Brain Expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, May 22, 2020, 20:37 (1434 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: We are not talking about speciation but about two different processes: enlargement and complexification (usually a potent argument for design, but not here apparently).

DAVID: Of course we are discussing speciation. Each enlarged-brain Hominin is a new species.

dhw: How does that prove that your God had to dabble enlargement but doesn’t have to dabble complexification?

You keep forgetting, as God creates a new larger brain it already contains the ability to complexify, as I'v e stated many times.

dhw: I’m still wearing my theist’s hat: do you think that the brain’s ability to complexify all by itself came about spontaneously through natural processes, or through God’s hands-on design?

DAVID: God designed each new brain with the ability to complexify.

dhw: Which it does autonomously. So he designed a mechanism allowing autonomous complexification. Why then could he not have designed a mechanism allowing for autonomous enlargement?

Your constant wish. You can have God doing anything you can imagine. As I've reminded you, your autonomous brain enlargement has to include different bony parts to change also in baby skull, adult skull and Mother's pelvis. All without guidance. And how about telling me what specifies which parts of the brain are to be enlarged? Not autonomous if there are specifications to be followed..

dhw: […] You told us complexification was “no different than enlarging muscles with repeated exercise” and also gave us the kidney example. Why do you think complexification can be compared to muscles expanding with repeated exercise, but expanding brains can’t?

DAVID: Brains are not muscles and complexification is simply a characteristic of the brain, as expansion is a characteristic of muscles. You again have misunderstood or twisted what I give as examples.

dhw: So why did you compare complexification of the brain to expansion of the muscles? Muscles don’t complexify, and the complexifying brain doesn’t expand! But I’ll tell you what: muscles (which are also cell communities) expand with repeated exercise, and I have proposed that brains expanded with the mental equivalent of repeated exercise in the form of “hard thinking”. Now how’s that for a comparison?

Forgetting, as usual, complexifying brains shrink!

DAVID: How do the various bony cell committees know what to do on their own?

dhw: I suggest that the bony cells know what to do is because – as many scientists believe – cells are intelligent.

DAVID: Pure wishful thinking. Cells are instructed from above.

dhw: I accept that there is no proof that cellular intelligence is advanced enough to have engineered what Shapiro calls “evolutionary novelty” – which is why his “natural genetic engineering” is a theory and not a fact. As for your own theory, what is “above”? First it was germ cells, then it was DNA – all part of the cell community – but presumably what you really mean is a 3.8-billion-year computer programme for every “evolutionary” novelty in life’s history, including brain expansion, or direct hands-on divine dabbling, or a mixture of both.

The bold is something you don't seem to understand from the science which I carefully follow. Have you forgotten the zygote carries all the information for the new individual? The zygote comes from the junction of germ cells. From there stem cells take over and modify their DNA directing it into different states for different kinds of cooperating cells in the various organs. All top down creation! The genome is its own special directive community running the others. Where we recognize feedback, repeating myself for the umpteenth time, is in the appearance of methylation for minor epigenetic adaptive changes in the same species. Speciation, itself, must involve a totally different massive DNA alteration. Not by chance. And various cell committees don't have the mental design power to accomplish it. The last of your statement alludes to my guesses about how God does it. Thanks for recognizing them in your off-hand way.

DAVID: But they [Shapiro’s words] are pure unproved theory as to how evolution might advance naturally.

dhw: And the proof of your theory is…..?

You sure resent my obvious down grade of Shapiro to force you to admit, it is pure theory that has not added to any new advance in understanding evolution.