Brain expansion: different theories about rapid expansion (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, August 21, 2020, 07:58 (1336 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: So although you believe your God provided a mechanism whereby the sapiens brain complexified, reshaped itself, shrank and produced minor expansions without him lifting a metaphorical finger, you won’t even consider the mere possibility that the same mechanism might have produced major enlargements through the same process of responding to new requirements. The only possible theory for you is that periodically your God stepped in to perform an operation on the heads of a few hominids and homos.

DAVID: My presentation of molecule's errors makes it imperative that God controls all evolutionary genome advances. And later: The existence of errors requires an editor.

Your error-strewn presentation of errors is dealt with on the relevant thread, and is still such a confused and confusing jumble of contradictions that I don’t know why you’ve mentioned it here. Nothing makes it “imperative that God controls all evolutionary genome advances” except your rigid belief that your God controls all evolutionary genome advances! An editor does not design anything. An editor only “controls” something that has already been brought into existence by someone or something else – in this case, chance. What “errors” do you think your God was correcting when he stepped in one night to expand the brains, skulls and pelvises of a group of Moroccans? In any case, you have categorically stated that your God is not involved in sapiens complexification, the changing brain shape, shrinkage and minor expansions. And so you still haven’t given me a single reason why the same autonomous (perhaps God-given) mechanism cannot possibly be responsible for pre-sapiens expansions.

dhw: And yes of course it’s “MIGHT”. The theory itself is a might, and God’s existence and mode of operation are also a might. That is not in order to maintain my balance on the fence. I am on the fence because I don’t KNOW anything for sure, and have not found any theory that convinces me strongly enough to have faith in it.

DAVID: You have faith in design. Remember!

I would not call it faith. I have three separate theories concerning the origin of life’s complexities: 1) a designing God; 2) chance as the power that first assembled the intelligent mechanism which over billions of years has designed all of life’s complexities; 3) intelligence as an innate quality of materials (panpsychism) which eventually produced the mechanism that has designed all of life’s complexities. I do not have faith in any of these theories.