Human evolution; savannah theory fading (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, July 19, 2022, 20:40 (856 days ago) @ dhw

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

dhw: 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: I know. Designers always design for future use.

dhw: For someone who tells us ad nauseam that God does not think like us, it’s amazing how you can pick on a form of design that no human has ever succeeded in emulating, and insist that since humans design in a certain way, God must do the same. I am haunted by the vision of your prewhales flapping their flippers on a vast stretch of dry land, waiting to find out what they were supposed to do with them. On the other hand, I have no problem accepting the theory that when our ancestors first thought of inventing a weapon which would kill their prey from a safe distance, the design, making and use of the spear would have required additional cells to those they already had, and of course these (and the spear) would then have been used in the future. In other words, it makes perfect sense to me that just as the brain complexifies in response to new requirements, in earlier times it would have expanded for the same reason.

I think our brain acts like those in the past. Habilis and erectus had plenty of neurons to think and plan with to allow for the built-in complexification to work. All by God's designs.

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.

dhw: 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: All you are doing is supporting agnosticism which is your right. See the other thread to try to comprehend how I think about God in vast contrast to your method.

dhw:n My proposal has nothing whatsoever to do with my agnosticism, since it allows for the existence of your God as the designer of the mechanisms. The other thread presents us with a God who believes he should/has to create countless forms that have no connection with the only form he wants to create. And yet you often call the God of my logical alternative versions “weak” and “bumbling”!

You seem incapable of realizing how human you envision God to be.

dhw: 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: Weird view: our sapiens brain came fully complete with extra neurons and the complexification plasticity ability from its beginning. Allows new humans to develop brain usage as they wished, a fully open-ended preparation for the future usage.

dhw: I have no idea what you mean by “fully complete”, unless you are referring to my theory that it could not expand any more. It would certainly have had “extra neurons” if it had more neurons than the brains of its ancestors, and we have agreed that all stages of brain development had “complexification plasticity”. I also have no idea why you have pinpointed the new neurons as being those that gave us free will (as if all our ancestors were automatons), and you have not explained shrinkage, i.e. the disappearance of cells. In fact the “weird” implication of what you have written is that God gave us extra cells for free will, and then took them away again! So what happened to free will? Now would you please explain why you find my own theory unacceptable.

To explain again: We came with extra neurons in our brain so we could use our brain as we wished which gave us free will. The loss of superfluous neurons had nothing to do with losing free will with the remaining cells fully adequate to allow us to think freely.