Senior Expert
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 8,177
Netherlands
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Did you ever think that if bird's brains were evolving that rapidly (in the context of random mutations), that we would see birds in confusion, or absolutely mentally retarded, or unable to function normally, more than we would see these 'good' behaviors being evolved? You guys seem to forget that brains have the wonderful ability to learn, and that this doesn't have anything to do with evolution.
What are you trying to say?
There are definately retarded birds, and they have a very small chance of survival, it's not only obvious, it's observable too. Syndroms, similar to the Syndrom of Down, appear amongst animals too.
Your so caught up in your own thoughts here, that you seem to have missed a lot of points I made. Anyways, YES, the brain's development, like I said already, can be apart from physical evolution. It's not like a mutation affecting a toe's growth suddenly makes the brain's development go nuts! You 'attacked' something I never stated, nor did anyone else. A mutation could cause the brain to be able to learn more or less, intelligence. But mutations can also destroy/change information, the pre-programmed behavior parts.
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Evolution explains this with mutations or gene shift? Mutations need not cause this. When I'm getting trained on how to flip burgers at McDonald's, is it because my brain is mutating? Or do I just have the natural intelligence capacity to learn how to do my job?
That capacity can change too because of mutations, I already adressed this when replying to Dan's questions earlier. Behavior and physical evolution are only indirectly linked. Off course a creature needs to have the capacity to be able to learn to cope with it's body effected by mutations.
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I hope everyone caught what happened here. In order to give a rational explanation of how this relationship could relate to evolution he had to talk about the worm losing genetic data or specificity. That cracks me up.
That's because you believe in creationism. 
Laughing away my argument of the animal losing genetic data might be tempting for you, we all know that and feel very sorry for you too. 
Symbiotic relationships have to grow, they can not be instantly there at all. We all know creatures doesn't simply *poof* appear, they need to be born first, and even before that some parents need to go nuts, or some other method of reproduction has to take place. Symbiotic or not fully dependant on eachother, even those relationships would need to grow by means of evolution. Therefore I came up with the 'lost genetic data/mutation' explanation indeed. It's still a chicken and egg 'who was first' kind of thing, as in who adapted to who, but I'm confident the most rational explanation would be the one I've stated before.
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This is a copout if I ever saw one. The ability for the octopus is only amazing from the perspective of intelligence. Actually, its pretty amazing either way, but it comes with its own set of problems that I won't address here.
Which set of problems? Intelligence-wise, it's just a matter of the species who can use it's physical abilities best, and who survives and will pass on it's genetic data. I don't see how that can be problematic. Even if it would require an amount of intelligence, or instinct or reflexes or whatever, the creatures in the past who were able to use their abilities the best would survive. Yes, mutations could have influenced this, why not?
Not every lion can hunt super efficient, there brain might not be up for the task. Mutated or not, if he's not able to catch enough preys to survive, selection will take place.
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Ok, you're right, scientists are wrong. You got me there.
Unfortunately for you, you can't claim this is speculation. This is real, observable, stuff. We don't understand it yet, but we know it has a purpose. A reason for existing, if you will (most of it).
The only thing observable, are the repeating patterns. That says exactly nothing about it's purpose, at least at the moment. Only the fact that there have been patterns found in junk dna, might suggest it's more than just junk.
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I hope not, because nests are preparation for the eggs. Certainly they weren't even alive when the nest was built. So this would probably be an example of pre-programmed bahavior.
Yes, so you say that baby birds never ever see the nests they grow up in to start with? Oww wait, you must be one of those people who believe there first were eggs. 
Pre-programmed, yes I do believe part of it must be pre-programmed, but I think by far most behavior is the result of trial and error and mimics. A small part would be pre-progammed instinct or the ability using logic.
Would we know how to build a house, just by knowing it's 'pre-programmed' concept? No, that's ridiculous to think. We would need to use logic, take efficient use of our environment and there would most definately be trial-and-error involved. I don't think birds building a nest goes very different, they are not robots you know.
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Because intelligence would have had to evolve.
And still there is no need for a direct link between physical evolution and the evolution of the brain. If there's a sufficient amount of intelligence, there's no 100% need for it to evolve in order to make physical new acquired features possible to use. Species who did evolve having additional intelligence, would again have a greater chance of passing on their genes.
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I'm sorry, you simply don't know this. I don't think anyone claims to know what goes on in the mind of an ant.
We know more about it then you seem to suggest. There are lots of not so complex animals simply reacting to their environment, reacting on impulses triggering the appropriate behavior. I'm not talking about what may or may not go on in the minds of those animals, I'm talking about observed behavior. There are tons of experiments done which do indicate for example worms rely heavily on trial and error behavior, otherwise they would not make the same stupid mistakes over and over again, seemingly random.
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Which goes back to its central nervous system, which is what a brain is. Although ours is more sophisticated than an ant's. You can't smell without the CNS to react to the smell, you can't walk without the inclination in the CNS to do so and the ability of the CNS to tell the body to move.
Yes, which is exactly why scientists believe those kind of basic functions were developed in a very very early stage of evolution. Just like eyes, which were at first, simply cells sensitive to light and evolved into what most species have now.
By the way, let's say a nose is there, fully functional and physically already evolved to a simple 'can smell something' body part, but there's no reaction on the impulses it gives, the nose might be neutral or not negative to a species survival. What if because of mutations the animal did become sensitive to what the nose smells? It could have been beneficial for survival because of the reaction on what it can smell, and there goes evolution again. I'm sure the nose's evolution, is as complicated as the eye's was, but it probably has started not as complex as it is now.
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Now, since monkeys are a lot closer in DNA to our 'ancestors', that means that our larger difference is filled with mutations that are neutral. In other words, if a broken down human can survive just as well, where is natural selection in all of this? This is a problem for evolutionists, but there is no disregarding the theory, so we'll just have to wait until they find a way to make the data fit the theory....again.
I'm not sure what you mean. Broken down human? Mostly we are able to do more than monkeys can do. On average we are more intelligent, we've adapted to a different environment, walking upright, stuff like that. Why should most of our different genes indicate they would have been neutral for survival? I think it's quite the contrary, those differences were positive for survival. What we have in common, that's what's either neutral or vital for survival, like specific organs or eyes or ears. That's definately the biggest part of what we have in common, our anatomy and basic structure/content. Change those and it would be negative for survival, that's why we still have very much in common.
Cheers
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