Cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, January 28, 2022, 13:25 (1028 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Remember sapiens started at close to 1,350 cc. So a jump gap exists.

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? .

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

You seem to think that these jumps happened overnight - your God performing his 200 cc jump operations on a particular group of (hopefully sedated) homos! The average is the point between lowest and highest. The fact that erectus gradually moved from approx. 900 to approx.1200 has led even you to acknowledge that brains (including baby brains) may change gradually over generations, and so you have even suggested that your God continued to perform his operations (“How do we know God didn’t help…?”). And as usual, you want fossils for every cc.

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. bbBut homos gradually developed more sophisticated MEANS of survival.bb 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.

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

Your point was that there was no change in lifestyle. Now you agree that there were gradual changes. And the other “point” is that we don’t know what requirements led to each expansion, but of course once the brain had expanded, it was used and would have complexified (just as ours does) in response to whatever was required, until some major new requirement would have exhausted its capacity for complexification, and then it would have needed to expand.

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!

DAVID: Intelligent cells cannot design for future use.

No, they design in response to present requirements. Pre-sapiens X is sick of hand-to-paw battles with his prey and invents the spear. This requires new cells for its design, manufacture and use. But of course once the spear has been designed it will be used in the future!

Introducing the brain: improve, preserve it, exercise more
QUOTES: Science is increasingly revealing that the brains of those who regularly work out can look very different compared to the brains of people who don't.
"One way exercise can induce changes in the brain is by increasing levels of the protein brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the blood, which is linked to neurogenesis. More BDNF may mean more new neurons in the brain.

Please note: The brain changes in response to actions and not in anticipation. This would apply to mental as well as physical actions (e.g. illiterate women learning to read).

“Requirements for design” transferred from “More miscellany”)
dhw: The brain example seems to be the only one you can think of, and you still haven’t offered a single reason for rejecting my proposal/

DAVID: Each past brain form had the necessary size/complexity present to then respond to new requirements. That brains can respond in no way shows how they enlarged.

They would have used their existing size and ability to complexify until the capacity was insufficient to deal with a new requirement, and so meeting that new requirement would have resulted in the formation of new cells, i.e. expansion. Why do you find this illogical?

Molecular binding controls.
dhw: […] 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.

DAVID: In cancer there are new responses which are distortions of what normal cells do automatically.

Agreed. But cancer cells unfortunately find their own means of survival, and they process and communicate information just as normal cells do. If you believe in common descent, then every evolutionary innovation will entail a change from what some cells “normally” do automatically.