Human evolution; savannah theory fading (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, August 21, 2022, 12:20 (608 days ago) @ David Turell

Brain expansion

dhw: […] Complexification is the process used by cells in their response to current needs, and you have agreed that this takes place autonomously. Multiplication provided the additional cells when the existing capacity for complexification was insufficient to deal with new requirements. So why do you think your God gave cells the autonomous ability to complexify, but could not possibly have given them the ability to add to their number when they needed to?

DAVID: We've been over this before. On arrival 315,000 years ago, sapiens had a new brain that had full capacities for future use as history shows.

Correct. The final expansion supplied it with enough cells for the autonomous complexification mechanism to deal with all future requirements.

DAVID: Total facts opposite to your cell producing theory above as if produced with no eye to the future. Still dodging to protect a rigid requiremnt for super intelligent designing cells.

What do you mean by “with an eye to the future”? I propose that the new cells would have been created to meet some new requirement, and from then on, complexification took over from expansion as cells continued to design their responses to each new requirement through complexification. That does not mean your God gazed into his crystal ball and produced the new cells to meet specific requirements that would only arise thousands of years later! Once more: You agree that (if he exists) he gave cells the autonomous ability to make all the changes necessary to meet new requirements. So once more: if he was prepared to give cells the autonomous ability to complexify, why do you think he couldn’t possibly have given them the autonomous ability to add to their number?

Prehistoric brains and pelvises

DAVID: I'm looking at pre-historic birthing in light of the present difficulties. Obstetricians currently can solve more complications than cave folks back then. God did what he could to accommodate walking and big head birthing all at once.

dhw: Very kind of him to use his limited powers, though I’m a bit surprised that he also left it to the cave folks to solve the problems for him. This is getting ridiculous. I offered you a theory to solve what you called the “pelvic problem”, and mentioned that no doubt there would have been lots of deaths in childbirth before the right size became the norm. You were certain that your God would have stepped in to prevent all those “messy deaths”. And now you have him stepping in and failing to achieve his objective. Meanwhile, my theory stands unchallenged.

DAVID: Your theory is let them die until they figure it out.

Who “let them die”? I propose that the cells eventually “figured it out”, but a lot of mothers would have died until the new size became the norm. Your theory seems to be that God did his best to figure it out, but although he failed to the extent that some mothers died, there weren’t “a lot”, so my theory must be wrong. As I said, this is getting ridiculous. Shall we drop the subject?

Genetic formation of our pelvis:
https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/library/item/19_august_2022/4035...

dhw: There is no point in my repeating the quotations, as there is nothing to dispute.

DAVID: all that genetic activity by cell committees? Impossible!!!

dhw: According to you! Why do you think your God was incapable of designing intelligent cells which would, in the course of 3.X billion years, devise increasingly complex ways of improving their chances of survival? After all, you insist that he designed our brains, and look what our brain cells have come up with in just a few thousand years!

DAVID: Yes, that brain was designed for all that future use. You have just destroyed your contention things don't appear deigned future use. Each new species appears just that way.

The question is why pelvises, brains and species underwent their changes in the first place. According to you, your God preprogrammed or dabbled them all BEFORE there was any need for the changes. My proposal is that they all took place as a RESPONSE to what were then current needs. Once they proved successful, of course they were then used in the future! (See above.)