Human evolution; early ancestor probable upright posture (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, September 24, 2019, 08:49 (1677 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Exactly. Chimps are constantly up and down for six million years and they are still chimps. There has to be driving force to create humans and the fossil changes point to preparatory, unnecessary at the time, early changes by the driving force, God.

dhw: You seem to think that all animals live under the same conditions at all times and in all places or, if there are changes, they all respond in the same way. All we know is that some of our earliest ancestors began to develop traits of bipedalism! Instead of your God saying: “I want to specially design a totally upright H. sapiens, and so I’ll start by specially designing bits and pieces that aren’t necessary yet”, I suggest we have local conditions in which particular groups of “chimps” (or whatever) find that there’s more to life than living in trees, and there are even better prospects down on the ground. Hence various species of hominids and homos over approx. 21 million years according to Dr Filler.

DAVID: A total non-answer to the point above. Dr. filler's point is mine. Why a tiny inconsequential lumbar change 21 million years ago? It didn't change the lifestyle of that monkey and wasn't necessary at that time.

How on earth do you and he know about the lifestyle of a monkey that lived 21 million years ago? Maybe the monkey spent a bit more time on the ground than in the trees because it found a greater variety of food that way, and so it had a bit of a lumbar change. And according to your theory, what exactly would have been the point of your God, whose only purpose was to design H.sapiens, specially designing a lumbar change that was of no use to the poor old monkey that underwent the operation? Ah, but of course, you have no idea why your God chose this method of “evolving” H. sapiens.

Under “Human evolution”: According to archaeologist Dr. Eleanor Scerri and geneticists Dr. Lounès Chikhi and Professor Mark Thomas, the quest for a single original location for modern humans is a wild goose chase.

Which means there were multiple locations, as in my first comment in this post, and it is perfectly reasonable to suppose that variations would have been the response to different conditions.

QUOTE: Preliminary work on the pelvis of the recently discovered 1.98 million-year-old hominin Australopithecus sediba found it to possess a unique combination of Homo and Australopithecus-like features.

dhw: All complete in themselves, but suggestive of convergent evolution as each “species” works out its own evolutionary course.

DAVID: The 'homo' features are pre-planned preparations for a full new species. And of course re' my comment, you have no answer for birth canal changes to accommodate a bigger baby head, when it involves three individuals with their individual DNA's: father, mother and baby itself.

dhw: The ‘homo’ features worked perfectly well for that particular “fully changed” “full new” species! You claim to believe in common descent, and so every single species in which there is a father, mother and baby had to coordinate their DNA to accommodate whatever changes led to speciation. You have your God dabbling or preprogramming ALL changes in advance of their being needed! In the theistic version of my hypothesis, I have your God designing the autonomous mechanism which enables the cell communities to cooperate and reconstruct themselves according to new demands as they arise.

DAVID: Cell committees cannot plan and design. That is obvious. You can invent all you want about 'my God'. I view it as pure invention, not supported by my view of a purposeful, in-control God.

In my hypothesis, cell communities react to new conditions by redesigning themselves, and we know they can do this by adapting. It is not “obvious” that they can’t achieve major changes, but that remains an open question. Once again the invention of such a mechanism would be purposeful, and it would indicate that your God deliberately chose to give evolution free rein. See “Natural Wonders and Evolution” on the subject of purpose and control.