Big brain evolution: new human brain area found (Evolution)

by David Turell @, Saturday, December 08, 2018, 21:50 (1927 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Neat dodge. There is no cooperation by cells if the are redesigned and made into a new construction by a designer. The cells become what they are designed to become. You and I explain gaps very differently.

dhw: Neat dodge. Your “if” is the big question! The cell communities must still cooperate, whether newly designed by your God or by themselves. The question is when the cooperation begins. If conditions required an additional capacity for "receiving sensory and motor information from our bodies to refine our posture, balance and movements”, then I suggest the cell communities would have responded to that requirement by cooperating to provide the new capacity, just like pre-baleen cell communities replacing teeth with baleens as an improved method of feeding. But you believe your God fiddled with the cell communities of both the pre-baleen whale and the human brain beforehand, to make them cooperate in a new way. It’s the same question as always. Theistic version: did your God preprogramme/dabble the restructuring of the cell communities before change was required, or did he give them the means to restructure themselves in response to changing conditions?

DAVID: It all comes down to whether the brain cells decided to form a new area on their own and by their design to fit a future need they perceived or God designed it. I'm with God. I do not believe cells can imagine the future and design for it in advance.

dhw: That is not what it comes down to at all! You persist in claiming that all evolutionary changes are either divinely preprogrammed or dabbled in advance of any need for them! I don’t know how often you want me to repeat that my hypothesis is that the changes are a RESPONSE to changing conditions. And I have explained it in the section I have now bolded, which for some reason you have completely ignored. You pride yourself on your use of science as a basis for your hypotheses. I wonder how many scientists would agree with you that God took out pre-baleen teeth and popped in a few million years later to give the suction-feeders baleens. (See the baleen thread)

I am a believing scientist just like 40% of physicians. I know your theories but I don't believe they are possible in the way I view God..


DAVID: (under “New found plant defences”) [...] How did Pseudomonas bacteria learn to mimic jasmonic acid? Trial and error? Did God bother to design this? At times the findings have no apparent explanation.

dhw: I like your question about whether your God would bother, and once more you are confronted with the fact that you can’t find an explanation. How about the hypothesis that cells/cell communities have their own form of intelligence (possibly God-given) to work out their own ways to survive and/or to improve their chances of survival?

I not disappointed at not seeing a possible God move. Remember I don't live in his mind but you are there all the time. I make an attempt to explain what I can, if i see something logical as a reason.


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