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

by David Turell , Tuesday, March 16, 2021, 18:24 (1130 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You are backwards. In our brain almost all neurons are present from the beginning. Complexification involves increasing axon networking, not neurons. Only the hippocampus adds neurons.

dhw: I was agreeing with your statement: “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.[/b]” (I say AUTONOMOUS because if complexification can handle new uses, it doesn't need God to keep popping in with instructions for each new use.) How can it be dead right on Sunday and dead wrong on Monday?

To clear it up: Your statement of added neurons was incorrect as it applied to the study on illiterate Italian women, who had thickening in the Cortex and visual areas, regions that don't add neurons. In London cabbies where only memory is required, the hippocampus thickened and is presumed to have added neurons. Therefore, in most activities requiring complex brain activities in several areas more axon connections do the complexification, not new neurons. Consider the violinist: Some hippocampal enlargement is reasonable, but all the visual, aural and muscular activity creates axonal complexity in other regions.

DAVID: My point is the tiny advances among early hominins did not require massive brain use.

dhw: Your point has always been that your God expanded all earlier brains in anticipation of new uses. Are you now saying the new uses were too tiny to require your God’s successive brain operations? Then why did he bother to expand early brains?

Stasis is your problem I raised long ago. My view is God anticipates future use.

dhw: Your statement does not explain anything! Why operate on the brain 300,000 years before any change is needed? And why do you harp on about overexpansion? Nobody knows why any stage of the brain expanded to its past or present sizes, but I gave you a list of possible causes. Once the sapiens brain had met its unknown new requirement, there were no more new requirements for 300,000 years. But then the brain did not expand. Instead it complexified, and complexification was so efficient that some of the cells required 315,000 years ago were no longer needed (= shrinkage). Now please tell us why you think your God overexpanded our brain 300,000 years before any change was needed, apart from his metaphorically gazing into his crystal ball.

You can't explain a natural cause of such a big brain appearing with so little to do. You've never presented cogent answer, just describe what we know happened as above. God anticipates usage as He designs advances in evolution.

SURVIVAL

dhw: In your theory, God is the driving force who designs all the innovations, and the purpose of the innovations is to improve organisms’ chances of survival in changing environments. And so when you wrote “survival never drives evolution”, you only meant that God designs all the innovations, the purpose of which is survival. Survival as the purpose of evolutionary innovation is therefore exactly the same as in Darwin’s theory.

DAVID: Complete opposite: Difference in driving force is the issue you miss. God drives evolution, guarantees survival while Darwin says the need for survival drives evolution.

dhw: Nothing “guarantees” survival, since 99% of species have died out. You are once again conflating “life” with living organisms. Innovations take place in living organisms, not so that life can go on in no matter what form. If your God’s purpose in replacing pre-whales’ legs with flippers was to improve their chances of surviving in water, then the purpose of the evolutionary innovation was survival, which is precisely what Darwin argues. We are having a non-argument here. We can agree that if God exists, he is the driving force behind evolution (whether he designed every species or gave organisms free rein), and the purpose of all the adaptations and innovations was to improve the organism’s chance of survival. The latter is Darwin’s theory, and if you’d rather not describe the purpose of something as a “driving force”, then that’s fine with me.

The concept 'life' is represented by living organisms, so that is my shorthand usage. You can keep Darwin theory for yourself. All I accept is common descent from original Archaea.