Evolution and humans: all over Africa (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, April 30, 2018, 17:58 (2397 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Because I have a different spin on the interpretation of the facts. Your underlying theory is that at any level of human evolution new thought drives the enlargement of the brain in the next species. I am emphasizing the long pause in use of the brain after it enlarged as as answer to your favorite theory.

dhw: In my hypothesis it requires a new, major stimulus to produce each jump, and I have pointed out to you that there is a long period of stasis after every enlargement (= no new, major stimulus). I suggested that one jump may have been caused by the invention of tools and weapons. We have now been offered a reason (a lasting change of climate) for sapiens ending his own "long pause", but instead of enlargement (which I suggest was no longer practicable) the result was increased complexification.

DAVID: God speciates is our difference. Your two drives, from your Darwin background is survival and improvement. I agree about improvement and I call it complexity, but our brain was not needed for survival. That is obvious from the history of other primates. Survival is the tautology of Darwin theory.

dhw: Your question about the "long pause" has been answered, and so you change the subject! My proposal is that our brain was the result of the drive for improvement, and since you agree, why do you start moaning about Darwin again? You are discussing these issues with me.

I admire your tubular vision which excludes all but the facts you like as then your theory can be made to look better. Climate is not the be all and end all of our sudden civilization in the past 10,000 years. Glaciation started two million years ago and they came and went. They did not reach into Africa where the temperatures did dip but Neanderthals and early Homos thrived in their primitive ways. They existed before this last glacial period ( which we still in to a degree because of the polar ice caps) and could have civilized in a previous pause like this one, but they didn't. The long pauses at each stage of new brain size are compatible with having to learn to use the new size, opposite to your view. And one might ask why advances in thought occurred in colder climates, Europe and China, rather than at the point of life's origin a warmer area. Does cold stimulate thought? That was a point made to me as a college kid in a course we had on 'Cultural Heritage". My point is simple. Its not just climate, but as usual in discussion about evolution, multifactorial issues to be considered.

I keep pointing out the human brain is not necessary for survival. If that is the case, where is the need or push for your favorite idea "improvement"? Other than humans who can think, what organisms wonder how they can improve? None. And bacteria support my point. The only way this happens is if there is a built-in drive for complexity, and that did not occur as a natural event, any more than the arrival of life was a natural event. Speciation requires design. It is obvious there must be a designer.