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

by David Turell , Monday, April 26, 2021, 16:17 (1305 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I don't accept your arguments. The excess cells were lightly used and once complexification organized very complex networks which handled heavy use, they were unnecessary and discarded.

dhw: You say you don’t accept my arguments, but then you proceed to repeat them almost word for word, except for calling the new cells “excess”! I suppose I’d better repeat that in my theory, the EXTRA (not “excess”) cells were added in response to new requirements. During the period of stasis there were no major (your "heavy") new requirements, and so they would then have continued to be used (with "light" complexification) for that new purpose and any other minor requirements, until 250,000 years later. Then new requirements led not to expansion but to enhanced complexification, which made some cells unnecessary. What do you disagree with?

How we view the extra cells. I'll agree they might have been useful in the beginning, and I've given you a good reason why they gave us the ability to tailor our later use of our brains, and ended up as excess and jettisoned.

DAVID: Your whole concept. We had to learn to use our oversized brain, by adding huge new functions such as usable language with speech, more exact stone tool manufacture, leaving caves for structures like tents, and softening hides for clothing and more recently arithmetic, and other immaterial concepts. with shrinkage of the excess. The excess allowed us to tailor our own new big brains.

dhw: You are fixated on the idea that our brains were oversized, and all new cells were excessive....Once more, what logical flaw can you find in this theory?

Your fixation is a total denial that extra cells removed means they were necessary. Irrational topsy-turvy reasoning. My version of your theory makes sense.

DAVID: Answered already. We learned to use our big brains ourselves over lots of time.

dhw: I’ll take that as meaning that our ancestors did indeed have the autonomous ability to invent new tools.

Of course they did. Habilis is named for his tools. Your point?

dhw: Agreed. All expansions and complexifications must have reasons, as we know from the modern brain. So why would earlier brains NOT have complexified AND expanded in response to new requirements, as the modern brain does?

DAVID: I think all past brains responded exactly as ours. God-given oversized at each stage and complexified a bit. Our brain built on the past shows what happened in the past. That limits our theories to the facts we have.

dhw: Again, I have no idea why you keep saying our brain was oversized, except that you are desperate to hold onto your idea that your God programmed or dabbled all changes IN ANTICIPATION of any requirements, whereas our brains show that the procedure is the opposite: our brains change IN RESPONSE to new requirements. Yes indeed, that limits our theories to the facts we have, despite your efforts to ignore those facts.

Same irrational "Alice in Wonderland" nonsensical thought that extra cells that are removed are therefore useful and not excess. I've granted they once might have been useful, but when no longer necessary they become excessive and removed. God planned it that way so we could tailor our brains to our preferred uses. Time to put on your slightly theistic thinking cap, which has appeared now and then in God-humanizing form, and try to see the theistic logic in my view.