The Brain: Most Incredible Information Processing Device Known

One quadrillion Synapses

New research is now indicating that the brain is even more powerful than previously thought. A nerve cell, or neuron (see illustration), can be thought of as having inputs and outputs. The basic output is an electrical signal that travels down the tail of the neuron called the axon. The axon may connect to tissue, such as muscle via a connection called a synapse. The synapse may also connect the axon to another neuron, and this leads us to the input side of the neuron. The input branches, leading from the synapse to the central body of the neuron, are called dendrites. So for a given neuron, there are a number of input signals coming from the dendrites, and a number of output signals at the tail end of the axon. But what happens in between? Aside from merely propagating these electrical signals, somewhere the neuron needs to do some processing of the input signals, which determines the output signals that are generated. How does this processing work, and where does it occur?

The new research indicates that while dendrites have been thought mainly to transmit signals, they also perform substantial processing as well. As one of the researchers explained:

This work shows that dendrites, long thought to simply funnel incoming signals towards the soma, instead play a key role in sorting and interpreting the enormous barrage of inputs received by the neuron. Dendrites thus act as miniature computing devices for detecting and amplifying specific types of input.

Or as another researcher concluded, “Suddenly, it's as if the processing power of the brain is much greater than we had originally thought.” This work, he added, is a little bit like reverse engineering a piece of foreign technology:

Imagine you're reverse engineering a piece of alien technology, and what you thought was simple wiring turns out to be transistors that compute information. That's what this finding is like. The implications are exciting to think about.

That is how science works, and it contradicts the evolutionist’s claim that evolutionary theory is required to perform life science research. Nothing could be further from the truth. Assumptions of evolution not only are unnecessary, they get in the way. Science analyzes nature and figures out how it works.

These findings also contradict the evolutionist’s claim that evolution is a fact, for evolutionists have no explanation, beyond vague and silly story-telling, for how such a marvel as the brain and its neurons could have evolved. The metaphysics makes evolution a fact, but from a strictly scientific perspective, evolution is a bizarre and inane theory.

Religion drives science and it matters.