Evolution: more genomic evidence of pre-planning (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, March 08, 2021, 13:58 (1354 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: In my theory, the pre-sapiens brain, like all brains beforehand, needed to expand in order to meet unknown new requirements which the smaller brain could not meet. It expanded to the size needed for the new requirements.

DAVID: You still miss the point. The new sapiens brain is way over expanded for the needs of that time as then proven by much latter massive use. You are totally twisted backwards in your view, which is why I discarded the remainder of your thought.

Of course you discard the remainder of my thought, because you persist in ignoring the fact that the modern brain complexifies instead of expanding any further.This suggests that once it had expanded, the volume met all requirements. It did not “overexpand”, and once again you have ignored my explanation of shrinkage. You also close your eyes to the fact that nobody knows the cause of ANY of the expansions that preceded our own. Hence the many different theories (new ideas, new artefacts, new environment, upright posture, new discoveries etc.). You simply have your God popping in to perform operations on existing brains, and you still haven’t told us why he would have “overexpanded” ours 300,000 years before we needed the capacity. (“Learning to use it” is meaningless since you tell us we didn’t use it until then.)

David’s theory of evolution

dhw: You keep agreeing that evolution branches off into countless unrelated segments, or are you saying that lizards, which have no connection with mammals, were “part of the goal of evolving humans”? Please stop restricting evolution to the one line from bacteria to humans.

DAVID: Of course massive new branches for food supply.

Yes, yes, extinct life forms and their food supplies that had no connection with humans and yet were apparently specially designed as part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans. In your own words: “The current bush of food is NOW for humans NOW. There were smaller bushes in the PAST for PAST forms.”

Symbiosis by bacteria

dhw: I’ll …simply ask you again whether you do or don’t agree that the purpose of the flippers was/is to enable whales to improve their chances of survival in the water. If not, what was their purpose?

DAVID: God provided survival in all environments is my point.

That is not an answer. It’s MEANS of survival that are provided, and I’m asking this question because you insist that the quest for survival plays no part in evolution. Were the new flippers “provided” as a new means of survival or not? If they were, then it is clearly absurd to argue that the quest for survival plays no part in evolution.

Immortal bacteria

DAVID: two major points. Some forms are designed to be able to live forever. The need to survive does not drive evolution. That 99% are gone is of no import. And here must be adequate food supply for life to thrive.

dhw: The need to survive did not drive immortal bacteria to change into something else because they are fine as they are! Now please tell us what purpose adaptations serve if not to improve organisms' chances of surviving in new conditions. And please remember you said that whales’ flippers did not advance evolution. 99% of life forms unconnected with humans denote the absurdity of arguing that they were part of the goal of evolving humans. And there had to be adequate food for EVERY life form that ever lived, and 99% of these had no connection with humans.

DAVID: My only point is God guaranteed survival.

You made three other points, I answered them all, and you have ignored my answers.

Playing possum

QUOTE: “Playing dead seems to be a very good way to stay alive.'"

DAVID: You have possums conceptualizing necessary time intervals. How very sentient of them! I'll stick with God's help. [...]

dhw: [...] I do not imagine possums dreaming up abstract ideas, if that’s what you mean. And I do not think they would need to. Acting dead and waiting till the danger has passed does not seem to me to require human levels of conceptualization.

DAVID: How did possums arrive at the conclusion that playing dead would fool predators, when generally running away fast is the reasonable alternative?

Because maybe one clever possum realized he could not outrun a predator, and hit on the brilliant idea of pretending to be dead. It worked. And when something works, it generally catches on. I find it hard to imagine your God watching with interest as an eagle prepares to swoop down, and then quickly sending instructions to the possum to lie down and close its eyes.