New Miscellany 1 & 2: evolution. brain, intelligence etc. (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, April 16, 2025, 11:22 (3 days ago) @ David Turell

Evolution

DAVID: If God created the history of everything, then He evolved us!!! It is not straightforward!

You simply won’t stop juggling with language in order to avoid the senselessness of your theories. If God exists, he created the world as we know it. That does not mean his one and only purpose was to design us and our food, that he specially designed every species, that he messily, cumbersomely and inefficiently had to kill off 99.9 out of 100 species that he had specially designed, because they were irrelevant to the only species he wanted to design, or that we are descended from the 99.9% of life forms that had no descendants.

The human brain

dhw: Do you, then, think he inserted the cells in order specifically that, for instance, we should be able to send a rocket to Mars 3000 years later, or do you think he left it to us humans to use the new cells and the existing method of complexification to respond to all unknown future requirements/ opportunities/concepts etc. as and when they arose?

As usual, you ignore my question.

DAVID: The big brain like preceding ones used complexification to handle all new needs. This required a store of functional neurons in excess of original needs to supply the complexification processes.

Once again you’re telling us the new neurons were not used (excessive) but simply hung around for thousands of years doing nothing. The concept is absurd, and you have acknowledged repeatedly that they must have been used, and in our case subsequent usage was through increased complexification, not expansion. If your God popped in to insert the non-functioning functional neurons, why didn’t he simply wait till they were needed, as you presumably think he did with all earlier brains? Now please answer my question above.

Cellular intelligence

dhw: Of course there is cooperation within a community – that is one of the hallmarks of intelligence! Whereas single-celled organisms are complete in themselves: their intelligence also provides them with “total functionality”. Thank you for supporting the case for cellular intelligence.

DAVID: Only when working together cooperatively, each specialized cell doing its prescribed job.

dhw: It is precisely the ability of cells to cooperate, communicate, take decisions, sometimes even change their “specialization” according to each new situation, that denotes intelligence. You have already accepted bacterial intelligence, so thank you again for supporting the theory for cells in general.

DAVID: Prescribed means following directions.

Intelligent members of a community will always decide who does what.

Evolving a bipedal birth canal

dhw: Obstetricians [...] would not be necessary if the design wasn’t so faulty.

DAVID: Faulty? with 8 billion plus of us on Earth it must be working effectively.

dhw: One moment you are praising your God for his amazing design, the next moment you thank obstetricians for helping to cope with the faults in the design, and the next moment you are praising God for the faulty design which requires the help of obstetricians to make it work effectively or efficiently.

DAVID: Quit the argument. It worked!!!

In millions of cases, it didn’t work because the design was faulty. And even now, it's one of the most painful experiences a woman can have.

New deep soil microbes

dhw: Every living form has a role in an ecological system, and every extinct form had a role in its own ecological system, but that does not mean every ecological system extant and extinct was specially created solely for the use of us humans.

DAVID: We use them because we can. No one else in charge, is there?

How does your question prove that every ecosystem extinct and extant was specially created for us?

Logical ordering of bacterial genes

QUOTE: The results [...] provide an excellent explanation of an important aspect of bacterial evolution: The right genomic positioning gave the bacteria existing today an advantage over their rivals[/b].'"

DAVID: if this developed by natural trial and error would bacteria ever survive? Why are we surprised by finding logical designs in every research into how life works?

dhw: The quote shows precisely how evolution works through changes that improve organisms’ chances of survival. In the case of bacteria, the changes are limited to adaptations; in multi-celled organisms, the communities are able to create the innovations that lead to new species. It is precisely through “trial and error” that some organisms survive and some go extinct. Only an omniscient, omnipotent God would know how to create the perfect survivor “de novo”, but apparently yours didn’t, which is why your theories are such a mass of contradictions.

DAVID: God uses de novo developments when needed. Note the Cambrian explosion.

When needed for what? The article emphasizes the fact that evolution works through changes to existing organisms that will improve their chances of survival. This can only happen through trial and error, but you say it doesn’t. So are you telling us that your God created today’s brands of bacteria “de novo”? As for the Cambrian, the vast majority of species also failed to survive. Your whole theory of evolution is one of 99.9% error!