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

by dhw, Friday, March 26, 2021, 12:37 (1336 days ago) @ David Turell

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

dhw: 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?

DAVID: The best explanation is the huge brain did little new when it appeared, therefore it appeared in anticipation of use later use. Remember I believe God speciates.

Erectus’s brain expanded from approx 900cc to approx. 1200cc, and sapiens expanded to 1350cc. Sapiens’ brain did not suddenly become huge – it ended a long series of expansions, each of which I propose was brought about by new requirements and was followed by stasis (= doing little new) until the next new requirement which necessitated a new expansion. This includes the sapiens expansion, but in our case complexification took over from expansion. Please explain why it is “obvious” that this is all wrong and God must have expanded each successive brain for no immediate reason.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: But a 200 cc advance is way beyond current needs then.

How do you know?

dhw: 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.

DAVID: You keep forgetting the human brain shrank 150 cc while complexifing. My thought is past brains could complexify, but didn't shrink since there overall capacity was small.

This has nothing to do with the point I have just raised! Why are you dodging the connection between expansion and artefacts? As for shrinkage, I already answered:

dhw: 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.

DAVID: The shrinkage doesn't help your theory.

My theory doesn’t need help from shrinkage. It only requires an explanation which I have given you and which you have ignored. I agree that past brains would also have complexified and didn’t shrink because their capacity was small. Hence the logical deduction that when there were new requirements (e.g. making new artefacts) which their complexification could not cope with, expansion became necessary. Thank you for supporting my theory.

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.

dhw: You keep trying to limit attention to sapiens.

DAVID: It is the only brain we can study. [...] .

And since the only brain we can study shows that the brain changes IN RESPONSE to new requirements (though one section has expanded), I would suggest that the only brain we can study offers more support to my theory than to yours. And it is NOT the 200 cc that makes the difference, but the enhanced ability to complexify. 300,000 years later, some of the cells could even be jettisoned! You say in the next exchange, there was no initial change in lifestyle!

SURVIVAL
dhw: You launched your usual attack on Darwin,.... 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.

DAVID:: My attack is on the bastardization of his solid theory which is only common descent.

No it isn’t. You attacked his theory that the purpose of evolutionary adaptations/innovations was to improve chances of survival, but you consider that to be a “weak approach”.

DAVID: As for the expansion, it was way beyond need for survival, my point always.

And yet you agree that all expansions have coincided with major advances such as new tools and weapons, clothes, use of fire etc. […] I agree that modern sapiens has created requirements that are not directly geared to survival. That doesn't mean all expansions were not geared to survival – as illustrated by your next observation:

DAVID: Our current abilities are far beyond the needs for living a life totally in natural wilderness as erectus and early sapiens did, housing themselves in caves and wearing skins. The brain from 315,000 years ago allowed that.

Exactly. The final expansion proved adequate for all the requirements for survival. And when, 300,000 years after that final expansion, there were new requirements – whether connected with improved chances of survival or with other matters – the brain could not expand any further without creating problems for the anatomy (my proposal), and so enhanced complexification took over as the means of meeting them, as we know from research into “the only brain we can study”. You keep supporting my theory in your efforts to oppose it!