New Miscellany 2:birds, brains, chimps (General)

by dhw, Friday, May 23, 2025, 14:06 (10 hours, 24 minutes ago) @ dhw

Bird migration

DAVID: Can a bird think "there must be a warm place in which I can over-winter in?" Why some at 10,000 miles?

dhw: No, but a bird will know that “it’s too damn cold to stay here now, so I’ll see if there’s somewhere warmer to go to.” And so the search begins. And maybe a few thousand years and generations later, they have compiled the current list of places to go to. I don’t know why it’s got to be 10,000 miles, but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Whatever works for them will do.

DAVID: You can't answer the mileage problem, nor can I.

Why don’t you comment on the solution to the “thinking” problem?

DAVID: And which came first, mighty mitochondria, or extended flight to build them up? This is why design is so appealing.

dhw: Obviously the cells would have responded to the new requirements. Your muscles don’t expand because you intend to take up weightlifting.

DAVID: Think!!! The preparations are automatic in advance of the intended flights.

Think!!! Once actions are successful and become established, they become instinctive or are passed on, while physical changes become hereditary. Do you think your God has to come down every year and make your dog’s summer coat thicker in preparation for the winter?

Brain folding

QUOTE: "[…] we know that experience, like quality of schooling, plays a powerful role in shaping an individual's cognitive trajectory, and that it is malleable, even in adulthood."

dhw: It seems to me that this is the key, as with the birds’ mitrochondria and the weightlifter’s muscles. We know that the brain changes in response to new experiences (remember the illiterate women and the taxi drivers). The folds denote increased connectivity, as more and more activities create more and more connections. And so of course our human brains have increased folds compared to those of other animals.[…]

DAVID: Packing a brain into a small skull producing groves is empty thinking.

I disagree. The more experiences we have, the more connections we require. Hence the more folds, as above.

DAVID: Start with the premise based on design theory, everything is there for a reason.

dhw: But your design theory is limited to your God designing everything in advance, whereas I am suggesting (following Shapiro’s theory of cellular intelligence) that the brain has evolved IN RESPONSE to requirements and not in anticipation of them, as agreed in the past after much debate about crystal balls!

DAVID: I'll stick with God designing in advance.

You once more refuse to accept that the brain changes in response to new requirements. Your God apparently preprogrammed each new connection 3.8 billion years ago, or he looks into his crystal ball, and (psychokinetically?) creates the appropriate connections (folds) in all the brains before they're needed. We've discussed (and rejected) this theory umpteen times, so let's not start again.

Chimps ‘r’ not us

QUOTE: “This means that the actual difference between human and chimp DNA is 14 times greater than the often-quoted 1 percent statistic.”

DAVID: this study does away with the one-two percent difference widely quoted. Casey Luskin had to dig it out of the original paper. Current prejudice wishes to hide our exceptionism.

Nobody has ever said that chimps are human. Does anyone really think our brain power is 99% the same as that of chimps? (It is the brain power that makes us so exceptional.) Assuming everyone accepts the new figure, what are we left with? They and we now share 86% DNA. Does it mean we don’t have a common ancestor?