Evolution and humans: big brain size or use (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, June 27, 2017, 15:06 (2704 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Brain growth is not from attempted conceptualization beyond the capacity of a particular sized brain.
dhw: Once again you are equivocating. It is not attempted conceptualization that would cause brain growth but attempted material implementation of new concepts. In this dualistic hypothesis, the existing brain is not capable of implementing the concept of the spear, and so it has to add to its capacity. Concept first, brain growth second, implementation third.
DAVID: Just the opposite. More complex size, then more thought capacity. You want the brain to tell itself to enlarge for thoughts it has no knowledge of! "I can't think of a spear, I'd better enlarge."

The brain, you keep telling us, is only a RECEIVER. And so according to your own beliefs, it is the independent conscious self that thinks of a spear and tells the brain to enlarge so that the body can make and use the spear. Where do you think ideas come from: your receiver brain or your conscious self? Do please answer.

DAVID: My hostility to Darwin is the world swallowed it hook line and sinker, and now Darwinists are trying to explain away gradualism. Not his fault. He didn't know any better.

And yet here you are telling us that your God produced humans by an itty-bitty process of gradual verticalization for no apparent purpose. But I agree with you that Darwin was wrong in his opposition to saltations. Perhaps, though, you should direct your hostility towards those who misrepresent Darwinism or who defend those aspects of his theory which even he might well have rejected if he had known what we know now.

DAVID: I don't know if she has religious thoughts, but her whole work smells of teleology as humans appear in their earlier forms, and previous monkey forms have minor changes with no immediate benefit, but are obviously preparatory for bipedalism.
dhw: I can’t whiff any teleology in her work, and you are simply guessing that the changes had no benefit. Malassé actually suggests that the changes may denote “conceptual and creative innovations well before homo habilis”, so you certainly can’t derive your assumption from her work.
DAVID: And who made those innovations?

The hominins!

dhw:[…] What happened to the good old saltatory method? No need to answer. I know it doesn’t make sense to you either, but in your own immortal words: “If it’s God’s method, it does not have to make sense.”
DAVID: Thank you. You have pointed out dabbling!

I have pointed out that even you can see no sense in your theory that God preprogrammed or dabbled all these different itsy-bitsy twiddles and all the hominins and all the pre-whales when all he really wanted to do was produce sapiens.