New Miscellany2: intelligence, savannah, Cambrian, origins (General)

by dhw, Saturday, March 29, 2025, 13:57 (8 days ago) @ David Turell

More about cellular intelligence

DAVID: I remind you, Shapiro's theory is an extrapolation from what free-living bacteria can do.

dhw: Please stop pretending that Shapiro knows nothing about other life forms, and that you have greater knowledge of cell behaviour than Shapiro, Margulis, McClintock, Albrecht-Buehler and all the other scientists you have quoted on this website as believers in cellular intelligence.

DAVID: Shapiro studied bacteria and applied their DNA editing ability to where it does not happen. The bolded heroes are your champions. I recognize only Margolis and McClintock as mainstream.

You've offered us several articles in support of the theory, but you regard as “mainstream” your belief in a God who 3.8 billion years ago pre-preprogrammed the whole of evolution's history, or who keeps popping in to perform operations or give lessons.

The savannah theory

DAVID: All we can know is they did descend. Why is unknown but I think God did it.

dhw: So why do the new findings “dilute” the savannah theory but don’t “dilute” yours?

DAVID: The new findings don't change my view of God as designer.

The savannah theory is that for whatever reason, a group of pre-sapiens descended from the trees in order to explore the savannah. Why do you think the new findings “dilute” this theory but do not “dilute” your theory that your God performed operations on legs and pelvises and told the group(s) of pre-sapiens that they should now descend from the trees?

The Cambrian

DAVID: It is always my point God designed the animals to handle the new conditions.

dhw: Your opinions vary day by day. You regarded this article as providing a logical explanation for the Cambrian.

DAVID: Yes, a natural explanation.

With which you agreed. (“For once a logical set of reasons for developing early life forms”). So why did you say “I never agreed with them!!!”?

The brain’s cleaning fluid

DAVID: Wow! evolution is progressive process, but God can design jumps for that process.

dhw: Are you saying that the human brain did not evolve from earlier mammalian brains?

DAVID: It did, through God's design modifications.

But I thought he knew from the start exactly what he wanted. You make him sound just like a human scientist or inventor, experimenting, adjusting, jettisoning (let’s not forget the 99.9%), operating….And yet for some reason, you hate the very idea of humans reflecting their creator through their own processes of creation.

The human brain

QUOTES: Our brain is wired up to be social.

"These findings challenge the idea of a single evolutionary event driving the
emergence of human intelligence. Instead, our study suggests brain evolution happened in steps. Our findings suggest changes in frontal cortex organisation occurred in apes, followed by changes in temporal cortex in the lineage leading to humans.”

dhw: I’m amazed that anyone should think human intelligence and/or the brain did anything but evolve in steps! And I would suggest that our brain was not wired up to be social, but being social was a crucial driving force in the wiring of the brain.

DAVID: Agreed.

An important agreement in the light of your next comment.

QUOTE: "Richard Owen was right about one thing. Our brains are different from those of other species – to an extent. We have a primate brain, but it's wired up to make us even more social than other primates, allowing us to communicate through spoken language."

dhw: And language is also the product of our sociability, as an enhanced means of communication would have enhanced our ability to survive and to improve the conditions under which we survived. In brief, new wiring does not precede development but takes place in response to new conditions and ideas.

DAVID: Our 315,000-year-old brain tells us it was designed in advance of need.

The wiring of the brain takes place in response to needs. When needs arose in our history, the brain responded and still responds by making new connections (complexification). The new connections would not have been present 315,000 years ago.

DAVID: finding this difference is not surprising. Connectivity is one form of complexification, another is an increased number of interconnected neurons. The human brain has more of both.

dhw: A neat summing up of the history of the human brain’s evolution: past brains complexified and expanded when they needed more capacity for complexification.

DAVID: Yes.

Thank you for confirming the obvious fact that brains, including our own, change in response to new needs and not in anticipation of them.

Extreme extremophiles: from dormancy to living

DAVID:: these diatoms are very simple forms that can assume dormancy. It just shows how tough living cells can be. The hibernating bear is a different form of this.

Yes,they are tough, and each example illustrates the versatility of cell/cell communities as they find different ways to cope with different environments. Some of us would suggest that these ingenious forms of adaptability are evidence of autonomous intelligence (perhaps God-given) rather than evidence of direct design by a God whose sole purpose was to design humans plus food.