Cambrian Explosion: another article on early brains (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, November 14, 2015, 13:53 (3297 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by dhw, Saturday, November 14, 2015, 14:22

DAVID: This on from Sci. Am. with interesting speculations. These brains appeared early and quickly once multicellularity with multiple organ systems appeared in the Cambrian.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/500-million-year-old-brains-and-life...-QUOTE: "Exactly why these brains (dense collections of nerve cells and nerve networks) evolved at this time is open to speculation. But some researchers propose that the advent of multi-cellular life which had senses and complex body movements and contractions, including those positioned around feeding systems, would gain clear efficiency advantages with specialized and speedy nerve-like cells. (dhw's bold) Connecting and localizing these cells via nets and clumps would offer further gains, especially as novelties like hunting (and evading hunters) began to pop up in larger and larger bodied creatures.-"The bottom line is that the basic biological structures of brains emerged at least half a billion years ago, seemingly very soon after the emergence of truly complex multi-cellular life. Modern human brains may be very different than those ancient arthropod brains, but the evolutionary 'attractor' for specialized neural networks manifested itself a long time ago[/b]. (David's bold)-David's comment: The usual Darwinian explanations. They were required so they appeared. Really?-The sentence that I have put in bold provides an important link here. In my hypothesis, “intelligent cells” combine their intelligence to form multicellular organisms, and the driving force behind evolution is not what is REQUIRED (i.e. for survival, which = adaptation, as with bacteria), but what will lead to improvement (or "efficiency advantages"). Every new step - for example, the invention of "nerve-like cells" - requires new connections between all the cell communities but may also engender new ideas for improvement in a continuous onward movement of improvement built on improvement, or "further gains". No intermediates, because improvements take place in existing organisms and won't survive unless they work. This explains the gaps in the fossil record: there are no gaps. Fantastic? I suspect that is the adjective many evolutionists would use about the idea that God implanted the very first cells with a computer programme containing every single improvement for the next few billion years.