Evolution or Devolution?

Why? Why would a larger brain represent a more ordered state?

It is by no means conclusive that neanderthals are not part of our direct lineage see:NCBI

quote:

---

This is in fact one of the points Kerner makes in the book. He postulates that there are several different devolutionary lines that have run their course on this planet. Some of these have run concurrently and the fossil record may actually be presenting us with artefacts representing specific types of hominid (homo erectus, homo habilis etc) who were examples of the ends of these different lines.

---

However Kerner's speculation has no evidence from the fossil record. Homo habilis preceded Homo erectus which preceded Homo sapiens. Early Homo sapiens specimens (archaic Homo sapiens) had smaller brains than modern humans.So Kerner misunderstands thermodynamics and explains the fossil evidence away with speculations - what positive evidence DOES he have for his claims ?

Dr Silverman, could you (or one of the admins) please fix that long link, so as to make it not mess up the page width? Please take a look at the help on dBCodes (left of the edit window in the reply page). Or take a peek at the code of this message (with the peek-button just below it), to see how I made my version of your link look like this.

Let me help you."[W]here did that blueprint come from in the first place?"It never existed, at least not as a blueprint of "how they should evolve." If the genome is a blueprint at all, then it is one of how the individual zygote should develop into a mature example of its species. Kerner is making the same mistake as the screenwriters of Star Trek, who, in one particular episode, had a computer extrapolate millions of years of evolution, "calculating" the current phenotype of a species from a DNA-sample of an ancient ancestor.What they, and Kerner, failed to take into account is the fact that chance plays such an important role in the course of evolution. Even if a genotype were a blueprint of an evolutionary development - which it most definitely isn't - then how are such things as rogue comets specified in it? There's no way of telling how, for example, mammal evolution would have played out if a comet or planetoid had not struck the earth 65 million years ago, effectively wiping the dinosaurs off the face of the earth.Because of such capricious events, the notion of the genotype being a blueprint of how a species should evolve is utter nonsense.This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 28 February 2005 10:43 AM

---

We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

It is Kerner's position that neanderthal man, who had a larger brain than modern humans, was indeed involved in our ancestry. Here again is the link I gave earlier to illustrate the fact that it is by no means cut and dried that neanderthal genes do not figure in the creation of modern man.--NCBIKerner views modern man as an amalgam of two lines from the past homo erectus and homo neanderthalensis.

If you are talking about chance maybe you should take a look at Fred Hoyle's analysis: Hoyle goes on to point out that even if we were only to assess the likelihood of the spontaneous origin by chance of the 2000 or so special proteins, the enzymes, which are vitally important to life processes, then still the odds would be outlandish. The chance of these vital 2000 enzymes being formed in exactly the correct way, which they must be or else complex living organisms simply could not operate, is: He goes on to examine how those who claim that life originated in an organic soup imagine that complex life developed. They imagine that a clump of two or three very primitive enzymes toured around the primordial soup of amino acids picking up other potential enzymes as and when they happen to arise by chance. Hoyle points out that in effect what this model really describes is

You could tell that the paper in question does not support Kerner simply by reading the title."No Evidence of Neandertal mtDNA Contribution to Early Modern Humans"The paper explicitly states that the mtDNA results provided no evidence of Neandertal ancestry in modern human populations.Thus we still have no evidence to support Kerner's ideas of devolution.

You are changing the subject.I am not talking about the (misguided) idea of the statistical improbability of abiogenesis and evolution. We can talk about that some other time, if you want.Right now, I would like you to address the issue of events taking place which cannot have been specified in the proposed "blueprint of evolution". Please read my post again and come back with something pertaining to it.

---

We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Donald ThomasAs Richard Dawkins clarifies in his book Climbing Mount Improbable He further explains

It wasn't very helpful, I'm afraid, for the following reasons:1) It talks about some differences in cognitive development between twins when one has hydrocephaly and the other does not, but it does not say what they are.2) The hydroencephaly in these subjects was identified very early on, as infants, so they were treated. This is not related to the particular claims you were making about adult encephalics who were untreated.It's interesting that even though your cited study shows that there are differences in cognitive function in hydroencephalics when treated from infancy, the initial claim is that the specific untreated adult hydroencephalics given as examples are implied to be "normal" and have all the same human brain function as non-hydroencephalics.What I'd really like to see is the papers relating to the specific untreated adults which were given as examples initially, as well as the follow up studies done by other people.

quote:

---

In the Britanica Online definition of 2LOT it is written.

​

"The second law states that, in a closed system, the ENTROPY of the system does not decrease."

​

If entropy is expressed by terms of order and disorder and the 2LOT makes reference to entropy then surely 2LOT is expressed in the same terms.

---

Entropy is not usually expressed in terms of order and disorder, except in vague, hand-waving descriptions for non-scientists. Scientific definitions of entropy are usually made in terms of the availability of energy to do work (classical thermodynamics) or of the probability or state-density of a system (statistical mechanics). Scientifically, entropy is defined by reference to measurable quantities. Sometimes the word "disorder" is attached to one of those quantities (so that highly probable configurations are called "disordered"), but this amounts to a particular (and peculiar) definition of "disorder", rather than a definition of entropy in terms of the commonly understood concept of disorder.

I *did* say that while I didn't think Dr. Silverstein's definition wrong, it still left us with the strong sense that he doesn't really understand 2LOT. One of the easiest ways to misunderstand 2LOT is to confuse the thermodynamic definition of disorder with the everyday definition. Definition 2 of entropy at Answers.Com is:

2. A measure of the disorder or randomness in a closed system.

But if you look up disorder at Answers.com you'll find that the thermodynamic context has been completely lost:

1. A lack of order or regular arrangement; confusion.
2. A breach of civic order or peace; a public disturbance.
3. An ailment that affects the function of mind or body: eating disorders and substance abuse.

As you can see, there is no thermodynamic definition here. This is why our concern with Dr. Silverman, Donald Thomas and Kerner is that they misunderstand 2LOT because they're using an everyday definition of disorder instead of a thermodynamic one. In thermodynamics, entropy is a measure of the thermal and chemical disorder of a system at the molecular level, and has nothing to do with whether or not the objects of which the molecules are a part are organized in a tidy fashion.If you return to the Answers.com definition of entropy you'll find that a less ambiguous definition from a thermodynamic perspective appears first:

1. (Symbol S) For a closed thermodynamic system, a quantitative measure of the amount of thermal energy not available to do work.

This definition of entropy does not lead to any confusion in interpreting 2LOT.Added by edit: Just found that Wikipedia has a thermodynamic definition of entropy. You may find reading and understanding the entire Wikipedia article helpful, and it even has a section called Entropy as a measure of disorder (be careful to understand that the coins in the example are an analogy to molecular microstates - mixing up coins is not a thermodynamic process).--PercyThis message has been edited by Percy, 02-28-2005 10:17 AM

It is quite clear that Neandertals provided either very little or zero genetic input into modern humans. More to the point, it is also clear that anatomically and behaviorally modern humans evolved in sub-Saharan Africa, where Neandertals never lived. Modern humans were technologically and culturally more advanced than Neandertals well before the two groups encountered each other (if they ever did). Any account of modern humans devolving from Neandertals is simply fantasy.

Regarding the Lewin article in Science:First, this is just some science journalism, not a technical report, and it's completely devoid of details about how "function" was assessed, other than informal anecdote and a reference to IQ scores.It states two important things: 1)high functioning cases are cases in which onset is slow, and 2) animal research suggests that the thin layer of cerebral cortex, generally considered responsible for higher function, is spared damage - hydrocephaly mainly affects white matter. In certain gradual cases, people apparently can adapt to this white matter damage in a way that lets them function well (although it's not clear at all that they are "normal".)So, if you're maintaining that Lorber's research shows that most of the brain is dormant or "excess", that's not at all clear from this informal report. In fact you have stated that we can function normally with "only 10% of our cortex intact", which is not supported at all, and in fact is contradicted by the animal research presented in this report.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 02-28-2005 10:17 AM