Revisiting language and brain expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, February 08, 2020, 19:49 (1748 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Some shrinkage makes way for some lesser enlargement, sensibly.

dhw: So did your God give us too much capacity? And does he dabble in order to give us our modern enlargements, or are the cells able to expand themselves?

God gave the brain the ability to make changes called plasticity. As we learn small areas can enlarge to handle new knowledge. Touting 'cells' doesn't change the concept.

dhw: Repeat: why is deliberate sacrifice of control (as with “human free will”) wishy-washy? Why is the creation of cellular intelligence magic and unreasonable, whereas divine dabbles and a 3.8-billion-year-old programme are not magic or unreasonable?

It all revolved about God's tight control of evolution to achieve humans as the result with free will given. God obviously didn't care to precisely control us. Your view of God is not mine, in any sense.

dhw: Why do you see experimenting, watching, enjoying and learning as “bumbling”? And since you agree that your God probably has “similar thought patterns and emotions” to yours, why do you now “deny him the right” to have them?

You are mixing and matching my statements to distort my view of God and his purposes as clearly stated, and you ignore.

DAVID: Reminder: Shapiro's theory extrapolates from what live-alone bacteria can do in editing DNA which is needed for their survival, not a species changer.

dhw: Reminder: it is a theory. How often must I repeat that the extrapolation is from known processes of adaptation, the argument being that if cells have the intelligent ability to adapt, the same mechanism may be applied to the major adaptations and innovations that lead to speciation. Please stop pretending that just because it’s a theory it has no value. The same reservations apply to your own theory – except that in yours, we do not have ANY known observations to extrapolate from.

You constantly avoid "The Difference of Man and the Difference it Makes". We have known observations on our uniqueness. I haven't forgotten in the brain thread how complex you think dinosaurs were as compared to viviparous mice and metamorphosing butterflies. We end evolution with unexpected complexity.

DAVID: And as I've reminder you only germ cells can speciate. Whale-to-be legs have to become flippers. What do they say to the germ cells? Change my joints for different movements, change my muscle attachments, change my skin over all to hairless, and have this all done with the next species to appear that has flippers. and just do it. Don't bother with the required design changes as you can do it without thinking….

dhw: The legs don’t say anything. They attempt to do the work required, but this proves difficult. This is the point at which the cells (I don’t care which ones they are, because ALL of them are involved in the process of change) respond to the unnaturalness of the movements under the new conditions. Of course they think, or some of them do and then direct the others. That is the whole point of the theory. And they think: “This isn’t working very well”, so they adapt to the sort of movement the pre-whale is trying to perform. This is an extension of precisely the same process observed in the brains of illiterate women, taxidrivers, musicians, and in thousands and thousands of other known changes, as when some fish adapt to polluted waters, and some animals (and humans) adapt to high altitudes, to cold or hot climates, and to any other change in their conditions. The cells respond to the new requirements. They do not anticipate, and the organism does not give orders. It is the attempt to cope that gives rise to the activity of the cells.

The bold above is silly. Only germ cells can do the changes. The legs have to tell the germ cells. Let's stick to real biology, please, not lala land.

David: Oh, I forgot. You think God will let them do it on their own, with no guiding control by God to make sure evolution has the endpoint He desires. Your humanized God all over again.

dhw: Of course I think God would let them do it on their own. He wouldn’t, though, if from the very beginning of life he ONLY had the endpoint YOU desire! This is your control freak, human-obsessed God all over again. Why should your reading of your God’s mind and character be any more authentic than any of the alternatives I offer? Especially when, in the case of yours, it leads to a theory which can only be applied to the actual history if we turn our backs on human reason.

I've reasoned along with Adler. Perfectly sensible, very precisely reasoned in a great book.