brain plasticity: enormous complexity desribed (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, February 09, 2015, 00:26 (3367 days ago) @ David Turell

The astronomical number of synapses (nerve connections)in the brain is mind boggling. This Catholic article gives a good simple description, and then notes not by chance:-http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-half-truths-of-materialist-evolution/-"I would like to direct attention to the unsupportable notion that the human brain, to focus on a single phenomenon, could possibly have evolved by sheer chance. One of the great stumbling blocks for Darwin and other chance evolutionists is explaining how a multitude of factors simultaneously coalesce to form a unified, functioning system. The human brain could not have evolved as a result of the addition of one factor at a time. Its unity and phantasmagorical complexity defies any explanation that relies on pure chance. It would be an underestimation of the first magnitude to say that today's neurophysiologists know more about the structure and workings of the brain than did Darwin and his associates.-"Scientists in the field of brain research now inform us that a single human brain contains more molecular-scale switches than all the computers, routers and Internet connections on the entire planet! According to Stephen Smith, a professor of molecular and cellular physiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, the brain's complexity is staggering, beyond anything his team of researchers had ever imagined, almost to the point of being beyond belief. In the cerebral cortex alone, each neuron has between 1,000 to 10,000 synapses that result, roughly, in a total of 125 trillion synapses, which is about how many stars fill 1,500 Milky Way galaxies!-"A single synapse may contain 1,000 molecular-scale switches. A synapse, simply stated, is the place where a nerve impulse passes from one nerve cell to another.-"Phantasmagorical as this level of unified complexity is, it places us merely at the doorway of the brain's even deeper mind-boggling organization. Glial cells in the brain assist in neuron speed. These cells outnumber neurons 10 times over, with 860 billion cells. All of this activity is monitored by microglia cells that not only clean up damaged cells but also prune dendrites, forming part of the learning process. The cortex alone contains 100,000 miles of myelin-covered, insulated nerve fibers.- Note 125 trillion synapses, each with up to 1,000 molecular switches. This is specified complexity at its greatest. No wonder we can think like we do. Try to invent this item one tiny Darwinian step at a time, especially from the notion of chance mutations, a theory Dawkins still favors. Or now imagine energy and matter concocting a brain without guidance or planning. Simply not possible. Still only two possibilities, chance or design.