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

by dhw, Thursday, December 30, 2021, 13:20 (1057 days ago) @ David Turell

PART ONE

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

dhw: 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: I assume previous brains had complexification and used it. The fact our brain shrunk 150 cc with heavy use shows your imagined need for huge brains was never an issue.

Since you refuse to answer my question, I’ll answer it for you. The brain continued to expand until it reached its present size. Obviously it could not go on expanding indefinitely, or we would have finished up with elephant-sized heads on human bodies. And so the already existing process of complexification – we agree that it would have been in use earlier – had to become increasingly efficient in order to meet all new requirements. And it became so efficient that the brain shrank. Please explain precisely what it is that you find so difficult to accept in this theory.

DAVID: How do you know complexification became more efficient? Our brain is a known example, much larger before much more use!!!

You keep harping on about “much larger", and then you tell us that unlike earlier brains with similar or even smaller changes in volume, it would not have required expansion! We know that complexification became more efficient because we know that our brain responds to new requirements by complexifying and not by expanding. Are you saying this is not true? Shrinkage is further evidence of its efficiency.

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: 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:

dhw: 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?

DAVID: The gaps in form are all huge requiring major phenotypic changes. Look at the species with open eyes. Why do you think the sites that believe in God tout the series?

You keep telling us that your God designs all “major phenotypic changes” in advance of their being needed. I keep proposing that the changes take place in response to their being needed. I’ll withdraw the expression “itty-bitty” from my question. Please tell us: do you think your God kept popping in every few thousand years to make major adjustments to the less than perfect leggy-flippers he started off with because in future, life and movement in the water was going to become different from when pre-whales first entered it? (The same question applies to all the other changes the animal went through over thousands of years.) As with humans, if he knew what he wanted to design right from the start, why did he have to keep dabbling? I can’t answer your final question, since I don’t understand why an all-powerful God, whose only aim was apparently to design humans plus food, would have had to design whales and humans, plus countless extinct life forms, in “series”, especially since you are convinced that he was capable of designing species without predecessors (e.g. during the Cambrian). NB I am not questioning that these changes took place. I am questioning your theory as to why and how they took place.