dhw: Evolution and humans: Neanderthal lungs larger (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, December 04, 2018, 14:37 (2179 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You think every organism with a brain logically has independent thinking and the freedom to do as it wants. (Let’s forget about bacteria for the moment.) Theoretically, that leaves every organism with a brain capable of independently working out its own means of coping with environmental change, if that is what your God wanted them all to do. One up for the autonomy of whales, ants and weaverbirds. (I'll leave out spiders, since their form of "brain" is controversial.)

DAVID: I don't believe the human brain arranges for our physical adaptations. Its your flighty wishful thinking hypothesis to escape an external designer at work.

I’m not confining this to human adaptations. My proposal, as you well know, is that it is the intelligent cell communities (including that of the brain) of all organisms that organize all physical adaptations and POSSIBLY innovations. (See below) There is no wishful thinking – I am trying to find a logical explanation for innovations. And my hypothesis allows for an external designer to have created the intelligent cell in the first place.

DAVID: The simple purposes my dog exhibits are immediate responses to immediate needs. My dog does not study purpose for the future as required by fossil gaps. A mammal wading in the water does not imagine how a flipper would work instead of legs, or worst of all problems how to give birth underwater and arrange for nursing under water. Talk about future complexities! Yes, those adaptations have to happen, so in your version they simply do.

No organisms don’t simply adapt, and indeed many fail to do so. In my hypothesis the mammal doesn’t imagine anything, just as I do not consciously direct my heart, liver and lungs to do their job. It is the cell communities of which every organ is made that function independently of my conscious intelligence, and we know that organs can adapt to new conditions. I find it easier to imagine cell communities doing this in response to new demands than I do to imagine a universal mind constantly monitoring every organism in all conditions, prophesying what will happen, and by some process of psychokinesis restructuring the various organs (cell communities) in preparation for every environmental change.

DAVID: Free will is at a neurological level of thought, not at the physical level of phenotypic change.

I am not comparing the two processes. I am pointing out that if your God can allow freedom on one level, there is no reason to suppose that he was not willing to allow freedom on another level.

dhw: As usual, you insist that innovation requires knowledge of the future, whereas we know that adaptation requires response to the present.

DAVID: An immediate response to the present is all we see in adaptation, just tiny alterations. Back to pure Darwinism. You are wedded to him at the hip and brain. You never explain how the gaps might occur!

I keep agreeing that we do not have proof that the process of adaptation can extend so far as to the major changes necessary for speciation, and that is why it remains a hypothesis. The gaps may be due to the fact that over hundreds of millions of years, fossils have not survived or not been found (Darwin’s explanation) or the cell communities are capable of creating major innovations in the process known as saltation (which Darwin rejected). Now please tell me where in Darwin you have found the hypothesis that speciation has taken place through the possibly God-given intelligence of cells that are capable of restructuring themselves to create not only minor but also major adaptations and innovations. And please stick to the arguments and stop dropping Darwin's name as if doing so provided evidence for your hypotheses and against mine.

dhw: Unless you are now going to insist that your God preprogrammes or dabbles every single adaptation, there has to be an autonomous mechanism for minor changes.

DAVID: When did I ever leave pre-programming or dabbling? I believe that very minor adaptations are done by all organisms. Darwin's finch beaks come to mind, as a prime example.

You have never left preprogramming and/or dabbling. So now please tell me whether you think the mechanism for minor adaptations, such as some fish adapting to polluted water so that they can remain the same, is autonomous or preprogrammed/dabbled. (A better example than Darwin’s finches.)

DAVID: Your stonewall mind doesn't recognize the need for future planning to cover the gaps we know exist. Someday you might forget your Darwin inculcation. Your hypothesis is pure Darwin.

See above, re Darwin and re my hypothesis. No, I do not recognize the need for your God to change legs into fins before pre-whales enter the water, or adjust pelvises before pre-humans descend from the trees, or jaws before pre-baleens start filter-feeding. I find it more logical that these changes occurred as a result of organisms adapting to new environments.