Cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, January 27, 2022, 16:47 (820 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Remember sapiens started at close to 1,350 cc. So a jump gap exists. You still have not solved how baby brain communicates to mommy's pelvis.

dhw: 1350 cc is the average, but yes, every average increase is a jump. Australopithecus to habilis, and habilis to erectus, and erectus to sapiens are each around 200 cc, and I have suggested various possible causes. What’s the problem? Baby’s big brain does not have to communicate with mummy’s pelvis! Baby’s big brain is what sets in motion a chain of communications between birth canal and surrounding bones and muscles to accommodate big baby.

Sizeable jumps of 200 cc in skull size will kill the babies. Still no explanation accept design.

dhw: How many more times? Nobody knows what requirements led to each expansion, which is why I have offered you a list of possibles (new ideas, inventions, discoveries, environments etc.).

DAVID: But we do know lifestyle comparisons. Early sapiens lived like late Erectus. Your requirements theory has no basis in known facts. Endogenous Brazilian tribes still aren't using their brains as we do.

dhw: All our ancestors would have lived like one another and like our fellow animals, with survival the basis of their actions. But homos gradually developed more sophisticated MEANS of survival. For instance, tools and weapons. Please tell us your God’s reasons for each overnight operation that he conducted on each species of homo to make their brains jump 200 cc? To prepare for what, if you think they all lived the same way? I’m reluctant to include Brazilian tribes, as they have their own cultures which should be respected as being different but not inferior to ours.

The bold above is significant. Gradual development using a bigger brain, which allows it, is my point

dhw: Yet again: why is this theory illogical, especially when compared to yours, in which your God operates on groups of individuals who wake up one morning with bigger brains and birth canals?

DAVID: I accept you feel God is illogical. So?

dhw: You keep assuming that your interpretation of your God’s actions and life’s history are the absolute and incontrovertible truth. It is your interpretation that I find illogical, and you still haven’t said what is illogical about my own theory!

Intelligent cells cannot design for future use.

Molecular binding controls
dhw: […] I know you disagree, but we should distinguish between automatic actions that maintain the status quo and actions that change the status quo (innovations) or constitute new responses to preserve it (as in the immune system or in adaptations). These are the circumstances in which autonomous intelligence comes into play, as opposed to your God directing or preprogramming every single response to every single new requirement for past, present and future evolution.

DAVID: Cancer is an escape from control and literally errors in normal patterns. They may be wild but they don't think, which your theory requires.

dhw: I’m reluctant to use the word “think”, which is too “humanizing”. We know cancer cells send one another information, which would be useless if it wasn’t then processed and acted on, and presumably your God hasn’t instructed them on what they should attack, so a degree of autonomous intelligence is implied. But my main concern above is to distinguish between automatic and autonomous actions, since you always focus on what is already established (and therefore automatic) and try to avoid actions that require new responses.

In cancer there are new responses which are distortions of what normal cells do autoatically.