Continued misapplication of "evolution"

I received a newsletter which had the content of this blog posting.

Here's the important part of it: researchers have determined that human babies, up about age 9 months, can distinguish "faces" for other creatures. Where an adult would not be able to remember the "faces" of 6 chimpanzees (or sheep, or whatever), a baby can.

It could be that infants a) have less to remember and b) don't yet know what is important, and therefore indiscriminately remember everything. The author looks to evolution for an explanation and finds that "being able to tell animals apart led to a greater chance of survival". And "that's not really true today", because our world is more complex, and now we have to limit our focus on distinguishing human faces.

How does the ability to tell one sheep from another have any survival value? Apart from shepherds taking inventory, why would anyone care to distinguish among sheep?

Speaking of shepherds: they're all more than 9 months old, and they know their sheep. For that matter, Jane Goodall knew the chimps she studied, as individuals. Could it be that paying attention is the differentiating factor here?

When we downgrade a certain class of information (such as the details that distinguish one chimp from another), we stop retaining it, with the result that chimps start to become indistinguishable. This is not irreversible. We have the capacity to decide to shift our attention.

None of which has anything to do with evolution.

The evolutionary template continues to distract from the important point. "Humans received another gift in the evolutionary lottery, an adaptable mind [he means "brain", but that's another discussion]. The brain you get at birth is not the brain you'll end up with. A 2007 study at Oxford University found that newborn brains have almost 50% more neurons than adult brains. Babies have more raw "brain material" to work with. They get shipped with the full menu of evolutionary options, including the ability to tell monkeys apart." Why would babies come with a "full menu of evolutionary options", only to discard many of them as they mature? What is adaptive in that feature? Wouldn't it be better to come equipped with what is needed?

And how is ti adaptive for an infant to have 50% more neurons than an adult? Flip the equation: presumably, it's adaptive for an adult to have 2/3 the neurons of an infant. How is having fewer neurons is adaptive?

Now, the author is actually on to something. Jeffrey Schwartz has shown (in The Mind and The Brain) that the brain is adaptable; that the changes in the brain can be directed by the mind; and that attention is the tool used to change the brain. I fear that he hobbles his argument, and limits his ability to see, by locking himself (needlessly!) into evolutionary orthodoxy.

[Updated on 1/25/2008 to reduce combativeness.)

Worm makes ants into “berries” to entice birds

See this article.

And then ask yourself: what were the small, incremental, gradual changes that were improved the nematodes chances of survival, and resulted in them being able to make ants swell up and look like berries?

A Different View

I recently came across this article which attempts to identify why some people oppose Darwinism. I will let the article speak for itself. There is also a lively discussion linked to the article. Anybody have any thoughts or reactions to the article and the discussion?