Evolution and humans: all over Africa (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, May 04, 2018, 18:58 (2393 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Friday, May 04, 2018, 19:07

DAVID: As before, God speciates and creates a 'next' species with more pre-frontal, frontal size and complexity. It then takes time to learn how to use the new size. The contemporary artifacts prove the point.

dhw: Please enlighten me. Did the artefacts appear when the new species appeared, or was there a sapiens-like “gap” BEFORE the artefacts appeared? If nothing new happens for hundreds of thousands of years after the arrival of the new brain, please tell us what uses of the new brain are being “learned”, and how do you think the “learning” takes place if it produces nothing?

I don't think the artifacts are in any way an immediate result of the enlarged frontal lobes. We have to interpret past evolution by studying what we see now. Sapiens took a long time to really use their new brain, and it must have been the same in past stages of evolution of hominins. In survival living, it must be one little improvement at a time invented by an unusually thoughtful person, as you have discussed as below.

DAVID: Survival skills are limited in brain requirements, since the lifestyle is so simple. Only the current sapiens brain could have created our very complex civilization, which has erupted in the past few hundred years. And the brain shrunk by 150cc, when your proposal of a conceptual demand for explosion seams to ask for more results earlier.

dhw: All agreed except that my proposal does no such thing. It EXPLAINS why there are long periods of stasis: new concept (e.g. spear) realized, no need for further expansion until next genius comes up with next major concept. Invention comes through special minds. But it may be triggered by opportunities offered by environmental change, as proposed in the article. I keep suggesting that shrinkage was due to the efficiency of complexification, and I thought you agreed.

I do agree to long periods of stasis but I suspect complexification can have occurred in past stages of hominin evolution. I absolutely disagree with your push concept of brain growth. It is pure Darwinism.

dhw: We know there was a “delay” or “gap” at all levels, including sapiens. I have offered you an explanation above. Please point out any logical flaws in this hypothesis and give us your own explanation for the gaps at all levels.
DAVID: Second request for same answer as above. Remember God starts it. You seek a natural chance mechanism a 'la Darwin to explode brains. And you answer God might have doesn't get around my objection.

dhw: If there is a God, he will certainly have started it. But instead of starting it by dabbling with somebody’s brain, he could have started it by giving all brains the ability to complexify and/or expand in response to the activities of the s/s/c (regardless of its source). There is no chance mechanism if your God created it, this has nothing to do with Darwin, and it seems that the only “logical flaw” you can find is that my theistic hypothesis is not yours.

Logical thought is a series of conclusions based on the initial starting points being accepted. I don't agree at all with your initial proposals as to why the brain grew. But if accepted you have proceeded logically. What is not theistic in your thinking is that a larger b rain demands a larger brain pan in a larger skull and changes in the mother's brain canal. The smaller brain cannot tell the other parts what to do, especially the mother's pelvis. Only God can orchestrate all the moving parts.