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

by dhw, Monday, March 22, 2021, 12:02 (1340 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I'm not surprised you are not convinced. I've demonstrated God's likely purpose, but you don't accept God, so my point won't appeal to you.

dhw: My theory allows for God, and what I do not accept is the illogicality of your theory of brain expansion, which is that your God operated on various sets of hominins and homos to increase their brain capacity by approx 200 cc for no immediate purpose but solely in order that a couple of million years later, the size could reach 1350 ccs, still for no particular reason until 300,000 years later, suddenly the extra size came in useful. You can see no sign of any advance from the earliest tree-dwelling ancestor to the earliest homo sapiens.

DAVID: The bold is a total distortion of my views. From before Lucy to latter erectus there were major changes in physiology, anatomy, and lifestyle.

Last week you were telling us: “My point is the tiny advances among early hominins did not require massive brain use.” “There is no reason for an oversized brain to cover minor new adaptations, based on adaptations we see today.” Tiny advances and minor new adaptations have now turned into major changes in lifestyle. How about major changes in technology too? Did you ever see an ape manufacture a spear or an axe? On Saturday, in reply to my proposal that “each successive brain expansion was caused by a new requirement for which the smaller brain did not have sufficient capacity,” you wrote: “You are left with natural speciation which doesn’t explain the new massive enlargement for small developments in lifestyle.” Now apparently there were major changes in lifestyle. Please make up your mind.

In fact, though, my point was NOT major changes in early lifestyles, but massive changes in pursuit of the same lifestyle, which was based on “the struggle for survival” and consisted basically in finding a place to live safely and means of providing food. Hence my point that the hunter with a new weapon was still a hunter. But I’m not going to complain if you now believe that last week’s tiny advances were in fact major changes. That lies at the heart of my theory.

dhw: And you cannot see any logic in the proposal that each expansion occurred (using a mechanism which your God may have designed for both complexification and expansion) to serve a specific purpose at the time, e.g. to create new tools, to cope with a new environment, to exploit a new discovery.

DAVID: This is a non-answer to 'why so big so early'. Each expansion allows complexification in my theory and is not at issue. Only over-expansion is at issue.

I do not accept your theory of “overexpansion” for pre-sapiens or for sapiens. In my theory, each expansion sufficed for the needs of its time, and each new expansion then met new requirements. I have dealt with sapiens shrinkage elsewhere. “Why so big so early” is only an issue because two days ago you regarded the major changes in lifestyle as tiny advances. It is not an issue if you now accept that there were major advances of some kind (lifestyle is your choice) which required additional brain capacity.

dhw: Your obsessive dislike of Darwin has led you to brush aside the fact that the PURPOSE of all the changes and advances would have been to improve each species’ chances of survival.

DAVID: I don't dislike Darwin. but what his blind followers have done to his theory.

On the subject of survival, you wrote: “Using Darwin and his theory of constant struggle to survive, why any stasis in anything?....Stasis is very disturbing to his theory which you rely upon.” You simply refuse to acknowledge that stasis occurs when the species survives without any new requirements (such as implementing new ideas, exploiting new discoveries, adapting to new conditions etc.). And you simply refuse to acknowledge that all of these are directly geared to “the struggle to survive”.

SURVIVAL
dhw: Some of us would say that the motive for doing something is a driving force.

DAVID: Yes, those who do not recognize God would adopt that position.

dhw: According to your theory of evolution, your God was “driven” by one purpose: to design H. sapiens. For some reason which you can’t explain, he was “driven” to directly design millions of life forms etc. that had no connection with humans in order to fulfil the purpose that “drove” him into creating life, which was to create H. sapiens. If you want to play word games, we can carry on. But please don’t pretend that a purpose is not a driving force, whether the term applies to humans or to your God.

DAVID: My God is never driven but extremely thoughtful and purposeful in the goals He sees as proper and worthwhile. Again you distort: I have no idea as to why God chose to evolve us, but that is what He did. You give lip-service to our specialness, and then denigrate its philosophical/theological import.

Is a purpose a driving force or isn’t it?