Brain expansion: different theories about rapid expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, August 28, 2020, 22:24 (1546 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: We can only use what we know. All we see is brain shrinkage from the complexification process. Your expansion addition to the process is a hopeful extrapolation of pure supposition. I believe God speciates for the real reason that new designs are so complicated. Real theories should involve a range of related considerations, not a unipolar jump in judgement.

dhw: I don’t understand your refusal to acknowledge the above: that what we see is “complexification, reshaping, shrinkage and minor expansion IN RESPONSE to new requirements.” We have agreed that shrinkage is simply the result of cells becoming redundant owing to the enhanced efficiency of complexification. I agree with you completely that real theories should involve a range of related considerations. I have just given you the related considerations of how the brain works now, bearing in mind that pre-sapiens brains also involved complexification and different shapes. You ignore all these related considerations and make a “unipolar jump”: an unknown and eternal and all-powerful intelligence we call “God” must have done it.

DAVID: My causes of my jump are listed in a book I wrote. The brain we are discussing is the most complex organ appearing out of an evolutionary process, and obviously had to be designed. Your narrow considerations do not tell a whole story. Consider the preponderance of evidence. I have, but you seem not to leave your narrow bias.

Our subject is the expansion of the brain. I am not questioning its complexity. Nobody knows why the brain expanded, and so nobody’s considerations can tell the “whole story”. Why do the above considerations (bolded) of how the modern brain responds to new requirements count as narrow bias, and what is the preponderance of evidence to support your belief that your God steps in to perform brain, skull and pelvis operations on groups of (presumably sleeping) hominins and homos? Why could the system he devised for autonomous complexification etc. (i.e. with no divine involvement) not have also engineered pre-sapiens expansion?

Engineering pre-sapiens expansion means, in my mind, the obvious enlargement but also the designer's anticipation of how that enlargement will be used, as the users learn to used it. But think about it, God does not dictate to use it or how to put our brain to work. God did not tell use to invent cricket or other games. We invented the piano, He didn't. Our brain has the adaptability to react to any and all physical and mental and emotional demands we place on it. It is God given. I except no Darwinian-lite theory such as yours that through unmet natural demands enlargement is somehow driven. All hominin/home enlargements are in anticipation of what might be achieved/accomplished by the new species..