Return to David's theory of evolution PART ONE (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, December 29, 2021, 12:01 (1058 days ago) @ David Turell

PART ONE

DAVID: Remember I accept God did all the designing. I fully believe our brain is as fully used as it can be and advancing mentation needs will be handled with no problem.

dhw: I can hardly forget your belief (not acceptance) that your God did all the designing. And if he exists, I have no problem accepting the idea that he designed the brain so that initially it would expand and/or complexify in order to meet new requirements. I don’t see how it can now be “as fully used as it can be” and yet be capable of advancing mentation. But I agree that complexification will handle all further requirements. Now please tell us whether you think the brain could have gone on expanding indefinitely with all our "advancing mentation".

DAVID: Your imagined evolution of a much larger human brain requiring an anatomic stop is answered by yourself as not necessary.

I don’t understand your reasoning. Firstly, you have told us that sapiens brain only expanded by 200 cc, which does not make it “much” larger than that of our immediate predecessors, and secondly I have proposed that a “much” larger brain would require changes to the anatomy, and that is WHY the existing process of complexification took over. Unanswered question: do you think the brain could have gone on expanding indefinitely?

DAVID: Your approach is backwards. The brain expands first and then new lifestyles appear, as history and archelogy demonstrate.

dhw: History and archaeology do not tell us what caused the brain to expand in the first place. We took a simple example, though, to illustrate how it might work. Pre-expansion homo is a hunter and thinks of a safer way than close-up grappling, i.e. by designing a weapon that can be thrown from a distance. The new idea requires new skills in the making and using of the new weapon and so, just like illiterate women learning to read, the brain responds, but in this case it does so by adding new cells. The appearance of the new weapon COINCIDES with the expansion of the brain, since its designing, making and usage of the new weapon is the cause of the expansion (just as illiterate women’s complexification COINCIDES with learning to read). From then on, the newly expanded brain complexifies until once more a new requirement results in additional cells.If God exists, he designed the flexibility of the brain. Do you think he pops in to complexify the modern brain every time someone gets a new idea? Which comes first, the new requirement or the complexification? If it’s the new requirement now, why should it have been any different in the past?

DAVID: Your long paragraph about past brains ignore the facts we know about our current 315,000 year old brain, which arrived prepared for the uses of today, and shrunk 150 cc with current use. Obviously prepared for the future.

Each successive brain expanded and was then efficient enough (no doubt through complexification) to cope with the uses of its “today” until new requirements made it necessary for more cells to be added. Sapiens brain could not go on expanding indefinitely, and so complexification became more efficient – so much so that the brain shrank. There are no known examples of the brain changing in ANTICIPATION of future requirements. Why do you find this theory unreasonable?

dhw: The question remains: do you believe your God designed the new species de novo BEFORE conditions changed or in response to the new conditions?

DAVID: Always in anticipation of future requirements for use.

dhw: And so pre-whales sat on the beach with their brand new flippers waiting for God to provide a reason for them to enter the water (or waiting for him to provide the water).

DAVID: The fossils are of transitional forms, in and out of water. So the changes are stepwise even if the gaps are large, no Darwinoid itty-bitty forms found.

dhw: We are not discussing itty-bitty forms but the order in which the different steps are taken. Specifically, do you believe your God changed legs into flippers before pre-whales entered the water?

DAVID: Please study the whale series, rather than imagination. Transitional forms with swimming legs are part of it. Not legs to flippers in one step but with large gaps in form:

I use the whale example precisely because it makes nonsense of your claim that your God designs every evolutionary change in advance of requirements. So now you agree that your God did not give pre-whales flippers before they entered the water. On the contrary, legs passed through several transitional stages as the organism adapted to new conditions (life in the water). Or do you think your God kept popping in every few thousand years to make "itty-bitty" adjustments to his less than perfect designs?