Re: Chimpanzee an Man LCA, a banana?

From: Paul Crowley (slkwuoiutiuytciuyik_at_slkjlskjoioue.com)
Date: 08/08/04 

Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2004 22:13:46 +0100

"Pauline M Ross" <pmross@ross-software.co.uk> wrote in message
news:45cch05qe44ajpv7lpgmg87c5saboj2clt@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 8 Aug 2004 08:59:59 -0400, "firstjois"
> <firstjoisyike@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>>[m3d] IDD results in eighteen million babies born mentally impaired each
> >>> year, are they not harmed? Is it acceptable, that IDD is estimated to
> >>> have lowered the intellectual capacity of tens of millions, by as
> >>> much
> >>> as 10 to 15 percentage points? Is it acceptable 740 million are
> >>> effected by IDD. two billion by VAD?
> >
> >Holy Cow! Does Pauline know about this? I think she'd disagree.
>
> Not at all. What you are talking about here is a deficiency of an
> essential nutrient, which is bound to cause real physical problems.
>
> The bone of contention in our infant fat discussion was whether an
> episode of general malnutrition in childhood causes significant,
> permanent brain damage, and whether infant fat offers any protection
> against that. I would say that the evidence is not compelling.

Another issue is whether or not there are
any evolutionary mechanisms whereby
infant fat could have evolved for such a
purpose. This is a little technical, and
quite beyond the capacity of all those
whose understanding of evolution is
fragile (a category that includes pretty
nearly every professional PA).

The theory that infant fat exists _in_case_
there may be an episode of malnutrition,
requires that evolution create a feature
unknown in any other species -- what
could be called a 'might-sometimes-be-
needed' feature -- one for a might-sometimes-
happen event. Those who first proposed
this theory did not know that this was
unknown in nature -- and nearly all those
who support the theory (being PA types)
don't know it either.

While that greatly undermines its
credibility, it does not necessarily mean
that it's false. However, other arguments
against it are overwhelming. The feature
has to be selected by mechanism that
will operate some 20+ years AFTER the
feature has ceased to exist. Such an
enormous gap in time between cause
and effect is also unknown elsewhere in
nature. Again, those who first proposed
this theory did not know that this was
unknown in nature -- and nearly all those
who support the theory (being PA types)
don't know it either.

The number of evolutionary oddities and
absurdities in this theory is large. No one
in the discipline comments upon them,
because, it would seem, a knowledge of
evolutionary principles has ceased to
have any relevance. Indeed, ignorance
is now a necessary qualification.

Like nearly all theories that attain 'official'
or 'semi-official' status within the discipline,
its origins are rooted deep in an evolutionary
illiteracy. No biologist would think of
proposing a theory remotely like this for
any other species.

Paul.

Paul.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Is the human brain a optimal generic learning system?
    ... different type of feature extractor. ... Evolution IS reinforcement learning. ... But we can look at these two internal signals as features extracted from ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)
  • Re: So whats null then if its not nothing?
    ... >> The problem is that evolution in the world external to the academic ... We deal with RDBMS vendor software. ... opinion in the end, so make peace with that fact, and ... >> Some people believe that unknown and unknowable values ...
    (comp.databases.theory)
  • Re: Pleiotropy Enforces Cooperation With Non Related Individuals
    ... Evolution of the speed of evolution. ... I suppose there are many genes or features of organisms ... Sexual reproduction is an example of a feature allowing ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: How many times must we see the same drivel?
    ... > authors I cite below are not religious advocates trying to make a point; ... except for Behe and Denton. ... > would have suppressed evolution not only in some primordial soup, ... > be named or described at some unknown time in the past did something unknown ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: How many times must we see the same drivel?
    ... authors I cite below are not religious advocates trying to make a point; ... If evolution requires gradual change, how could the cell contain several ... Science proceeds by narrowing the questions down a bit to ... be named or described at some unknown time in the past did something unknown ...
    (talk.origins)