Evolution and humans: big brain birth canal (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 09:44 (2214 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You have succeeded in talking all around the problem. Yes there are three individuals > involved, but the DNA of none of them can solve the problem since they are not directly connected in any way.This cannot be solved by hit and miss attempts at enlarging the pelvic outlet if the skull has enlarged. Both have to be simultaneously changed! Only design fits and tiny evolving alterations of one or the other will simply end up in brain-dead babies.

dhw: You have succeeded in a complete reversal of your argument: first, "three separate individuals had to coordinate the result" (the expanded birth canal), and now only the mother can do it. Then your God mysteriously "got his desired big-brained human by enlarging the birth canal". We are not talking about hit and miss. If the fetus is larger, the birth canal must obviously expand. Nobody knows how these changes took place, but you expect me to give you the details. Common sense suggests to me that the skull had to expand in order to accommodate the expanded brain, and the birth canal had to expand in order to accommodate the enlarged skull of the fetus, but if you believe your God popped in and fiddled with a group of prehumans’ birth canals in order to get his bigger-brained humans, or fiddled simultaneously with all their brains, skulls and birth canals, then so be it.

DAVID: I've not reversed anything. Three individuals were involved in the changes, but none are in control as I've clearly stated above now bolded.

What changes are you now talking about? The subject of this discussion was the change in the birth canal, and you said all three individuals had to coordinate it. No they didn’t. The mother’s cells were the ones in control – whether they organized themselves or your God stepped in to organize them.

DAVID: Of course you can not explain how it happened But agreed it had to happen. Only an outside designer fits the issue of how. This illustrates your constantly illogical approach to the question of a designer. This is one of hundreds, if not thousands of required designer examples.

And over and over again I have accepted the argument for design as opposed to random chance, but I disagree that “only an outside designer” can do it. Hence the hypothesis of cellular intelligence, which = an inside designer (possibly invented by your God).

DAVID: The preponderance of evidence is overwhelming. You weak response is cell committees have the intelligence to do it, implying they know how to visualize the future and design for its requirements.

And over and over again I have rejected your interpretation of evolution as the result of planning for the future. (Not to mention the illogicality of every design, including the caterpillar’s viper-like head, being geared to the production of the human brain.) Once more: I see evolution as the result of organisms RESPONDING to - not prophesying - the needs and/or opportunities presented by environmental change.

DAVID: Extrapolated from cells intelligent responses to immediate stimuli that are a requirement for life's homeostasis to continue. The belief in God comes from looking at the whole of the evidence at the same time.

And over and over again I have agreed that my hypothesis is a hypothesis, because we do not know if cells/cell communities have the intelligence to innovate. And over and over again, what you call “balance of nature” - now cloaked in the more scientific-sounding “homeostasis” – has proved to be nothing more than the fact that balance is necessary for life, and nature’s balance is constantly changing as organisms either fail to maintain the current balance, or adapt to/exploit prevailing conditions. I accept that your belief in God is based on your interpretation of the evidence you see, and I respect your belief. I also accept that atheists’ disbelief is based on their interpretation of the evidence they see, and I respect their disbelief. And my agnosticism, or non-belief, stems from the fact that my interpretation of the evidence I see leaves me stuck between two equally unlikely conclusions. You know all of this. You just prefer to forget that you know it.