tribalbeeyatch

Can somebody expand on this for me? I know that the retinal image is inverted, but I don't see how this would require any "extra brain wiring to flip it back". That adult humans can adapt to inverting lenses in something like a week or so implies to me that establishing visual orientation doesn't require much in the way of brain reorganization.

hezekiah jones

Originally posted by Oolon Colluphid
Then you’ll have no trouble telling me what the definition of the Genesis ‘kind’ is, and how to apply it to the natural world.And you’ll easily be able to say which of these are apes...
<creationist death skulls snipped>
... and which are human, then, won’t you?

I've lost track of how many times this cool pic has been posted.

Has any creationist here even attempted to address this thing?

pz

It's not right. Orientation is a perception -- all that matters is how the retinal map is projected on to the LGN/cortex, and an inverted image is no more problematic than a right-side-up one.

What I find more bizarre is how retinal ganglion cells first project to the lateral geniculate (which is primitively the optic tectum), and then relay neurons transmit the information to the part of the brain that is the farthest possible distance from the eyes, the visual cortex. Not only is there an extra synapse in there, but the distance is such a waste. The whole thing makes the inside-out orientation of the retina look like a wise and sensible design decision.

God Fearing Atheist

Despite what the late Dr. Gould and some of his intellectual partisans beleive to be true about so-called "adaptationists", no serious scientist believes every aspect of our biology is adaptive; that aesthetic sensibilities *necessarly* increase fitness.

This is not to say that the case hasnt been argued (see Dissanayake 1998, for example), but its much more probable that art is an evolutionary by-product (like in Pinker 1997, Ramachandran & Hirstein 1999, etc).

Jennie

I don't see why esthetic sensibilities would not be adaptive though, there's certainly not any evidence that I'm aware of that it is counter-adaptive. And as the other guy said, look at the personals; people want musical people, or people with a sense of humor, or etc. I know one reason I'm with my husband is that he tells great stories.

pz

Not this again. Gould did not argue that being an adaptationist meant you believed "every aspect of our biology is adaptive", even though there are extremists who do seem to go that far. Adaptationists instead think that only adaptive features are interesting or significant. There is a difference.

They also have a fondness for caricaturing Gould's term into something ridiculous, so that they can safely state that they are not an adaptationist.

God Fearing Atheist

That certainly seems like what he's saying, pz. Consider from the link above:

"But the advocates of evolutionary psychology proceed in the opposite direction by twisting the observation that the behavior of modern humans may not necessarily have adaptive value into an even more dogmatic, and even less scientifically testable, panadaptationist claim. Evolutionary universals may not be adaptive now, they say, but such behaviors must have arisen as adaptations in the different ancestral environment of life as small bands of hunter-gatherers on the African savannas--for evolutionary theory "means" a search for adaptive origins."

Such behaviors "must have arisen"? Not only do evolutionary psychologists not do this in their research, they *explicitly disavow such an approach*.

Im terribly sorry to hijack the thread this way.

EDIT: I just remembered this stinker from Alas, Poor Darwin: Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology. It seems the "internal error of adaptationism arises from a failure to recognize that even the strictest operation of pure natural selection builds organisms full of nonadaptive parts and behaviors." (123) Goodness me! Way to tackle that strawman, Gould!

-GFA

God Fearing Atheist

Thats certainly possible, Jennie, and has been argued.

I just dont know if its as good an explaination as the other.

-GFA

keyser_soze

Where'd he go?

p.s. oo, man, GREAT WORK!!

paul30

Moot points:

1. Why do male mammals have nipples? (OK platypuses and echndna do not)

2. Why do human beings have vestigial things like the appendix and coccyx?