redwolf writes:
A typical example of the sort of evolutionary scenario I'm talking about would be as follows:
Certain kinds of light-bodied dinosaurs developed feathers which they used for insulation and protection from the elements, and then the climate turned hot for a long period of time. A certain number of these creatures mutated in such a way as to have something or other resembling flight feathers on their arms, and they began to notice that they could use their arms with the proto-flight feathers as fans, i.e. that they could keep cool by moving their arms and fanning themselves. After a number of generations of this, some of these creatures noticed that, if they moved their arms rapidly while running, they were being lifted off the ground slightly by the air currente generated. And so on and so on until you have flying birds.
Now, Assuming that Nkisi, the little grey parrot is actually reading his trainor's mind, and given the thoroughness of Sheldrake's methodology I see practically no chance that this is not the case, or given the example of the dogs which know when their owners turn for home, or the kid who knows what sort of problems an F4 has at age two, and assuming you could come up with some way of describing how such things work, the question would become, can you come up with some halfway plausible scenario for explaining how such a thing might develop, what organs are involved, and what purpose those organs served while they were in developmental stages.
It seems obvious to me that this would be extraordinarily difficult.
I'll ignore the defects in your attempt to describe what an evolutionary scenario looks like; other than to note for the record that the proposed example of an evolutionary explanation for flight is a crude parody encompassing some bad misconceptions. Your point is clear, however; we need plausible intermediates.
The question of "what organs" is not one for the evolutionists. That is
your problem, to address how the phenomenon works in the present. Without that, we don't have enough information to judge whether a sequence of intermediates is plausible or not. In fact,
all models to explain the origins of the phenomenon are at something of a loss. This is not a criticism of any specifically proposed origin, be it design or chance or evolution or something else; it just means we don't know enough about the phenomenon to say much about whether it is evidence for, or against, some model for origins.
All we can go on, so far, is a rather badly deliniated instance of a child who (apparently) possesses knowledge and insight obtained (somehow) from an adult in the past (maybe).
Assuming for the sake of argument that the phenomenon is real, the possibility for adaptive advantages to the child able to tap into such insights should be very clear; and they also would appear to scale appropriately. A very minor intuition able to take advantage of experience of others could be very useful. Perhaps the detection of these insights is something we all have, to a limited extent.
Perhaps that "sixth sense" or crawling skin that crops up at unexpected times is a consequence of sharing information from some other life in the past which is alerted by a dangerous situation in which we find ourselves. Perhaps even that had predecessors in the intuitions we have about others, whether they be trustworthy or dangerous. Perhaps such intuition can be tilted into a more appropriate direction by the capacity to tap into information from otherwhen. And perhaps that had predecessors in a psychic connection between living individuals; with a capacity to leave that connection lying around while we are absent, or even after our death, has an evolutionary beneficial effect through increased survival of our tribe or family, who are best positioned to take benefit.
But this is all sheer speculation. It will remains so, until you figure out more about this phenomenon and how it works. Only then will you a basis for holding it up against any model for the origin of the phenomenon.
As things stands, there is nothing that seems a special problem for evolution. Assuming the phenomenon exists, evolution should be able to work with it just fine.
Cheers -- Sylas
™ Version 4.2
