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

by David Turell , Friday, May 23, 2025, 19:47 (10 hours, 23 minutes ago) @ dhw

Bird migration

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

dhw: 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?

Useless point! Answer how physiological preparation for flight occurs in advance of it?

Brain folding

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

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

No you don't. I am disowning force folding.

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.

dhw: 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.

Why won't you let me stick with a designing God? You see design, grudgingly admit a designer might exist, and when I describe His designing, you hurry back to your Darwinist ideas.

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.

dhw: 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?

It makes us less chimp than people wish to convey. It is not just brain power. Our muscular bodies function very differently.