Evolution and humans: big brain birth canal (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, October 26, 2018, 15:41 (2218 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: And finally what to do about dhw's intelligent cell committees in three separate folks, Mum Dad, and baby. How did they communicate and plan the changes?

dhw: They didn’t. As the skull expanded to accommodate the bigger brain, the birth canal changed to accommodate the bigger skull. And yes, whether you like it or not, each of these processes would have required cooperation between the respective cell communities. But no, it would not have been Dad’s cell communities that would have cooperated in changing Mum’s birth canal. Mum's cell communities would have had to respond to the requirements of the baby's cell communities. In your scenario, your God would have organized the cooperation.

DAVID: You have not explained how the cell communities cooperate, but just stated it as if it were fact. It is not an answer to how do separate individual organisms communicate and coordinate genome changes"? As for Dad, his genes dictate in part the fetal size, including the skull.

dhw: Are you saying that your body does NOT consist of cell communities? If you agree that it does, how do you think your homeostasis works, if not by achieving a cooperative balance between all of them? In your theory, it is your God who rearranges the balance between these communities, i.e. who rearranges the way in which they cooperate. You believe this cooperation is automatic, following his computer programme or what you call below his changing of the codes. In my hypothesis, the cells change their own codes in order to cope with changing circumstances. The birth canal expanded to accommodate the expanded skull. Yes, the genes of Mummy and Daddy both played their part in making the big-headed fetus, but I doubt very much that Daddy’s genes dictated the expansion of the birth canal.

Neatly avoided the issue that three separate individuals had to coordinate the result. Of course body organs and their cells cooperate, totally beside the point. You don't have a natural answer, just avoidance.

dhw: The body purposefully adapts to all kinds of changes. What is your theory? That your God preprogrammed every variation in every birth canal 3.8 billion years ago, or did he pop in to fiddle with each individual woman’s birth canal?

DAVID: God took the pre-humans out of the trees. He also changed the codes for birth canal size for everyone.

dhw: It’s a lovely image: one by one, your God psychokinetically forces a group of primates to climb down (leaving lots of other primates up there, wondering what’s going on – or do you now subscribe to my hypothesis of an isolated group (see “foraminifera”)? – and one by one he fiddles psychokinetically with each female’s birth canal, so that it will accommodate the larger brain in the larger skull, which he has also engineered psychokinetically. And let’s also remember that according to you his prime purpose is the brain of Homo sapiens, and this lot are just PRE-sapiens. So for some unknown reason he’ll let this lot (and a few other lots) do their own thing for hundreds of thousands of years, and then he’ll presumably do another dabble, or changing of the codes, until he gets what he’s always wanted. Truly your God works in mysterious ways his natural wonders to perform.

Answered in the other thread with my comments about Lucy, the transitional form, with the same tiny brain as her ape dwelling cousins. Certainly God got his desired big-brained human by enlarging the birth canal. Any natural trial and error attempt would result in a series of still-borns or necessary microcephalics. And why suddenly worried about time intervals? You know full well that single-cells started life 3.5+ billion years ago. It is obvious evolution takes lots of time, and you now that. God is mysterious to your because of your overanalysis of his humanism. He is His own person, not the one you want Him to be.