over millions of years of trial and error... and natural selection. This is a result of evolution.

If this fascinating behavior of eels and salmon does not result from evolution and instinct, where does it come from? Perhaps I should know better than to ask that question. God put it there? Creationism? Is that the alternative theory? If not, then what? As someone said in an earlier post, this is a science forum.

 

[baywax]

As someone said in an earlier post, this is a science forum.

They are right.

 

[Asyncritus]

Through natural selection.

Yeah. That tired old catch-all 'explanation'!

Here's a little diagram for you:

Fish 1 (doesn't know where to go)------X------> Fish 2 (knows exactly where to go)

What happened at X?

Remember, natural selection can only 'select' from WHAT'S ALREADY THERE.

Similar behaviour is seen in salmon... fresh water to salt water transition and back again.

Their navigation is based on chemical and current sensing. A trait developed over millions of years of trial and error... and natural selection. This is a result of evolution.

Oh yeah? How come their errors didn't kill them all?

An original few made it, let's say from the UK to the Sargasso Sea. That's 3000 miles.

Then they died.

Now the young somehow have to get back 3000 miles, in pitch blackness, to the UK.

How did they do it? Chemical and current sensing.

Gimme a break, willya?

 

[Asyncritus]

If this fascinating behavior of eels and salmon does not result from evolution and instinct, where does it come from? Perhaps I should know better than to ask that question. God put it there? Creationism? Is that the alternative theory? If not, then what? As someone said in an earlier post, this is a science forum.

Good questions Rebecca.

What's your answer?

 

[BoomBoom]

At once, evolution theory is rendered impotent. I have yet to see mention of the word 'evolution' in the accounts I've read - though there's got to be some plank who will mention the E word.

Huh?? How could you possibly come to that conclusion? What is your alternative explanation then? (or are you just a trolling creationist?)

 

[zomgwtf]

Good questions Rebecca.

What's your answer?

I think you do not understand the forces you are discussing. At least when other people attempt to show that evolution in a particular sense isn't true they KNOW what their talking about. You just seem to be using a whole lot of fallacies in a seeming attempt to make some point... which I'm not exactly sure is. Are you a creationist Asyncritus?

Do you assert that in your description of Fish 1 to Fish 2 that 'X' was caused by God(s)? Or maybe you would like to attempt to show that there were no steps and that the fish always knew because that's the way they were created?

Maybe you're just trolling?

I think you should make a point by now and come out and say specifically what YOUR point is and what specifically you would like to know about the OTHER points. Right now your coming across as slightly arrogant and ignorant. No offense.

 

[DaveC426913]

I think you should make a point by now and come out and say specifically what YOUR point is and what specifically you would like to know about the OTHER points. Right now your coming across as slightly arrogant and ignorant. No offense.

Seconded.

Asyncritus, you have expressed your dubious opinion of natural selection, but have not provided an alternate explanation. Please come forth with your alternate explanation so that we can understand your stance on the issue.

"Gimmee a break" is not a valid stance.

 

[baywax]

Yeah. That tired old catch-all 'explanation'!

Here's a little diagram for you:

Fish 1 (doesn't know where to go)------X------> Fish 2 (knows exactly where to go)

What happened at X?

Remember, natural selection can only 'select' from WHAT'S ALREADY THERE.



Oh yeah? How come their errors didn't kill them all?

An original few made it, let's say from the UK to the Sargasso Sea. That's 3000 miles.

Then they died.

Now the young somehow have to get back 3000 miles, in pitch blackness, to the UK.

How did they do it? Chemical and current sensing.

Gimme a break, willya?

Trial and error as in "over millions of years".

The ones that made it back provided the mutations and traits for the next generation to make it back by "instinct" or "genetic survival superiority" to the ones that didn't make it back.

That's natural selection. Its a slightly better explanation than the bearded Dumbldorf in the clouds waving his wand and creating the migration of fish.

 

[Asyncritus]

Trial and error as in "over millions of years".

The ones that made it back provided the mutations and traits for the next generation to make it back by "instinct" or "genetic survival superiority" to the ones that didn't make it back.

That's natural selection. Its a slightly better explanation than the bearded Dumbldorf in the clouds waving his wand and creating the migration of fish.

It a pretty useless 'explanation'.

Trial and error as in "over millions of years".

That gives 'em a pretty fair amount of time to get lost and never be seen again, doesn't it?

As I said, natural selection can only select FROM WHAT'S ALREADY THERE.

So, how did 'what's already there', GET THERE.

That's the question that evolution has no hope of answering. But I look forward to hearing.

 

[Asyncritus]

Huh?? How could you possibly come to that conclusion? What is your alternative explanation then? (or are you just a trolling creationist?)

As you can see, natural selection just can't cut it.

So what's left? as Rebecca asked.

 

[Asyncritus]

I think you do not understand the forces you are discussing. At least when other people attempt to show that evolution in a particular sense isn't true they KNOW what their talking about. You just seem to be using a whole lot of fallacies in a seeming attempt to make some point... which I'm not exactly sure is. Are you a creationist Asyncritus?

Do you assert that in your description of Fish 1 to Fish 2 that 'X' was caused by God(s)? Or maybe you would like to attempt to show that there were no steps and that the fish always knew because that's the way they were created?

Maybe you're just trolling?

I think you should make a point by now and come out and say specifically what YOUR point is and what specifically you would like to know about the OTHER points. Right now your coming across as slightly arrogant and ignorant. No offense.

No offense taken zomgwtf. I have a very thick skin: evolved from much conflict!

If you don't mind, I'd like you guys to come to your own conclusions about this instinct thing.

I'd like you to look these very solid facts right in the face, and make some accounting for them, by yourselves. My role in this is to present facts, and yours is to explain them.

Now tell me, don't you find the 'natural selection' explanation just a little thin and threadbare? Just imagine, a little fish, 3000 feet down, and 3000 miles away, finding its way back home, having NEVER BEEN THERE.

'Natural selection'? From what?

 

[Asyncritus]

Seconded.

Asyncritus, you have expressed your dubious opinion of natural selection, but have not provided an alternate explanation. Please come forth with your alternate explanation so that we can understand your stance on the issue.

"Gimme a break" is not a valid stance.

Dave, please see my previous post.

 

[zomgwtf]

So, how did 'what's already there', GET THERE.

That's the question that evolution has no hope of answering. But I look forward to hearing.

You're right, evolution won't tell you HOW what was already there got to be there in the first place, it can tell you how it evolved to that point but not where it came from ad infinitum. That's a completely different theory called abiogenesis.

You seem to have changed the goalpost from before. First you want to know how it evolved and now you are dismissing evolution on the basis that it can't answer where everything came from.
This is known as a moving the goalpost fallacy, not only that but I believe it's a Red Herring more specifically a 'texas sharpshooter fallacy' lol. Since you are introducing something irrelevant(abiogenesis) but attempting to paint evolution to it.

 

[zomgwtf]

If you don't mind, I'd like you guys to come to your own conclusions about this instinct thing.

We all already know each others opinions since it's based on what's out there in mainstream science (the general idea anyways). What we want to know is what YOUR view is. As well as what you propose in place of evolution since there are 'very solid facts' which you have 'presented' and requested an explanation for yet you don't accept since it is 'a little thin and threadbare'.

'Natural selection'? From what?

I've already answered this in the other post, it's a rediculous argument that is used by a lot of people attempting to refute Evolution and normally they have a religious agenda. It is a weak and fallacious argument and I honestly hope you do not share this view along with your 'solid facts' to other people in an attempt to spread misinformation.

 

[D H]

As you can see, natural selection just can't cut it.

You have been asked several times now to present your ideas, and you have failed to do so. The only thought that comes to my mind is that you are a trolling creationist. Your mischaracterizations of eel migration and of evolution bolster this opinion.


Anyhow, although I'm not a biologist, I'll take a crack at an answer. The eels haven't always made a journey of 3000 miles. Palm trees grew on Greenland during the Paleocene, and the Atlantic was quite a bit smaller back then. Even further back in time, the Atlantic *was* a small pond. Continental drift and climate are powerful evolutionary drivers.

 

[DaveC426913]

My role in this is to present facts, and yours is to explain them.

No it is not. You don't get to determine roles.

You have an argument "natural selection doesn't cut it" or some such. You must back up this claim. You have been requested to do so at least three times, which is more than required.

 

[BoomBoom]

As you can see, natural selection just can't cut it.

I can see no such thing. The logic and evidence for natural selection is absolutely undeniable.

I may be on the fringe as far as my interest in the possibility of Lamarckian heredity, but that in no way denies the truth of natural selection.

...hope you enjoyed your nice little troll in the woods!

 

[baywax]

It looks as though the eel in general has had from 145.5 to 65.5 million years to evolve according to fossil records.

Studies of the few known fossil eels and the comparative anatomy of adults and larvae suggest that eels arose in the Cretaceous Period (145.5–65.5 million years ago). Eels descended from two or more types that had at least some characters of the Elopiformes (tarpons and relatives) and Albuliformes (bonefishes). ...

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/179911/eel/63462/Evolution-paleontology-and-classification

Our knowledge of the glass eel's reproductive biology is up in the air (but not the clouds) according to this article in Nature.

Genetic evidence against panmixia in the European eel

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v409/n6823/full/4091037a0.html

It seems that there's been little interest in the glass eel and as a result there is a lack of information about the (sub)species.

Evolution of anguillid eel migration and establishment of their geographic distribution inferred by their larval distribution, morphology and early life history

Introduction
The long distance migrations of catadromous eels of the genus Anguilla consist of two different components, the larval migration toward their fresh water growth habitats, and the adult migration back to the spawning area. These components have been poorly understood due to a critical lack of information about the spawning areas and migration routes. To know the diversity of geographic distribution and its evolutionary origins, we examined the distribution, morphology, and early life history based on the otolith microstructure of anguillid leptocephali of 12 species/subspecies (N = 832) and an unknown species (N = 4) collected from the Indo-Pacific region from 1995 to 2007, and glass eels of 9 species (N =653) obtained from all over the world during from 1999 to 2002, including both temperate and tropical eels.

to find out more, go to this free article

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cach...+glass+eels&cd=36&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=safari

 

[baywax]

Back on topic. Instinct has to be the result of evolution. When the first singled celled creature with a larger than normal amount of photosensitive chemicals within its membrane was alerted to an enormous amount of sunlight hitting it, it scooted away, and survived an onslaught of UV and other radiation that would have wiped it out. The single celled animals that didn't carry as much or any photosensitive chemicals would rely on perhaps the heat of the sun to warn them... and if there was very little heat but much radiation, these single celled creatures would have been wiped out.

So, we were left with (more of) the photosensitive type of single celled animal. And, what today appears as an instinct to retreat from sunlight in some animals, stems, by my reckoning, from the naturally selected, single cell animal (up to 3 billion years old) with the photosensitive advantage over those without the photosensitivity.

 

[DaveC426913]

Back on topic. Instinct has to be the result of evolution. When the first singled celled creature with a larger than normal amount of photosensitive chemicals within its membrane was alerted to an enormous amount of sunlight hitting it, it scooted away, and survived an onslaught of UV and other radiation that would have wiped it out. The single celled animals that didn't carry as much or any photosensitive chemicals would rely on perhaps the heat of the sun to warn them... and if there was very little heat but much radiation, these single celled creatures would have been wiped out.

So, we were left with (more of) the photosensitive type of single celled animal. And, what today appears as an instinct to retreat from sunlight in some animals, stems, by my reckoning, from the naturally selected, single cell animal (up to 3 billion years old) with the photosensitive advantage over those without the photosensitivity.

Well, the trouble is the middle part; the part between stimulus and response. Especially when response is no longer directly connected to stimulus.

The only conclusion is that there is a set of neurons that has "I just pooped" as an input and "I should scratch the ground" as output. This set of neurons - in this configuration - is programmed into the DNA.

 

[baywax]

Well, the trouble is the middle part; the part between stimulus and response. Especially when response is no longer directly connected to stimulus.

The only conclusion is that there is a set of neurons that has "I just pooped" as an input and "I should scratch the ground" as output. This set of neurons - in this configuration - is programmed into the DNA.

Neurons, in a multicellular organism, would develop to a point when they interpret the stimulus in more accurate ways for the organism, adding to the survivability of the species (through scratching on the ground etc..). Further back in time (billion years or more) you'd have a unicellular organism reacting chemically to their photosensitive chemical make up with no neuronal interaction because... no neurons. But flagella.. for mobility may also act as touch sensitive organelle. Because of this, they also seem to hold some promise as pre-neurons or pre-dendrites at least.