Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Sunday, May 09, 2021, 16:01 (1085 days ago) @ dhw

BATS

dhw: You say you believe in common descent, and I’m asking why you think it’s impossible for bats to have descended from an earlier life form.

Sudden appearance implies God might have dropped in an addition, as in the Cambrian.

Seals

dhw: Your quote follows on from:
“This has happened multiple times, with groups like whales, sea turtles, sea cows and crocodiles, all evolving from land-dwelling ancestors that have adapted themselves for a life at sea.”

No inference or mention of random mutations. Adaptation is not random, and what is wrong with the suggestion that adaptation to new environments helps us to understand diversity?

Of course there is diversity, which Darwin tells us comes from random mutations

The obstetric dilemma

DAVID: The pelvic cells knew the independent baby skull size had grown. Really? Whew.

dhw: How else do you think adaptation functions? Conditions change (bigger brain), and either the cells RESPOND (change pelvis) or the organism dies.

A total non-answer. How did the pelvic bony cells anticipate the bigger baby head? You just prefer non-thought in considering the obstetric dilemma. 'Respond' requires anticipation.

Erectus speech
QUOTE: "The available evidence then strongly suggests that erectus invented language more than a million years ago. In so doing, Homo erectus changed the world more than any creature since, including their grandchild, Homo sapiens."

dhw: At last some common sense. To my mind it is absurd to imagine that our predecessors did not have their own language in which to communicate. But I think the above quote is highly exaggerated. The world of erectus would still have been very much the same as that of his predecessors and of early sapiens. Our modern world of cities, technology, institutions, means of transport etc. would be totally unrecognizable to erectus. Language complexifies when new words and structures become necessary. Of course we use these once we have them, but I don't think language produces the new concepts it expresses.

The ability to express abstractions in speech and print is what did it. Erectus did think in simple abstractions making stone tools, rafts, etc.