Evolution and humans: big brain or concept first? (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, June 29, 2017, 13:41 (2702 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: (under “big brain size or use") Habilis did not know what it did not know.

dhw: Obviously. But habilis came up with a new idea (a spear), and then its brain had to expand in order to implement the idea.

DAVID: Hand stone tools, not spears for habilis. Hand stone tools simply rewired the habilis brain as in Indian women reading with our brain. You are totally inconsistent.

My mistake. Thank you. Habilis came up with a new idea (stone tools, not spears). How the heck do you know that these simply rewired the brain? How many of our fellow animals invent and manufacture tools, no matter how primitive? This was a huge mental step forward in evolution, and it required a physical leap in order to manufacture and use the tools. You say God enlarged their brain first, and then they thought of making tools. Please explain how you know that the effort to implement the new concept of tool-making was not the cause of their brain enlargement, or that the effort to swim was not the cause of legs changing to flippers, or that the effort to walk on land was not the cause of fins changing to legs.

The effort to read caused rewiring because the brain had already long since reached its optimum size. There has to be a limit to brain growth. Before it reached its optimum size, the brain expanded in response to the effort to implement new concepts.