The Brain Was Evolutionarily Designed?
And so far we’re only talking about the brain’s physical wonders. On top of all that there is consciousness, will and all those feelings and emotions we have. There is, not surprisingly, no evolutionary explanation for how the brain evolved. And a new study on how information is transferred within the brain now adds yet another intriguing aspect to the problem.
The researchers used a network analysis approach, and considered the tradeoff between the number of connections made and the number of information routing pathways connecting disparate locations. In this simple model, the transfer of information is optimized by minimizing the number of connections while maximizing the direct routings.
Of course the human brain undoubtedly has many more functions and requirements to fulfill, but interestingly their data showed a striking fit. According to their findings the structure of the human brain has an almost ideal network of connections. As the lead researcher explained, “That means the brain was evolutionarily designed to be very, very close to what our algorithm shows.” As usual, the infinitive form reveals the underlying teleological thinking. Aristotle is dead, long live Aristotle.
But that is the least of evolution’s problems. What is striking, and a dead giveaway, is the high confidence of evolutionists. There is no question that evolutionary theory has its challenges. This study of the brain’s information transfer is yet another example of this. The researchers of this study, in spite of statements about evolution, have no scientific theory for how the brain could have evolved. Nothing.
This paper provides yet another example that it is not exactly obvious that the world arose spontaneously (and that is putting it gently). In fact, science tells us the exact opposite. And yet evolutionists insist that evolution is a fact—no question about it. It would be, evolutionists like to say, perverse to say anything less. Those over-the-top claims by evolutionists tell all. This isn’t about science.
The in-your-face stupidity of Darwinian evolution and the arrogance and power of its proponents are astonishing. There is a sinister and surreal aura about the whole thing. There is an evil and powerful hand behind it. There has to be.
ReplyDeleteOr the theory of evolution could be correct!
DeleteAlan:
DeleteSure, evolution could be correct. All kinds of strange, unlikely things, that defy science could be true. Your comment is unfalsifiable.
But this is not what evolutionists claim. They insist--including McCarthy-type blackballing and ruining careers--that evolution is a fact.
You've got a scientifically absurd idea, spontaneous origins, being dogmatically asserted by people with power to control knowledge and beliefs. Evolution is the most influential theory in history, is dogmatically enforced, and yet is biology's version of the perpetual motion machine.
What's even more amazing is that these guys are made of teflon. Cornelius Hunters kicks their stupid arses day in and day out and yet, they keep coming back for more, as if they were immune to ridicule and the Himalayan mountain of logic that contradicts and refutes their silly pronouncements.
DeleteAnd to add insult to injury, they fancy themselves as some of the most intelligent people on earth, the elite cream of the crop. Paul Feyerabend was right when he wrote in Against Method, "the most stupid procedures and the most laughable result in their domain are surrounded with an aura of excellence. It is time to cut them down to size and to give them a lower position in society."
The researchers of this study, in spite of statements about evolution, have no scientific theory for how the brain could have evolved. Nothing.
ReplyDeleteThat's not true. They have evolutionary biology. You just have to google "Evolution of the brain" and a lot of a peer reviewed articles can be found. For example :
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128311.800-a-brief-history-of-the-brain.html?full=true
You probably don't suscribe to any of those stories since you don't accept peer reviewed papers as reliable sources but still. People have come up with some explanations.
The old "its really too complicated to have evolved naturally then it has obviously been designed" has proved its limits.
I don't recall Dr. Hunter ever using that line of reasoning. What I do read is a similar critique of the constant mantra of "it exists so it had to have evolved".
DeleteWhy must that be true and God false?
ohandy1
Delete"it exists so it had to have evolved".
Why must that be true and God false?
Why do you think it has to be one or the other? Couldn't an omnipotent God use evolutionary processes to produce the life forms He wanted? There are millions of Christian including Christian working scientists who accept that idea.
Calamity:
DeleteThat's not true. They have evolutionary biology. You just have to google "Evolution of the brain" and a lot of a peer reviewed articles can be found. For example :
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128311.800-a-brief-history-of-the-brain.html?full=true
Thank you for the link. Here is a passage from that article:
Quote:
==============
So almost from the start, the cells within early animals had the potential to communicate with each other using electrical pulses and chemical signals. From there, it was not a big leap for some cells to become specialised for carrying messages.
These nerve cells evolved long, wire-like extensions - axons - for carrying electrical signals over long distances. They still pass signals on to other cells by releasing chemicals such as glutamate, but they do so where they meet them, at synapses. That means the chemicals only have to diffuse across a tiny gap, greatly speeding things up. And so, very early on, the nervous system was born.
The first neurons were probably connected in a diffuse network across the body (see diagram). This kind of structure, known as a nerve net, can still be seen in the quivering bodies of jellyfish and sea anemones.
But in other animals, groups of neurons began to appear - a central nervous system. This allowed information to be processed rather than merely relayed, enabling animals to move and respond to the environment in ever more sophisticated ways. The most specialised groups of neurons - the first brain-like structure - developed near the mouth and primitive eyes.
==============
This is the sort of thing the OP refers to. This is a “just-so” story and is a good example of the abuse of science that evolution has brought on. This is a good example what evolution is about. Insist spontaneous origins must be true, create just-so stories that have no basis in science, and accuse anyone who questions the enterprise as being anti-science and so forth. As you put it:
You probably don't subscribe to any of those stories since you don't accept peer reviewed papers as reliable sources
Such troll comments are often what evolutionists are reduced to.
Couldn't an omnipotent God use evolutionary processes to produce the life forms He wanted?
DeleteI see two problems with this logic.
First, this implies an interventionist God which renders ToE impotent. It becomes impossible to draw a line between the natural selection/naturalistic mechanisms and the intervention of God. It even implies a creative process which places the naturalistic power of evolution in precedence over God who is relegated to nudging and tweaking.
Second, there is no place in academia for this concept, presumably due to the issues brought up by problem one. This notion is entirely up to your imagination since it's not even acknowledged by any curriculum I'm aware of in any level of education. ToE is only ever used to replace God, not empower him.
The comment I replied to was "its really too complicated to have evolved naturally then it has obviously been designed".
My point was that this very logic is employed by evolutionists in the form it lives therefore it evolved. There are countless examples of this logic throughout this site and that's one of the things that draws me back here. I had never before read the original published papers, only the textbooks and articles meant to "interprete" them for public consumption. How often are "must haves" and "could haves" translated to "did" in textbooks? Wild imagination often becomes fact in a school textbook which I never understood before.
p.s. I think my first reply was better but in true blogspot fashion it disappeared without reason. too bad this blog isn't proprietry and could be moved to a WordPress platform.
and too bad I can't edit for spelling and such...
Deleteghostrider,
Delete"Couldn't an omnipotent God use evolutionary processes to produce the life forms He wanted?"
By asking this question in this way you seem to be implying God could have created ex nihilo but simply chose not too. Is that correct?
Being omnipotent God could create in any manner consistent with his nature.
The question is not what he could or could not do but what he said he did.
Nic
DeleteThe question is not what he could or could not do but what he said he did
Here's the problem Nic.
On one hand you've got a collection of 2000 year old stories written by fallible men, translated by fallible men, re-translated by fallible men, re-re-translated by fallible men, added to by fallible men, deleted from by fallible men, interpreted by fallible men, re-interpreted by fallible men.
On the other you have a whole planet's worth of scientifically verified physical evidence that clearly show a very old age for the planet (4.5 BY), a very old age for life on the planet 3+ BY), and clear branching patterns of morphological changes in those life forms over the 3+ billion years.
Some people desperately want to believe their 6000 year old Earth interpretation of scripture is correct but that means the *billions* of contradictory pieces of evidence must somehow all be wrong. The scientific evidence, much of which was found by Christian researchers, doesn't claim to show there is no God or that God wasn't involved. Evolution isn't religious and doesn't make any claims about religion. It's just a science that only makes factual statements and conclusions about what we have empirically seen and measured.
As one songwriter very eloquently put it:
Humans wrote the Bible, God wrote the rocks
Here is an article just published by the NIH further complicating the story where they state "Further complicating matters, no two neurons are exactly alike because each one reaches out and touches hundreds or thousands of other cells, forming trillions of information-processing connections, or circuits." Story at http://directorsblog.nih.gov/2015/07/07/creative-minds-meet-a-theoretical-neuroscientist/
ReplyDeletePaul:
DeleteYes, that is an interesting point that is often under appreciated. You've got billions of neurons, but each one has a unique anatomy and processing role, with its unique place in the network.
Ghostrider:
ReplyDelete"it exists so it had to have evolved".
Why must that be true and God false?
Why do you think it has to be one or the other? Couldn't an omnipotent God use evolutionary processes to produce the life forms He wanted? There are millions of Christian including Christian working scientists who accept that idea.
Let me get this straight. There are millions of Christians including Christian scientists that believe an intelligent, all-knowing God made life forms through an unguided, random process of chance? Isn't that an oxymoron??
PhillyMike:
DeleteLet me get this straight. There are millions of Christians including Christian scientists that believe an intelligent, all-knowing God made life forms through an unguided, random process of chance? Isn't that an oxymoron??
I'm not sure what the number is but, yes, there are many Christians who believe that. In fact, the idea was advanced and promoted by Christians. You could say evolutionary thought, in modern times, came from Christians.
PhillyMike
DeleteLet me get this straight. There are millions of Christians including Christian scientists that believe an intelligent, all-knowing God made life forms through an unguided, random process of chance?
Yes.
Isn't that an oxymoron??
No. Evolution isn't a completely unguided, random process of chance. There is a random component to the genetic variations that occur but there is also a non-random component of feedback from the local environment that influences which random changes get kept and added to the gene pool for future generations. An analogy is a rock falling from the top of a hill. The exact path the rock will take is random but gravity will assure the rock ends up at the bottom. An omnipotent God could easily manipulate the environment to get the random part of evolution to produce whatever He wanted.
Theistic evolution is accepted by many more Christians worldwide than special Creation, especially among Christian science professionals.
DeleteToo bad they don't read your blog.
Thanks for the science and the insight you share with us non-scientists. Don't let the trolls get you discouraged.
I was referring to macro evolution not micro. Because macro evolution is "a completely unguided, random process of chance."
DeletePhillyMike
DeleteI was referring to macro evolution not micro. Because macro evolution is "a completely unguided, random process of chance."
There is only one process of evolution. What people call "macro-evolution" is just "micro-evolution" that has occurred for a longer time. It's the identical process. Again, an omnipotent God could easily manipulate the environment to get whatever results from evolution - micro or macro - He desired.
PhillyMike: "
DeleteI was referring to macro evolution not micro. Because macro evolution is "a completely unguided, random process of chance.""
As GR mentioned, there is no difference between the two. Evolution has a random aspect and a non random aspect.
ghostrider: "Again, an omnipotent God could easily manipulate the environment to get whatever results from evolution - micro or macro - He desired."
DeleteFirst of all, why is your God omnipotent? Mine isn't. My God is just extremely intelligent and powerful. He/they can make mistakes and they do regret things. Infinite intelligence and knowledge is nonsense.
Second, why do you want your God to use evolution for the creation of life since evolution is nonsense on the face of it? Is your God an illogical God? A truly intelligent God would design and engineer complex organisms from the start, various species with the ability to adapt to future changes in the environment. He/they may not like his/their current designs and may destroy them. Or he/they may use some designs periods as an ecological/terraforming/data collection experiment.
I just don't get how some of you people set up your stupid strawman arguments and wrestle them to the ground in order to claim victory. That is lame.
William Spearshake:
DeleteEvolution has a random aspect and a non random aspect.
As Dr. Hunter brought out in an earlier blog, "They (evolutionists) are left with the silly idea that evolution created the intelligent adaptation machine that then allowed for evolution".
The math on "the chance of a 200 component integrated functioning organism could be developed by mutation and natural selection just once, in all the assumed expanse of geologic time, is less than one chance out of a billion trillion." from The mathematical Impossibility of Evolution
But hey! The Laws of Probability shouldn't ruin a good story, right?
PhillyMike:
DeleteThe idea that evolution has random and non random aspects is a standard understanding. It is not a very accurate rendition of the theory, but if they explain that evolution is based on random mutations then it clearly is untenable. In avoiding a straightforward telling of the idea, they are their own judge. This is also why evolutionists consistently explain evolution in Aristotelian terms (i.e., "X evolved in order to perform function Y, or to solve problem Z"). It is all about selling the idea.
Of course evolution is random. That's the whole idea. The ground rules are that natural selection cannot induce the right mutations to occur, but rather when a helpful mutation luckily occurs, it will tend to propagate to later generations. Every single mutation, leading to every species, must have occurred independent of need. Natural selection merely kills off the harmful mutations. That's the theory, but they can't spell it out clearly because it is so untenable.
"But hey! The Laws of Probability shouldn't ruin a good story, right?"
DeleteLet me ask you a question. What is the probability that you, as the unique person you are, should exist? I challenge you to do the math. The odds of the one ova that was your mother's contribution being fertilized are small. But they are exponentially dwarfed by the fact that you are also the product of one of your fathers millions of sperm cells. Then add the odds that your mother and father would actually get together.
At this point, the probability is extremely low. Now add the probabilities going back several generations. It doesn't take many generations before the probabilities become astronomical.
But the fact is, the probability that you exist is one. You exist.
My point is that arguing using probabilities is a dangerous game.
Tonsa,
DeleteMan, give it a rest. You are out of your league. You people have mediocre intellects. You are nothing but a bunch of dirt worshippers.
The probability of anyone existing is exactly 1. The probability of life arising out of dirt via random chemical interactions is exactly 0. The probability of a single cell evolving into an elephant over tens of millions of years is exactly 0. Why? Because random transformations are orders of magnitude more destructive than they are constructive. It takes a certain kind of order to create functionality but order cannot ever be born out of chaos because destructive forces always kills dead it before it's even born. The only way to create order is to have a system that seeks order and is immune to destructive forces.
PhillyMike
DeleteThe math on "the chance of a 200 component integrated functioning organism could be developed by mutation and natural selection just once, in all the assumed expanse of geologic time, is less than one chance out of a billion trillion." from The mathematical Impossibility of Evolution But hey! The Laws of Probability shouldn't ruin a good story, right?
Sorry but anyone who claims they can calculate a probability of evolution occurring is talking out of their nether regions. No one has near enough information about historical events to do even a rough calculation. You'd need to know the exact number of possible outcomes and the exact number of successful outcomes. You also can't calculate the probabilities associated with an iterative feedback process like evolution from a one time snapshot. You need a detailed history of every iteration, of every generation. The feedback provided by the environment makes the probabilities of success much greater than random chance alone, just like draw poker gives you a better chance at a good hand that just a straight five card deal.
Arguments for probability are just another poor attempt by creationists to cast doubt on the solid science they don't understand.
That's the theory, but they can't spell it out clearly because it is so untenable
DeleteExcept I just spelled it out clearly right above.
Evolution isn't a completely unguided, random process of chance. There is a random component to the genetic variations that occur but there is also a non-random component of feedback from the local environment that influences which random changes get kept and added to the gene pool for future generations.
It's also spelled out clearly in countless freshman biology textbooks and numerous places online, such as at the U. of California / Berkeley's Understanding Evolution site
Misconceptions about natural selection
Except I just spelled it out clearly right above.
DeleteNo you did not. You spelled out Aristotelianism. You don’t understand your own belief system.
It's also spelled out clearly in countless freshman biology textbooks and numerous places online, such as at the U. of California / Berkeley's Understanding Evolution site
Misconceptions about natural selection
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_32
First line: “Because natural selection can produce amazing adaptations …”.
Classic Aristotelianism.
Natural selection produces nothing. According to the real evolutionary theory, natural selection does not and cannot influence any design changes. If a mutation occurs which improves differential reproduction, then it propagates into future generations. Natural selection is simply the name given to that process. Natural selection has no role in the mutation event. It does not induce mutations, helpful or otherwise, to occur. Every single mutation, leading to every single species, is a random event with respect to need, requirements, design principles, etc.
This dogma is essential to evolutionary theory. It is the core theoretic which must be protected at all costs. Gradualism, common descent and every other sub hypothesis can be forfeited and from time to time have been thrown under the bus to protect evolution’s core theoretic which is Epicureanism—no god or gods would have intended or created this world. This entails a rejection of final causes, teleology, design, creation, etc. Darwin’s book was full of religious claims which were handed down from previous centuries and the evolutionary literature is no different, from Le Conte to Coyne and all the apologists in between. Simply put, evolution is a theodicy (though there is much more to the underlying theology at evolution’s foundation) where God must be distant from the world. Evolution is a religious theory and the religion mandates unguided, random creation.
This is why evolution must be a fact. The insistence of evolutionists that there can be no question of this fact, itself, reveals the dogma.
Only religion could have erected and mandated such a prima facie ludicrous idea. Evolution isn’t even wrong. It is the height of scientific absurdity.
This is why evolutionists have devised ersatz renditions of their idea. Their language is teleological and natural selection is portrayed as a creative, productive process. Evolutionists will also say that God uses or guides evolution. All of this is contradictory to evolution’s core theoretic which evolutionists promote when the coast is clear.
So you have the real evolutionary theory which is strictly ateleological and random. It has produced a long and growing list of false predictions. Every fundamental prediction from the past has turned out false. And of course it has no explanation for how the world could have spontaneously arisen, as it claims. It is our modern mythology and dwarfs all the rest. From a scientific perspective, it is utterly ridiculous.
And then you have the for-public-consumption versions of the theory which seek to hide the shame and absurdity with makeup.
"Natural selection produces nothing. According to the real evolutionary theory, natural selection does not and cannot influence any design changes."
DeleteYes, that's quite right. Natural selection can only potentially explain why a biological entity survived, not how it emerged, because by definition it only selects for survival that which already exists.
ghostrider,
Delete"Theistic evolution is accepted by many more Christians worldwide than special Creation,..."
Have you got support for this claim?
"Man, give it a rest. You are out of your league. You people have mediocre intellects. You are nothing but a bunch of dirt worshippers."
ReplyDeleteHi Mapou. If you think that you can have a civil discussion without resorting to Joe style nonsense, please let me know. Until then, have a nice weekend.
Who says I want to have a civil discussion with the likes of you? I just want to heap ridicule on all dirt worshipers, day in and day out.
DeleteLOL
Doesn't sound like much of a life to me, but if it brings happiness to your otherwise dreary existence, don't let me stop you.
DeleteLouis
Delete"I just want to heap ridicule on all dirt worshipers, day in and day out."
I must say, Louis, I am disappointed in your attitude. The point is not to 'heap ridicule' on anyone. It is to explain in a concise, decent and respectful manner the reasons evolutionary thinking does not stand up to scrutiny.
Friendly banter is one thing; Thornton and I had a great time doing that; but heaping ridicule is counter productive.
Nic,
DeleteYou are wasting your time. There is nothing constructive about arguing with a Darwinist unless you're just doing it for fun. There is only one thing that will defeat the government funded Darwinist propaganda machine and that's a new discovery that blows everybody's socks off, scientists and laymen alike. Good luck.
Louis:
Deletea new discovery that blows everybody's socks off
No, that has already been done, many times over. You greatly misunderstand the heart (Mt 11:16-19).
More importantly, and to Nic's point, you also show no signs of forgiveness, which is job one. If you can't do that, nothing else matters.
Cornelius:
DeleteNo, that has already been done, many times over. You greatly misunderstand the heart (Mt 11:16-19).
Oh, I understand them alright. They are delusioned. But I disagree that this has been done over and over in the case of Darwinism. Something is indeed coming very soon that will blow everybody's socks off, including yours, BTW.
More importantly, and to Nic's point, you also show no signs of forgiveness, which is job one. If you can't do that, nothing else matters.
You're preaching to me, Cornelius. Don't do that. I, too, have my own doctrine and I can do the same to you:
These people don't need my forgiveness. They have not offended me. They have offended something else, something much greater than me and that pisses me off. So I'm like David, "Who are these uncircumcised heathens (i.e., jackasses) that they should challenge the Lord Yahweh of Israel."
That's my take on it. I would point to chapter and verse but I hate doing that and you know what I'm talking about. And please don't talk to me about turning the other cheek or other such Christian favorite (the work of the Devil, really) because I will respond with the Proverbial, "there is a time for everything."
Continuing on this tangent would be a useless waste of our time.
Louis,
Delete"They have offended something else, something much greater than me,..."
And He asks you to forgive those that trespass against you, as you have trespassed against Him and He has forgiven you. He certainly does not need you to feel offended for Him, He asks you to treat your fellow man with respect and kindness. Heaping ridicule does not accomplish that.
I hope you can change your attitude as I think you could contribute something worthwhile.
Nic,
DeleteYou're preaching to me from the Bible. The Bible is not my god. I don't worship it. There is a lot of crap in the Bible, IMO. I use the Bible like I use any other book, for reference only. I don't trust everything I read in it.
The only thing that Yahweh asks of me, AFAIC, is faith. That is all. Everything else, including even the righteousness of forgiveness that you seem to be so proud of, has to be given to me. If I don't have righteousness, it's because I never had any to begin with and it has not been given to me yet. I'll wait. I'm happy for you and Cornelius that you already received your portions.
I hope you can change your attitude as I think you could contribute something worthwhile.
I'm doing a lot more than you might suspect.
Louis,
Delete"There is a lot of crap in the Bible,..."
Well, I must say that explains a lot.
"I'm doing a lot more than you might suspect."
In what way?
Well, I must say that explains a lot.
DeleteI believe that every New Testament book with the exception of the book of Revelation was very likely tampered with in the first few centuries of the Christian era. There has always been evil men in the Churches. They left Revelation alone because they had no clue as to what it means. And even then, that did not stop them from conjuring up all sorts of cockamaie interpretations.
In what way?
I discovered years that several of the books of the Bible, such as Ezekiel, Zechariah and Revelation, contain world changing scientific secrets hidden in plain sight with the use of clever metaphors. From what I've been able to figure out so far, one message has to do with fundamental physics and the other with the brain. They were meant for our age and they will transform the world in very radical ways. That's all I can say for now. Take it or leave it. Have a good one.
Louis,
Delete"I believe that every New Testament book with the exception of the book of Revelation was very likely tampered with in the first few centuries of the Christian era."
So God is not capable of insuring that his word is transmitted to us accurately and that this accuracy is maintained through the generations?
Were they tampered with, or only very likely tampered with?
"I discovered years that several of the books of the Bible, such as Ezekiel, Zechariah and Revelation, contain world changing scientific secrets hidden in plain sight with the use of clever metaphors. From what I've been able to figure out so far, one message has to do with fundamental physics and the other with the brain. They were meant for our age and they will transform the world in very radical ways. That's all I can say for now."
Ahhh, yeah, Okay. I'll look forward to your book.
This YEC would not want to find a better connections in us relative to any creature. This implies, if so, our intelligence is of the material world. Yet the bible says its immaterial. its our soul that does the thinking. No brain is needed except for a material existence. Therefore I think its just a memory machine. the memory is a real thing and is the only thing that van break down relative to human thinking ability.
ReplyDeleteThis YEC would not want to find a better connections in us relative to any creature. This implies, if so, our intelligence is of the material world. Yet the bible says its immaterial. its our soul that does the thinking. No brain is needed except for a material existence. Therefore I think its just a memory machine. the memory is a real thing and is the only thing that van break down relative to human thinking ability.
ReplyDelete