Brain Expansion (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, May 19, 2020, 10:47 (1647 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: There are two unanswered questions: why did brains expand, and why did they stop expanding?

DAVID: Remember, my God expands brains. Your theories are no more logical than that.

dhw: That is not an answer to the two questions.

DAVID: It is my answer. You want natural causes. […]

These do not exclude God as the possible designer of the mechanisms that enable organs and organisms to evolve “naturally”.

dhw: If his goal was a brain of a certain size, which would complexify in response to new requirements, why do you think he found it necessary to specially design all the different hominins and homos and expansions? ...So why not expansion?

DAVID: Because He evolved us from bacteria. And reached an end point which was His goal.

This does not tell us why, if he was capable of hands-on designing H. sapiens brain, he hands-on designed all the preceding brains, kept dabbling expansions, then stopped dabbling expansions and left the sapiens brain to do all its own complexifications. You left out my question: “After all, you believe complexification works “naturally” without a dabble. So why not expansion?” Perhaps you will answer now.

DAVID: […] Those germ cell's genomes run the show for every expansion of the brain and must be changed to handle all the bony problems I've mentioned attendant to brain enlargement. It is NEVER cell committees cooperation. They are developed from the germ cells instructions to stem cells.

dhw: Of course the genomes must be changed if the organ is to change! You claim your God stepped in to dabble the changes in the genome. I propose that the intelligent cells themselves made the changes. If they did so through germ cells instructing stem cells, then that is how the cooperation took place! How can you have cells giving or obeying instructions without cooperation? […] What is your theory? That God delivers lectures to the germ cells before they can pass on his instructions? Of course the male and female must cooperate.

DAVID: To save your weird cooperation theory you are ignoring the science I'm presenting. Each new individual is formed from top down instructions in gamete DNA from embryo to newborn. Cooperating organs and cells in organs result. Epigenetic coding changes do not speciate, only slightly modify reactions.

You really are determined to dodge the brain expansion issue. First it was the expansion of the skull and the birth canal. Now that I’ve answered that (and you have completely ignored my answer, which I shan’t repeat here) you want to switch to the whole process of how the embryo is formed and turns into the newborn! ALL processes depend on cell communities cooperating. Instruction from cells to cells constitute cooperation. But once a process is established, I would suggest that the cooperation is automatic until new conditions may require a change (as with the skull and the birth canal). Of course the end product of the reproduction process is a community of cell communities that cooperate with one another. How does that mean that the processes leading to the end product do NOT require cooperation? And we are not discussing speciation on this thread. We are discussing brain expansion.

DAVID: You do understand my point based on your reply. The genome has to change, and the theoretical Darwin proposed mechanisms are all chance! (Drift, mistake, gamma rays damage, etc.) I"ll stick with God. Do Darwinists accept intelligent DNA? No way. You are on your own as a third way.

Now all of a sudden the subject switches to Darwin and chance, which we have both long ago rejected. Once again, yes, the genome has to change. You think your God dabbles it. I propose that the cells are intelligent. So does Shapiro, and I am not on my own. And his research is based on the findings of many others who firmly believe in the cellular intelligence which you acknowledge to be 50/50 but reject all the same. May we please return to the subject of brain expansion?

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Under "Genome complexity":
QUOTE: The gene system must have the physical freedom to specify itself, as well as any variation of itself.

This article is too technical for me to follow, but as always I accept the logic of the design argument. I’d be grateful, though, if you would explain the implications of the above quote, which seems to me to confirm that the gene system has the potential to vary itself.