Evolution: more genomic evidence of pre-planning (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, March 25, 2021, 12:12 (1337 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You still cannot explain the stasis issue. New artifacts always follow brain enlargements.

dhw: I am proposing that the brain enlarges through the process of producing the new artefacts. Just as the modern brain complexifies through the process of learning new skills. That has nothing to do with stasis, which is simply the period when there are no new requirements.

DAVID: For sapiens the stasis period was +/-300,000 years. God's enlargement in anticipation of use is a much more obvious explanation.

Why are you repeating this instead of dealing with the point at issue? We know for a fact that brains change IN RESPONSE to new requirements. Why, then, is it obvious that your God changed homo brains before they were able to make the new artefacts?

dhw: […] since you are now trying once more to minimise the importance of new artefacts etc., please tell us what changes you were thinking of when you said that there had been “major changes in lifestyle” if you were not referring to the above list [i.e. weapons. clothing, use of fire etc.].

DAVID: They were major advances for the time, but did not require much use of the brain, compared to how we use our brain now.

Why are you making this comparison? If they were major advances at the time, and the brain was so much smaller at the time, it is perfectly logical that the major advances would have required a greater capacity. Why do you mention the artefacts at all if there is no connection with the expansion? If your God exists, then either he decided in advance that the brain required more cells in order to produce what was then a major advance, or he had designed a mechanism enabling the brain cells to do their own expanding, just as you believe he set up a mechanism for them to do their own complexifying. Either way, we now at last have your agreement that major advances required brain expansion, as opposed to your earlier claim that the advances were too tiny.

DAVID: Why does 200 cc from erectus to sapiens make such a difference? The time to learn to use the available brain with a much more sophisticated pre-frontal area.

You keep trying to limit attention to sapiens. The process was ongoing: each major advance required expansion, which was always followed by stasis until there were new requirements. The same applies to sapiens. But instead of our post-stasis new ideas generating additional cells (probably because that would have entailed major changes to the anatomy), enhanced complexification took over from expansion – and its efficiency resulted in a degree of shrinkage. You still haven’t provided one single reason for rejecting this hypothesis.

SURVIVAL
dhw: […] We do not need to use the term “driving force” at all, and the only reason why we are having this discussion is your obsessive opposition to Darwin, apart from his theory of common descent.

DAVID: Survival of the fittest is a weak approach, a nice logical supposition.

dhw: Why do you think a logical supposition is a weak approach? Do you or do you not agree that the purpose of evolutionary adaptation and innovation – whether designed by your God or not – is to improve organisms’ chances of survival?

DAVID: That does not explain the advance of humans beyond apes/monkeys. Those primates survived without any problems until the past 100 years when we began to overrun them. All we have gotten from our brains in a much better lifestyle, since survival was no issue. Please answer that issue.

You launched your usual attack on Darwin, and now when I ask a straightforward question in defence of his theory that evolutionary adaptation and innovation is motivated by the effort to improve chances of survival, you skip to the uniqueness of sapiens. Sapiens has not changed into another species! This is a totally different subject. You said yourself that there was no change in lifestyle between erectus and early sapiens, so initially survival would have been the reason for the final expansion. As for the breakaway from apes, I keep proposing (and you keep forgetting) that it may have occurred when local conditions made it necessary or advisable for a group to descend from the trees. Other apes didn’t need to – they were surviving perfectly well, and have continued to do so. Subsequent species of hominins and homos went their own way, meeting new needs which required additional brain capacity etc. etc. Now please tell us whether the adaptations and innovations that caused speciation did or did not serve the purpose of improving organisms’ chances of survival.