Limitations of Science?

robindch

Folks and folkesses,

Much like the debates between round-earthers and flat-earthers, germ-theorists versus and humor-theorists, LCD technology versus the fast-moving colored-tee-shirt-wearing gremlins theory of tellies and much else besides, the ongoing "debate" between creationism and evolution is controversial and important.

That's why it has its own thread.

Begone!

Zombrex

nagirrac wrote: »

I do believe we have caught a live one here, an actual person who does not understand the scientific method. Note I have chosen your psychic dogs point here which leaves me most vulnerable to your scorn but I am made of stern stuff so here goes:

The Scientific Method: 1. Pose a question, 2. Do some research on the subject and formulate a hypothesis, 3. Design and run experiments to test your hypothesis, 4. Analyze your data and draw conclusions, 5. Communicate your results.

The following is the research that Sheldrake conducted on dogs:

Question: It has long been observed that some animals have some kind of enhanced sense that is not easily explained. Is this true or not?



Hypothesis: Some animals have an enhanced sense that among many other manifestations (e.g. warning their owners of impending natural disasters) exhibits as knowing when their owners are coming home.

Experiment: Design experiments to monitor dogs while their owners are away and look for specific signs that the dog is anticipating their owner's return. In general terms this is done by videotaping the dog in its natural environment and having the owner return at random times.

Data analysis and Conclusions: Simple enough, record the number of times and the duration of time the dog sits by a door or window at the home entryway while the owner is out and when the owner is returning. Conclude whether the dog shows any indication of knowing when it's owner is returning by sitting by the window/door in anticipation.

Publish your results.

This is called science following the standard scientific method. Now for the interesting bit.

The controversy over this research centered on a dog called Jaytee who demonstrated remarkable signs of precognition. Thirty separate experiments were run. The data clearly showed that the dog spent far more time at the window when its owner was returning home than any other time (55% versus 4%) and spent a significant amount of time there compared to random vists to the window. The behavior was consistent regardless of the length of time the owner was away or when they were sent a signal to return (by beeper). The chances of this happening are 10,000:1.

The results were published and of course met with skepticism as one would expect. Richard Wiseman suggested several explanations including routine times of return all of which had been tested and eliminated by Sheldrake. Sheldrake invited Wiseman to perform tests of his own.

This is where it gets really interesting

Wiseman ran his own tests following Sheldrake's method and ran 4 experiments, three at the same location and one at a separate location. His data was identical to Sheldrake's for the first 3 experiments, actually better, the fourth was inconclusive. However he discounted all three experiments due to the dog going to the window for "no apparent reason" during the experiment. He discounted all 30 of Sheldrake's experiments for the same reason i.e. the 4% of the time that the dog spent by the window invalidated the experiment regardless of the fact that the dog was at the window for an extended period during the owners return 55% of the time.

Sheldrake's claims were as follows: 1) the dog spent significantly more time at the window when the owner was returning home than any other time, and 2) The difference is statistically significant. Wiseman's data showed the same thing but Wiseman chose to apply an arbitrary criterion to ignore the data based on the dog going to the window at any other time for no apparent reason, even momentarily. This completely ignored the fact that the dog sat for an average of 5 minutes at the window while the owner was returning.

In this example I am making no claims for physic dogs, just pointing out that Sheldrake's work followed the scientific method and therefore is science. Furthermore, Wiseman's work replicated Sheldrake's work and also was science even though he came to a different conclusion, so we have a difference of opinion between researchers, hardly unusual in science. I will leave it to you to decide whether Wiseman's approach to the data was "honest" or not.

My opinion on Sheldrake's research and my own observations and the observations of others I know who have spent a lot of time around animals is that animals generally are more intuitive than most humans. You may choose to call intuition magic if you insist.

He is calling the assertion that it is pre-cognition magic. Psychic ability is a why claim, not a what claim. It explains why something happens, it doesn't merely detail the circumstance of the observed phenomena.

As you have described it there is nothing in Sheldrake's experiment to suggest pre-cognition (I haven't read the experiment but if there is can you skipped over it in your summary). Pre-cognition has not been modelled in the experiment. So why is the term being used and how is this some how support for something paranormal going on? What justification is there for even suggesting that there is anything psychic going on? This research hasn't got past the bit of discovering there actually is a phenomena taking place, it is not past the first post in scientific terms. The next stage is a hypothesis as to why it is happening.

This is a common problem with paranormal "research". Discovering that something is happening is not the same as explaining why it is happening, and merely showing it does happen is not license to start inserting any old explanation. You aren't finished at this stage, you have barely started.

Scientists do not simply find out something is happening and then take a wild guess at why (oh the dog seemed to know the master was coming home, probably pre-cognition!). You have to model the "why" as much as the what, that is the point of science.

This is why I asked for evidence of paranormal ability that fits inside evolutionary biology. It is the why that is the important bit because claims of paranormal ability are not in the what category, they are in the why category. You don't support the why category (dogs are psychic) by simply showing evidence for the what category (dogs go to windows when their masters are coming home). That is anti-science.

For example, for years we have known that birds can fly great distances keeping the same direction and not getting lost. Fascinating to know, but not evidence for any particular explanation of how they do this. One could suppose that it is because ancient aliens build a system of GPS trackers and orbital satellites (a why explanation), but there is no more evidence supporting this from how birds behave than any other explanation. What biologists actually did was actually find out why these birds did what they did.

Where is the "why" research into psychic ability, the research that shows stuff is happening because of psychic ability, not simply showing that stuff is happening.

If there isn't any then there is nothing supporting the idea that anything psychic is happening at all other than guesses by the people supposing it is. Which is anti-science.

King Mob

nagirrac wrote: »

I do believe we have caught a live one here, an actual person who does not understand the scientific method. Note I have chosen your psychic dogs point here which leaves me most vulnerable to your scorn but I am made of stern stuff so here goes:

Long rant for little point, to defend a very silly claim.

So never mind your pathetic, dishonest dismissal of the criticisms of the experiments.
How do the dogs know that their owners are coming home?
Are they sensing the owner's thoughts? Are they seeing the future?
How come they only display this ability in conditions that allow for other explanations?

nagirrac

King Mob wrote: »

Long rant for little point, to defend a very silly claim.

So never mind your pathetic, dishonest dismissal of the criticisms of the experiments.
How do the dogs know that their owners are coming home?
Are they sensing the owner's thoughts? Are they seeing the future?
How come they only display this ability in conditions that allow for other explanations?

Glad to see you've given up on the claim that Sheldrake's work is not science.

What is a thought? Surely before deciding on the behavior of thoughts we should actually understand what they are?

You are falling into the materialistic-reductionism trap of dictating what is science and what should be studied by science. Science is the pursuit of knowledge to help us better understand the reality we live in. Irrational skeptics want to put boundaries around what science in terms of what should be studied.

Are studies into the nature of consciousness science? Are psychological studies science? Is a study showing that meditation causes lasting changes in physical properties of the brain science? Should all studies of the mind be called pseudoscience and abandoned?

King Mob

nagirrac wrote: »

Glad to see you've given up on the claim that Sheldrake's work is not science.

What is a thought? Surely before deciding on the behavior of thoughts we should actually understand what they are?

And again, avoided my points and went on a random, silly point.

And you wonder why cranks like yourself aren't taken seriously....

nagirrac

Zombrex wrote: »

He is calling the assertion that it is pre-cognition magic. Psychic ability is a why claim, not a what claim. It explains why something happens, it doesn't merely detail the circumstance of the observed phenomena.

If there isn't any then there is nothing supporting the idea that anything psychic is happening at all other than guesses by the people supposing it is. Which is anti-science.

You are falling into the same materialistic-reductionism trap that King Mob is. Science is the pursuit of knowledge and isn't limited by what a materialistic-reductionist thinks it should be limited by.

When asked recently about man's disbelief in flying machines 300 years ago a reputable scientist responded "well, we didn't know the laws of physics so well 300 years ago". Did he not realize the irony in his statement that people will be saying the same about him 300 years from now? Who would have thought that birds use the earth's magnetic fields to navigate? If birds have this ability then perhaps humans had the same ability at least at some point, seeing as 50 other species appear to have the ability.

In terms of evolutionary biology navigation using the earth's magnetic field has clearly evolved, it would actually seem counterintuitive that humans would not have had this ability at least at some point in their evolution? Are you familiar with the aboriginal term "dreamtime", this from a people who it is currently believed migrated to Australia 150,000 years ago. There is a wonderful book by Robert Lawlor (Awakening of the Aboriginal Dreamtime) which is fascinating in terms of what these early human cultures believed, and they migrated from Asia so go back much further in history.

I hate bringing up the quantum entanglement example because people seem to think I am connecting it to psi research which I am not. The "how" in quantum entanglement is understood by science, the "why" is not.
What possible purpose does quantum entanglement serve unless it is core to our actual reality. The work of Amoroso, which is very compelling, describes an 8 dimensional universe. The mind boggles at what is possible in an 8 dimensional universe.

Science should not be bounded by what the majority of current researchers or those providing funding for research think should be studied.

nagirrac

King Mob wrote: »

And again, avoided my points and went on a random, silly point.

And you wonder why cranks like yourself aren't taken seriously....

You are the one that consistently ignores questions that you cannot answer, on this and other threads. If it doesn't fit into your narrow world view then you choose to ignore it.

I am taken very seriously in my professional community I assure you.

King Mob

nagirrac wrote: »

You are the one that consistently ignores questions that you cannot answer, on this and other threads. If it doesn't fit into your narrow world view then you choose to ignore it.

I am taken very seriously in my professional community I assure you.

Lol, somehow I doubt that very much....

nagirrac

King Mob wrote: »

Lol, somehow I doubt that very much....

If you utilized your renowned telepathic skills you could confirm it yourself!

endacl

mickrock wrote: »

I don't have any explanation for the origin of species.

Well, ain't that the truth!

There is a widely accepted one available for your use however. Feel free. I've been using it for ages, and its yet to let me down.

Humbert Humbert

mickrock wrote: »

If evolution is just gradual change from a common ancestor the fossil record should reflect this but it doesn't.

Although there are many fossils of fully formed species, there is a lack of transitional, intermediate forms.

ALL species are transitional, moran. :pac:

endacl

Humbert Humbert wrote: »

ALL species are transitional, moran. :pac:

What?!?

Even homo sapiens?!? Are we not special? Some kind of pinnacle?


Post 1000! Yay!

sephir0th

endacl wrote: »

What?!?
Even homo sapiens?!? Are we not special? Some kind of pinnacle?
!

Yes, we are.

mickrock

endacl wrote: »

There is a widely accepted one available for your use however. Feel free. I've been using it for ages, and its yet to let me down.

How have you been using Darwinism and how would you know whether or not it had let you down?

mickrock

Humbert Humbert wrote: »

ALL species are transitional, moran. :pac:

Surely that's just specious nonsense.

And don't call me moran.

endacl

mickrock wrote: »

How have you been using Darwinism and how would you know whether or not it had let you down?

To feel superior when bantering on online forums with people who don't accept it, or refuse to understand it.

There! It just worked again! Never fails!

mickrock

endacl wrote: »

To feel superior when bantering on online forums with people who don't accept it, or refuse to understand it.

There! It just worked again! Never fails!

Oh right!

And there I was thinking you were a microbiologist or something.

Zombrex

nagirrac wrote: »

You are falling into the same materialistic-reductionism trap that King Mob is. Science is the pursuit of knowledge and isn't limited by what a materialistic-reductionist thinks it should be limited by.

Science is limited by the scientific method. The experiment you detailed established that in some cases there is a statistically significant number of times a dog goes to the window or door when their master is about to arrive home.

Or to put it another way, this experiment does little beyond establish that there is actually a phenomena here, it isn't a mistake of human observation. For most science this isn't necessary, you don't need to work out an experiment in order to check whether that big ball of fire in the sky is actually a thing worth exploring, not a trick of the mind. It says nothing of course for what that big ball of fire actually is.

You are falling into the trap of confusing scientifically supported conclusions with non-scientific supported conclusions.

nagirrac wrote: »

When asked recently about man's disbelief in flying machines 300 years ago a reputable scientist responded "well, we didn't know the laws of physics so well 300 years ago". Did he not realize the irony in his statement that people will be saying the same about him 300 years from now? Who would have thought that birds use the earth's magnetic fields to navigate? If birds have this ability then perhaps humans had the same ability at least at some point, seeing as 50 other species appear to have the ability.

Humans are not observed to behave in the manner birds do, nor have we ever detected this ability in humans or any biological organ that achieve it.

So what are you basing that "perhaps" on? Wishful thinking? It should not be necessary to explain why that is not science.

nagirrac wrote: »

In terms of evolutionary biology navigation using the earth's magnetic field has clearly evolved, it would actually seem counterintuitive that humans would not have had this ability at least at some point in their evolution?

That statement shows a rather spectacular misunderstanding of evolution.

Why would humans have evolved navigation by the earth's magnetic field? What evolutionary advantage would that have provided our ancestors who were confined to small areas of land?

nagirrac wrote: »

Are you familiar with the aboriginal term "dreamtime", this from a people who it is currently believed migrated to Australia 150,000 years ago. There is a wonderful book by Robert Lawlor (Awakening of the Aboriginal Dreamtime) which is fascinating in terms of what these early human cultures believed, and they migrated from Asia so go back much further in history.

And ... ? What does a creation myth have to do with science?

nagirrac wrote: »

I hate bringing up the quantum entanglement example because people seem to think I am connecting it to psi research which I am not. The "how" in quantum entanglement is understood by science, the "why" is not.
What possible purpose does quantum entanglement serve unless it is core to our actual reality. The work of Amoroso, which is very compelling, describes an 8 dimensional universe. The mind boggles at what is possible in an 8 dimensional universe.

You talk about this stuff as if you are reading a comic book. This is not X-Men. this isn't scientific discover X allows anything we can imagine to happen without having to worry about how it actually works. A random mutation in human DNA doesn't turn someone in to a diamond creature that can read minds :rolleyes:

If the human brain had evolved a way to entangle electrons we would know about it given what we already know about the energy required to achieve such a thing. Can you point to the organ in the human brain that does this please? Or that we think might do this and which we are currently testing to see if it does?

nagirrac wrote: »

Science should not be bounded by what the majority of current researchers or those providing funding for research think should be studied.

Study what you like. But don't make up explanations that have no scientific support, or use holes in our current understanding to insert any old guess as if that hole some how justifies this.

Zombrex

mickrock wrote: »

Oh right!

And there I was thinking you were a microbiologist or something.

Are you a microbiologist?

kiffer

Insults aside... all species are transitional species...
It's a nice sound bite but has one flaw.
Some species are not transitional, some are dead ends, or rather run into dead ends. Like the dodo.

The idea that some people have regarding what a transitional species would look like (crocoduck) is clearly willfully stupid.

endacl

mickrock wrote: »

Oh right!

And there I was thinking you were a microbiologist or something.

Nope. Musician/teacher. This stuff is so self-evident and straightforward that you don't need to be a scienticianologist to understand it.

nagirrac

Zombrex wrote: »

What evolutionary advantage would that have provided our ancestors who were confined to small areas of land?

Confined to small areas of land??
It is commonly accepted that that aboriginal people migrated from Asia to Australia at a time when the relevant land masses were connected. They travelled through what we know of today as Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. Its a bit of a long way on foot and yes it's speculation to say what migration mechanism they used but it's probably not that different to the migration mechanism aboriginal people exhibit and describe which allows them go walkabout.

How birds and other species navigate is known to utilize the earth's magnetic field, how they do it is another matter given how weak this field is. The latest research I have read suggests birds see magnetic fields and there is a nerological link between the eyes and a region in the brain to do with migration. I would imagine this brain region is also in humans given how much of our brain is evolved from earlier species.

Magnetoception has been observed in everything from bacteria to turtles, birds and fish, a better question surely is why would we not have it, even if we don't currently use it. Considering we were fish at some stage, we had it then clearly. Sounds like your understanding of how the brain evolved is not so spectacular.

Zombrex

nagirrac wrote: »

Confined to small areas of land??
It is commonly accepted that that aboriginal people migrated from Asia to Australia at a time when the relevant land masses were connected. They travelled through what we know of today as Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. Its a bit of a long way on foot and yes it's speculation to say what migration mechanism they used but it's probably not that different to the migration mechanism aboriginal people exhibit and describe which allows them go walkabout.

The migration out of Africa, through Asia to Australia took thousands of years. The individual human tribes did not walk hundreds of miles each year as would happen in bird migrations. Species of birds do such distances every year.

They also have detectable parts of their brains that pick up magnetic fields.

nagirrac wrote: »

How birds and other species navigate is known to utilize the earth's magnetic field, how they do it is another matter given how weak this field is. The latest research I have read suggests birds see magnetic fields and there is a nerological link between the eyes and a region in the brain to do with migration. I would imagine this brain region is also in humans given how much of our brain is evolved from earlier species.

Why would you imagine that given that the shared ancestor between birds and humans existed millions of years ago?

nagirrac wrote: »

Magnetoception has been observed in everything from bacteria to turtles, birds and fish, a better question surely is why would we not have it, even if we don't currently use it. Considering we were fish at some stage, we had it then clearly. Sounds like your understanding of how the brain evolved is not so spectacular.

Explain why evolution would continue to select a trait we don't use, in an evolutionary context (you are aware I assume that evolution is the selection of adaptations that prove advantageous to the organism in terms of surviving long enough to reproduce).

nagirrac

Zombrex wrote: »

Explain why evolution would continue to select a trait we don't use, in an evolutionary context (you are aware I assume that evolution is the selection of adaptations that prove advantageous to the organism in terms of surviving long enough to reproduce).

Way do we have an appendix then? It has no known advantage to us similar to other physical traits. What value has the coccyx other than sometimes being a pain in ths ass? I would assume we have had a coccyx as a species for a while, a million years perhaps.

As for Magnetoception, it is a relatively new field. The idea that animals migrate using the earth's magnetic field has gone from ridicule (pseudo-science) to well established fact (science) in less than one generation. There is no agreed established mechanism yet so its a bit early for conclusions.

I am not saying humans use the migrating section of their brain in modern times, but why is it so unreasonable it was not used say 10,000 or 50,000 years ago? There are lots of areas of the brain that are evolved from prior species that we don't use. Humans in many ways would be a much better species if we de-evolved some of the traits we currently have, but things seem to move very slowly in evolution.

Sycopat

nagirrac wrote: »

Confined to small areas of land??
It is commonly accepted that that aboriginal people migrated from Asia to Australia at a time when the relevant land masses were connected. They travelled through what we know of today as Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. Its a bit of a long way on foot and yes it's speculation to say what migration mechanism they used but it's probably not that different to the migration mechanism aboriginal people exhibit and describe which allows them go walkabout.

In a single year or lifetime, humans live in pretty small area's of land. You seem to be attributing a mysticality to the same slow and irregular (relative to an annually migratory birds) process of migration by which humans would have gotten to everywhere humans have been found: Picking a direction and walking.

Spare a thought for the poor native south americans!

IIRC humans arose after south america split from africa, so they had to walk the whole way to russia, cross the north pole then walk the whole way from alaska to south america.

How birds and other species navigate is known to utilize the earth's magnetic field, how they do it is another matter given how weak this field is. The latest research I have read suggests birds see magnetic fields and there is a nerological link between the eyes and a region in the brain to do with migration. I would imagine this brain region is also in humans given how much of our brain is evolved from earlier species.

The regions of our brain have common ancestry, that doesn't mean we use them for the same things anymore than it means I can use my arms as wings.

The latest things I've read indicate the ability is based in their beaks btw.

Magnetoception has been observed in everything from bacteria to turtles, birds and fish, a better question surely is why would we not have it, even if we don't currently use it. Considering we were fish at some stage, we had it then clearly. Sounds like your understanding of how the brain evolved is not so spectacular.

There's no such thing as a fish.

Zombrex

nagirrac wrote: »

Way do we have an appendix then? It has no known advantage to us similar to other physical traits. What value has the coccyx other than sometimes being a pain in ths ass? I would assume we have had a coccyx as a species for a while, a million years perhaps.

You didn't answer the question, you just deflected. You are supposing that because fish have the ability to detect a magnetic field humans might do as well despite us no ever using it. You will notice we also don't have flippers and gills.

nagirrac wrote: »

As for Magnetoception, it is a relatively new field. The idea that animals migrate using the earth's magnetic field has gone from ridicule (pseudo-science) to well established fact (science) in less than one generation. There is no agreed established mechanism yet so its a bit early for conclusions.

They why are you making conclusions?

Humans do not have this ability. I know, I'm a human. You are a human, can you navigate by detecting a magnetic field?

nagirrac wrote: »

I am not saying humans use the migrating section of their brain in modern times, but why is it so unreasonable it was not used say 10,000 or 50,000 years ago?

If we don't have it now, why suppose we had it at all back then?

nagirrac wrote: »

There are lots of areas of the brain that are evolved from prior species that we don't use.

There are? Such as?

nagirrac wrote: »

Humans in many ways would be a much better species if we de-evolved some of the traits we currently have, but things seem to move very slowly in evolution.

Evolution is the adaptation to the environment through the selection of advantageous traits. You cannot "de-evolve", you can only die without reproducing.

Humbert Humbert

kiffer wrote: »

Insults aside... all species are transitional species...
It's a nice sound bite but has one flaw.
Some species are not transitional, some are dead ends, or rather run into dead ends. Like the dodo.

But they were still evolving right up to the point they went extinct.

Improbable

nagirrac wrote: »

Way do we have an appendix then? It has no known advantage to us similar to other physical traits. What value has the coccyx other than sometimes being a pain in ths ass? I would assume we have had a coccyx as a species for a while, a million years perhaps.

There are possible secondary functions of vestigial organs that have lost their primary purpose which can keep them from being further weeded out by natural selection. In the case of the coccyx, there are tendons and muscles which connect to it, meaning that if it were to degrade further, it may result in loss of function. As for the appendix, there are proposed purposes for why we still have one, which you can read about here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermiform_appendix#Possible_functions

nagirrac wrote: »

I am not saying humans use the migrating section of their brain in modern times, but why is it so unreasonable it was not used say 10,000 or 50,000 years ago? There are lots of areas of the brain that are evolved from prior species that we don't use. Humans in many ways would be a much better species if we de-evolved some of the traits we currently have, but things seem to move very slowly in evolution.

Can we conclusively prove that no individual from a homo species has ever had magnetoception? No. But that does not mean that believing in human magnetoception is a reasonable position to take. Not until it is demonstrated scientifically. As for the portions of the brain that we don't use, I'm not quite sure what you mean. Could you elaborate by naming what parts of the brain you mean?

nagirrac

Zombrex wrote: »

If we don't have it now, why suppose we had it at all back then?
Evolution is the adaptation to the environment through the selection of advantageous traits. You cannot "de-evolve", you can only die without reproducing.

Because of exaptation. The brain is an incredibly complex organ and we are only beginning to understand how it evolved to the currrent human brain and how it continues to evolve. It is very difficult in studying the brain to distinguish between what came from adaptation and exaptation as exaptation makes it difficult if not impossible to understand how our brains evolved as they did. Current utility in many cases has little implication regarding historical utility, as the brain appears to continually replace one function by another as the environment demands.

De-evolve was a poor choice of word. I know I am not explaining this well but I think you understand what I am saying or trying to say. The brain evolved initially from simple to more complex mainly by addition, not by replacement, adding new structures on top of old structures. Some of the functionality of the old structures likely remain and some has been replaced through evolution but the newer structures overrule the older ones. The more recent structures are very plastic and neural pathways are modifed during develoment depending on the environment and continue to develop through our lifetime.

The evidence seems to suggest that the brain does not develop according to a genetic blueprint but starts out as a very complex neural state and then develops to a more specific state via a selection mechanism during early development that adapts to its environment. A bit like a processor that has all the hardware but little software to begin with and gets loaded up as development proceeds.

If we had the ability to navigate by the same mechanism used by many other species it could well be that this ability has been replaced by some other function as we evolved, i.e. "use it or lose it". It does not sound that daft when you consider the brain is constantly rewiring itself as it adapts to the environment during our lifetime.

nagirrac

Improbable wrote: »

Can we conclusively prove that no individual from a homo species has ever had magnetoception? No. But that does not mean that believing in human magnetoception is a reasonable position to take. Not until it is demonstrated scientifically. As for the portions of the brain that we don't use, I'm not quite sure what you mean. Could you elaborate by naming what parts of the brain you mean?

As far as "portions of the brain that we don't use that evolved from prior species".. I wrote that horribly and it did not convey what I was trying to say properly. What I was trying to convey was we have older parts of our brain (reptilian and mammalian) that resemble prior species' brains physically but function differently due to exaptation. We don't know how our brains evolved but we can deduce that through exaptation reptilian functions and older mammalian functions ceased in our brains and those areas were used for some other function based on our adaption to our environment. Obviously we use all of our brains either consciously or subconsciously.

I don't know how we could ever uncover evidence for how earlier versions of human's brains worked. We are having a hard enough time determining how our current brains work . I have found research however that suggests magnetoception in humans at Steven Reppert's lab at the University of Massachusetts (www.reppertlab.org). Apparently we have the same protein (cryptochrome) in our retinas that not alone is sensitive to magnetic fields but that restored the ability of fruit flies to sense magnetic fields when our protein was spliced into the fruit flies. So maybe I am not as batty as I sound at times .