Claim CB303:
The brain is too complex to have evolved.
Source:
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1985. Life--How Did It Get Here?
Brooklyn, NY,
168-178.
Brown, Walt, 1995. In the Beginning: Compelling evidence for creation
and the Flood. Phoenix, AZ: Center for Scientific Creation, p. 7.
Response:
- This is an argument from incredulity.
Complexity only
indicates that something is difficult to understand, not that it is
difficult to evolve. Evolution, unlike design, is not constrained by
requirements for simplicity.
- Brains come in many different sizes. The sea slug (Aplysia), for
example, has only about 20,000 neurons in its entire nervous system.
Coelenterates have an even simpler nervous system consisting of a nerve
net and nothing even close to a brain. There are innumerable
intermediate forms of brains between humans and brainless animals;
gradual evolution of the brain presents no challenge.
Links:
Comparative Mammalian Brain Collections, n.d. Brain evolution,
http://brainmuseum.org/Evolution/
(under construction)
created 2003-7-25
