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

by dhw, Sunday, March 14, 2021, 11:53 (1348 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: [..] The neurons have a God-given program to follow to complexify networks.

dhw: If new requirements such as reading complexify the brain, what programme are the neurons following? […] In previous posts I seem to remember you agreeing that complexification was an autonomous process. Are you now saying your God preprogrammed the neurons specifically to respond to the task of reading?

DAVID: Yes, God programmed our neurons to complexify in our big brain as necessary to handle new uses. And I think past brains had the same program. [..]

That is NOT specifically in response to the task of reading! You are now repeating my theistic version of my theory: your God created the mechanism whereby cells complexify to “handle new uses”: for example, in a process of cause and effect, the brain complexifies as the illiterate person learns to read (NOT in anticipation of the learning). I agree that past brains would have had the same programme for AUTONOMOUS complexification. And so why could your God not have designed the same mechanism to enable cells to expand as well as complexify through the autonomous process of “handling new uses”?

dhw: In previous homos, new requirements such as new tools, weapons, ideas, environments, discoveries, required greater capacity. You have never called them tiny before. Your argument was always that your God preprogrammed or dabbled the enlargements IN ADVANCE of homos producing whatever was new.

DAVID: Obvious: inventing a spear is not a major mental achievement like General Relativity.

No one would dispute that modern human brain power has advanced immeasurably from that of our ancestors! How does that prove that the invention of what was then a revolutionary advance in technology did not require an expansion of brain capacity? If today you saw a chimp manufacturing a spear, you’d be flabbergasted. In its time, the spear was an amazing achievement.

David’s theory of evolution

DAVID: The huge bush supplies food for all, even the lizard branch.

dhw: We do not eat dinosaurs! Why do you keep ignoring your own clear statements? “The current bush of food is NOW for humans NOW. There were smaller bushes in the PAST for PAST forms” “Extinct life has no role in current time.”

DAVID: I know that as well as you do. The point you constantly denigrate is the continuity of evolution from bacteria to now in common descent.

Of course I don’t denigrate common descent! What I denigrate is the argument that every single branch of life’s history was “part of the goal of evolving (= designing) humans”, although 99% of the life forms and their food supplies had NO CONNECTION with humans. You keep trying to edit your own theory to leave this out. Please stop it.

SURVIVAL

dhw: […] Your God’s reason for designing the flippers was to enable the whale to survive!

DAVID:I'm saying Darwin's theory that the drive for survival drives evolution is false. God designs the proper advances to guarantee survival. Quite a difference from your attempts to explain changes like flippers.

Even if your God did design the flipper, the purpose is the driving force behind any action, and if the purpose was survival, then it is illogical to say that survival of the whale was not the driving force behind your God’s evolutionary action. Why else would he have designed the flipper? Please answer.