Brain complexity: gene response to light stimuli (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, February 12, 2018, 15:02 (2259 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Are you now saying that your God created a brand new bigger brain from scratch? If not, the change itself simply means adding more cells and connections to those that already exist. Even if you think this is not covered by “modification”, your statement makes it perfectly clear that the brain changes in response to new tasks, not before the new tasks are “at hand”.

DAVID: In my theory God manages or runs evolution. It does not run itself by chance. A newly enlarged, more complex brain is evolved from a previous smaller less complex brain by God. Implementation results in automatic plasticity changes which may shrink earch stage of brain slightly, as based on current scientific fact.

dhw: In my theory (theistic version) your God created life and the mechanisms for evolution. It does not run itself by chance but by the God-given intelligence with which organisms cope with or exploit ever changing environments. The latter may be subject to chance, and you can’t make up your own mind whether they are or are not controlled by your God. And yes, yes, yes, implementation RESULTS in changes. It does not precede changes. Current scientific fact tells us that the change resulting from implementation is COMPLEXIFICATION, which I suggest is so efficient that it has also caused shrinkage. This process may also have occurred in pre-sapiens until expansion became necessary (in both hypotheses). There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that any changes take place BEFORE implementation, whereas your theory is that enlargement (which occurs in both hypotheses) did take place before implementation: the exact opposite of your own statement above that implementation RESULTS in changes. (See also “big brain evolution”.)

The part in bold of your stataement is a complete misinterpretation of my view. My point is simple. At each stage in the size of brain as human evolution proceeded, that size had plasticity and could modify with new implementations. It might even shrink slightly as we see in the sapiens level of development.