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

by dhw, Saturday, January 08, 2022, 12:59 (1048 days ago) @ David Turell

PART ONE

dhw: The discussion now moves to your theory that your God designs all new species in advance of the conditions that they are required to cope with or exploit. And once again, you turn the discussion to the human brain. There is no point in my repeating my whole theory, as summarized yesterday.

dhw: You have never found any logical flaw in this theory, which is supported by the fact that we KNOW the brain changes IN RESPONSE to new requirements, and no one has ever recorded a brain changing IN ADVANCE of the requirement that the brain has to meet. […]

DAVID: [….] You are seemingly blind to the concept of activities of daily living. How complex was the early sapiens life compared to ours? How vast was the knowledge to be used? The change is obviously enormous and requires full use of our brains, which came prepared for this degree of use.

Of course I’m not blind to the difference! I am merely pointing out to you that since the final expansion, our brains have coped with all the new requirements by complexifying instead of expanding. The complexifications take place in response to the demands made on them, not in anticipation of them. This suggests that changes to the brain, just like all other evolutionary changes, take place IN RESPONSE to new requirements and not BEFORE those requirements exist.

DAVID: A cerebral cortex arrangement highly complex with five layers of neurons, not like the chimp's simple arrangement. We came from apes and God designed the many differences. The proof you want comes from logical analysis of known facts.

dhw: Yes, it’s complex compared to the chimp. Yes, we came from apes. How does that prove that our brains change IN ANTICIPATION of new requirements and not in RESPONSE to them???

DAVID: How can you say, in the face of the evidence, it came in anticipation of the future. Erectus and sapiens lived in much the same simple way.

It is you who keep telling us that brain changes and all other evolutionary changes take place in anticipation of the future!!!! All of us animals used to live in the same simple way – finding different ways to survive. But early humans certainly advanced way beyond their fellow animals with their invention of tools, weapons, use of fire etc, which were giant steps at the time, and required additional brain capacity (= expansion). We don’t know the exact cause of each expansion, or the final one, which was that of sapiens. But all brains, including ours, then went through a period of stasis, as life went on in the same relatively “simple way”. But then, for some unknown reason, sapiens came up with a veritable explosion of new ideas, and in order for these to be implemented, the brain did not expand with more cells, but vastly increased its ability to complexify - so much so that it actually shrank. A modern example is the way illiterate women’s brains complexified when they learned to read. Do you believe their brains complexified IN ANTICIPATION of their learning to read?