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

by dhw, Tuesday, March 09, 2021, 11:47 (1353 days ago) @ David Turell

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.

DAVID: 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.

I can't follow any of this! The current activities of daily living (prior to Covid) entail driving to work, flying across the world, using computers, switching on lights, watching TV, turning on the tap….How does this mean that there is only a slight difference between our current activities and those of erectus? And I don’t understand your VW image. Erectus had a brain capacity of 900-1200 cc. I propose that an unknown requirement (I gave you a list of theories in my last post) led to our expansion to 1350cc. The variation in erectus may also have been due to new requirements during his 2-million-year existence (e.g. new tools, new ideas – wasn’t erectus the first hunter-gatherer? - use of fire). Sapiens has only been around for approx. 315,000 years but once his brain had expanded (reason unknown, but plenty of different theories), there was a period – let’s say 300,000 years – in which nothing new happened. Then there was a burst of activity, but instead of the brain expanding (as erectus’s did), it complexified – presumably because further expansion would have required major anatomical changes. Your only objection to this theory seems to be that we didn’t need our 1350cc brain for 300,000 years, but you can’t tell us why your God would have given it to us when we didn’t need it.

dhw: It did not “overexpand”.

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

What is your criterion for “overexpansion”? The smaller brain expanded when its capacity was no longer sufficient to cope with new demands! Then it proved adequate until the next set of new requirements, and so it expanded again, but in our case it complexified. Shrinkage (which does suggest overexpansion) came about because complexification proved so efficient that some cells were not needed any more. We’ve been over this time and again, and you have never provided one single argument against the logic of this theory.

David’s theory of evolution

dhw: […] Please stop restricting evolution to the one line from bacteria to humans.

DAVID: Of course massive new branches for food supply.

dhw: […] In your own words: “The current bush of food is NOW for humans NOW. There were smaller bushes in the PAST for PAST forms.”

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

I do not “chop” evolution up into segments. I have it branching out into a vast bush, and 99% of the branches (including food supplies) did NOT lead to humans. And the obvious truth that past forms had no link to present forms should stop you once and for all from claiming that past forms were part of the goal to evolve present forms.

Symbiosis by bacteria

dhw: […] 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.

DAVID: That is pure unproven speculative Darwinism.

Please tell us what other purpose flippers serve if it is not to improve the chances of survival in a new environment. If innovations and adaptations serve to improve chances of survival, then it is clearly absurd to say that the quest for survival plays no part in evolution, regardless of your dislike of anything Darwin might have proposed. Same again under “immortal bacteria”, so we can drop that example.

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.

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

What exactly do you mean by “conceptual”? All life forms have developed strategies to improve their chances of survival. They must have originated at one time and been passed on. That doesn’t mean that flowers and insects and birds and fish and animals have at some time sat down to have a good think about what to do if….Once a strategy works, it is passed on to others in a group, or from generation to generation. What is your theory? 3.8 billion years ago, your God drew up a programme for the evolution of possums and their strategy of playing dead? Or do you think he popped in every time he felt like rescuing a possum?