Return to David's theory of evolution PART ONE (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, December 28, 2021, 14:12 (850 days ago) @ David Turell

PART ONE

DAVID: Complexification caused shrinkage, as you know, so the size of our given brain was more than adequate 315,000 years ago, and when finally fully used lost size. It is the quality and quantity of neurons, not size, if we compare ourselves theoretically to bigger Neanderthal brains.

dhw: You don’t seem to be able to make up your mind whether 200 cc was a big leap or a little leap. I suggest it was no different from all the earlier leaps, and happened – like the others – for one of several possible reasons, as listed earlier. You don’t know any more than I do why the brain expanded or why it stopped expanding, but I’m surprised you think it has been fully used. Do you honestly believe that in the next hundred/ thousand/ten thousand/hundred thousand years we shall have no more new ideas or requirements or needs? And do you honestly believe that the brain could simply have gone on expanding indefinitely? At some stage, complexification would have had to take over anyway.

DAVID: Remember I accept God did all the designing. I fully believe our brain is as fully used as it can be and advancing mentation needs will be handled with no problem.

I can hardly forget your belief (not acceptance) that your God did all the designing. And if he exists, I have no problem accepting the idea that he designed the brain so that initially it would expand and/or complexify in order to meet new requirements. I don’t see how it can now be “as fully used as it can be” and yet be capable of advancing mentation. But I agree that complexification will handle all further requirements. Now please tell us whether you think the brain could have gone on expanding indefinitely with all our "advancing mentation".

DAVID: Compare living style requirements of Erectus to sapiens to see the use difference.

dhw: "Living style" didn't change much between any of our earlier ancestors. If, for example, the invention of the bow and arrow required brain expansion, it would not have changed "living style". I suggest that all stages in the past were followed by a period of “stasis” until the next new factor required expansion, but with sapiens - as we have agreed over and over again - expansion was replaced by complexification, which proved so efficient that the brain shrank. I keep asking why you find this theory so difficult to accept. Your only answer seems to be that, like all your own theories, it isn’t proven.

DAVID: My theory is God designs, which you don't accept.

My theory, as explained above, allows for your God designing the brain.

DAVID: Your approach is backwards. The brain expands first and then new lifestyles appear, as history and archelogy demonstrate.

History and archaeology do not tell us what caused the brain to expand in the first place. We took a simple example, though, to illustrate how it might work. Pre-expansion homo is a hunter and thinks of a safer way than close-up grappling, i.e. by designing a weapon that can be thrown from a distance. The new idea requires new skills in the making and using of the new weapon and so, just like illiterate women learning to read, the brain responds, but in this case it does so by adding new cells. The appearance of the new weapon COINCIDES with the expansion of the brain, since its designing, making and usage of the new weapon is the cause of the expansion (just as illiterate women’s complexification COINCIDES with learning to read). From then on, the newly expanded brain complexifies until once more a new requirement results in additional cells.If God exists, he designed the flexibility of the brain. Do you think he pops in to complexify the modern brain every time someone gets a new idea? Which comes first, the new requirement or the complexification? If it’s the new requirement now, why should it have been any different in the past?

dhw: The question remains: do you believe your God designed the new species de novo BEFORE conditions changed or in response to the new conditions?

DAVID: Always in anticipation of future requirements for use.

dhw: And so pre-whales sat on the beach with their brand new flippers waiting for God to provide a reason for them to enter the water (or waiting for him to provide the water).

DAVID: The fossils are of transitional forms, in and out of water. So the changes are stepwise even if the gaps are large, no Darwinoid itty-bitty forms found.

We are not discussing itty-bitty forms but the order in which the different steps are taken. Specifically, do you believe your God changed legs into flippers before pre-whales entered the water?