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

by David Turell , Monday, March 08, 2021, 15:24 (1142 days ago) @ dhw

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.

dhw: 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.

What requirements? They have to be the needs for that time period. However if we look at the difference between erectus and sapiens the current activities of daily living (a term used today about folks) the difference is slight. So a new model Volkswagen is not given a 650 hp engine, my point you've ignored.

dhw: It did not “overexpand”,

Yes, it probably did, like every other past smaller brain which is the best guess about previous expansions.

dhw: and once again you have ignored my explanation of shrinkage. ...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.)

Describing the history of the response and eventual use of our brain explains nothing except it came as too big for currents needs in its beginning.

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.

dhw: 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.”

A truism that doesn't support your chopping up the process of evolution in to sergments.

Symbiosis by bacteria

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

dhw: 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.

That is pure unproven speculative Darwinism.

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. And there had to be adequate food for EVERY life form that ever lived,

DAVID: My only point is God guaranteed survival.

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

Which talked all around survival as guaranteed by God.

Playing possum

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

dhw: 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.

Now you have possums watching each other and reaching conceptual conclusions.