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

by David Turell , Saturday, April 10, 2021, 19:32 (1108 days ago) @ dhw

PART TWO

dhw: Nobody knows what the new requirements were for ANY of the brain expansions (I listed some, and so did the articles), but they were obviously NOT small. You keep assuming that the brain expanded excessively in anticipation of bigger requirements to come. Why do you find this more logical than the brain expanding to meet a current need, then complexifying or expanding to meet new needs?

DAVID: The brain itself would have to know in advance how to expand in size and wiring complexity to accommodate needed abstract thoughts for future designs. I cannot see a natural cause as you wish, God does it.

dhw: Yes, the cells that make up the brain would know when to add to their number in order to meet new requirements. The intelligence required to do this may well have been given to them by your God, just as you think he gave them the ability to complexify.

You still haven't explained the overexpansion which resulted in 150 cc loss.

DAVID: As for sapiens brain, you have forgotten free will. God would not know just how we would use the bigger brain, so as above, it arrived oversized.

dhw: So God had no idea how many cells we would need in order to exercise our free will, and therefore gave us more than we needed. And this seems more likely to you than your God giving us a mechanism that would produce new cells when needed, and would discard cells when they were no longer needed.

Much more likely for my version of a God in control.

dhw: The new article simply repeats the findings of the others:

QUOTE: "Future research can investigate what evolutionary pressures might have driven the emergence of modern human–like brain organization. Ultimately such research could reveal how brain reorganization is related to the evolution of language and symbolic thought.

dhw: As I keep saying, nobody knows what new requirements caused the brain to keep expanding and/or reorganizing itself, but clearly the evolution of language and symbolic thought started with our early ancestors – there was no sudden leap.

And the future use already had changes well aforehand. God designs and plans for the future needs.

DAVID: This article, like dhw, looks for natural pressures to force evolution. Note my bolds: language and symbolic thought took 245,000 years to appear after sapiens first arrived on Earth.

dhw: No they didn’t. You have missed the whole point of all the articles, which is that rudimentary forms of language and symbolic thought must have been present in our early ancestors.

Of course they were in a small way in preparation for future massive use by a much bigger brain given to us by God.

dhw: The frontal lobe (if we take that as the crucial area of the brain) gradually expanded and complexified, with an accompanying expansion and complexification of its products, as confirmed by the history of human artefacts, though there is a whole list of other possible causes. The sudden leap made by sapiens after 245,000 years of stasis was a number of new ideas and requirements, but instead of the brain expanding, it enhanced its ability to complexify. Erectus hung around for 2 million years, so I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss over 245,000. (See also the evolution of the eye under “Miscellany". I have also shifted "Survival" to that thread.)

Same sidestep. We arrived with an extra 150 cc we eventually discarded. God giving us the extra cells allowed us the freedom to modify ourselves brain by our own wishes