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

by David Turell , Thursday, April 08, 2021, 18:51 (1323 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: I didn’t make it up, and the point should be perfectly clear to you. There was no huge leap, so please stop insinuating that I am fiddling the figures (“unfair play”). We can now move on to function:

There was a huge leap, despite your byplay in numbers.

dhw: The IQ & brain size of Homo erectus | Pumpkin Person

https://pumpkinperson.com/2014/10/02/the-iq-brain-size-of-homo-erectus
“So near the end of their run, when Homo erectus averaged 1,186 cc….."

DAVID: Why did you leave out the rest of the paragraph?

dhw: Because the rest of the paragraph tells us that erectus advanced from 885 to 1,186, and it finishes up with a sapiens average of 1376 (taken from one particular group of people), which is not far off 1350. It simply confirms what I have just said. There is no “unfair play”.

The bold in unfair play:

According to research cited by scholar Richard Lynn, Homo erectus emerged 1.7 million years ago with an average brain size of 885 cc and by 200,000 years ago, their brains had increased to 1,186 cc. How does this compare to modern Western brains? Data from scholar J.P. Rushton shows that Caucasian enlisted men in the U.S. army have a mean cranial capacity of 1468 (Standard Deviation (SD) = 91) and for Caucasian women the mean and SD are 1284 and 90 respectively. From here it can be deduced that a sex-combined sample (that was 50% men, 50% women) would have a mean and SD of 1376 and 137 respectively.

US Army comes from all parts of the population and Caucasian women are representative of sapiens. In men: 1,468 cc-1376 cc =s 96 cc extra you blithely ignore.

dhw: I’ll have to leave it to you experts when it comes to naming which lobe does what, but it all fits in perfectly with lobes expanding throughout history as they implement what new requirements they have to meet, initially in what for us now seem rudimentary improvements. Whatever first caused the parietal expansion in sapiens would have sufficed for his way of life until the wave of new ideas and requirements resulted in enhanced complexification 90,000 years ago, and subsequently this proved so efficient that 150 cc of previously essential cells became redundant. (Contd. in Part Two)

We agree brains enlarged. Your point is from need, but you have never explained why need produced more expansion than needed at the time point of expansion. I agree volume is just a substitute for the real issue which is the potential for new functionality in the newly enlarged areas. They all come oversized for current need.