Human evolution; savannah theory fading (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, July 18, 2022, 08:23 (646 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: We are not discussing how Erectus got his first brain, but that his brain allowed him to navigate the entire Earth, with brain coming before the future events for which the brain prepared him.

dhw: We are discussing your theory that your God expanded brains in anticipation of future events, whereas my proposal is that brains expanded – as you have agreed in your interpretation of erectus’s expansion – “as new experiences occurred”, i.e. in response to new experiences and not in anticipation of them.

DAVID: Your approach to evolution is to find any argument to avoid a designer God who plans organisms for their future events as below:

I’m challenging the argument that although we know organisms adapt IN RESPONSE to changing conditions, the innovations that resulted in speciation were put in place in order to meet future requirements that did not yet exist.

DAVID: What you do not understand is a proper designer designs for future use. All part of design theory.

dhw: I am not denying that once the designs had proved successful, they would then be used in the future. But for example, I do not believe pre-whale legs were turned into flippers before the animals began to explore life in the water. And I would propose that the invention of the spear would have required major new skills and hence major changes to the brain, rather than the brain changing in anticipation of the making and use of the spear.

DAVID: I know your complaint about God designing for future use.

dhw: So please tell me why you find my argument illogical.

DAVID: Because I find a designer God fits the facts much better than your contortions that use somehow creates evolution.

We’re not arguing about the existence of a designer God. I am an agnostic. I find it perfectly conceivable that if he exists, he would have created the autonomous mechanisms whereby organisms adapt in response to changing conditions. I propose that the same mechanisms would have created the innovations which resulted in speciation by exploiting new opportunities provided by changing conditions. I find this far more logical than the proposal that every innovation was the result of your God looking into his crystal ball, forecasting future changes in conditions, and popping in to perform operations that would provide innovations which could not be used until conditions changed.

DAVID […] your comment about brain size does not answer the issue that our brain shrunk with use, therefor it obviously was oversized at the start.

dhw: In my theory, it would not have been oversized at the start. That would indeed have made it a miscalculation if your God did it! The cells that resulted in expansion would have been needed to meet some new requirement. But later, as further expansion might have caused problems, complexification took over almost completely, and it was so efficient that some cells which had been needed earlier then became redundant.

DAVID: Further expansion didn't happen, but shrinkage did. The obvious explanation is the extra cells allowed humans to use the brain as they wished, not as God might have required.

dhw: This is the weirdest explanation yet: your God gave humans extra cells so that they could have free will, and then what happened? The cells disappeared. But we were left with free will? Please explain why you reject my explanation above.

DAVID: Free will was built into our brains as given. So was the process of complexification which is part and parcel of how our brain was designed by God to use the extra cells. God did not plan a redundancy as a mistake, but a purposeful to allow us freedom to develop our uses of brain in our own way.

I’m sorry, but I can’t follow this. Please explain why you think your God gave us extra cells which turned out to be redundant. Since you have ignored my explanation of shrinkage, let me repeat it: the extra cells were needed at the time to perform a new function, but as further expansion might have caused problems, complexification later took over and was so efficient that some existing cells were no longer needed. Please explain why you find this theory unacceptable.

DAVID: You do not know How to think about God.

dhw: You are trying to teach me that the way to think about God is that none of his actions make any sense to us humans, whereas any alternative theories that do make sense to us (you agree that all my explanations are logical) are impossible because they endow God with human thought patterns, although you agree that God certainly/probably/ possibly has human thought patterns.

DAVID: God is in no way human. You cannot reason as God does.

Nobody knows your God’s reasons (if he exists). We can only theorize. Your theories of evolution are so irrational that you tell us that they “make sense only to God”. That means they do not make sense to you. My alternative theories make perfect sense to both of us. Nobody knows your God’s nature (if he exists). We can only theorize. How, then, do you know that your God does NOT have the human attributes (e.g. the enjoyment and the interest which you yourself were once certain of) associated with my alternative theories?