How children pick up a language: new review of Wolfe (Humans)

by dhw, Sunday, November 06, 2016, 13:19 (2938 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: What you stated is true. Innovation happened, but that still doesn't tell us why multicellularity was necessary for continuously successful bacteria, which are still here everywhere, even seemingly impossible environments.

dhw: It wasn’t necessary. That’s why bacteria stayed the same. Once again: Evolution does not progress by every single member of a species suddenly changing into something else. Innovation – if common descent is true – takes place in individuals, and if it is successful, it survives while the rest remain the same. Hence diversification. Not NECESSARY, but unless you consider the senses, sex, brains etc. to be a backward step, in each case an improvement.
DAVID: Note, you are again quoting Darwin. We do not see small individual changes. We only see the sudden appearance of new species. Even the transitional forms have large gaps before and after their appearance.

I have made no reference whatsoever to Darwin’s gradualism! I was explaining that improvement was not NECESSARY, and bacteria remained the same because innovation does not take place in whole species but in individuals, and so successful multicellularity did not REPLACE successful unicellularity but diversified from it. The same applies to all species (broad sense): fish did not disappear just because some fish went ashore.

DAVID: Of course as evolution advances from simple to complex, which involves innovations, new species appear. Improvement, however, is in the eye of the beholder, an interpretation.

All these discussions centre on interpretation! It’s OK for you to say humans are special by comparison with all other organisms, but it’s not OK for me to say that a brain is an improvement over a non-brain. Without interpretation there can be no discussion of ANY of the issues we tackle on this website!

DAVID: This is why I stick to 'complexity' as an obvious drive. 99% of all 'new' species are gone. How much improvement is that? Bacteria are still bacteria, but most everything else is lots more complex.

Of course multicellular organisms are more complex than unicellular organisms! I interpret that as a quest for improvement, and you interpret it as a quest for complexity which is part of God’s careful planning to pave the way for humans, who are God’s purpose. You don’t accept my hypothesis because it’s an interpretation. What is your hypothesis if it's not an interpretation?