Introducing the brain: general (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, March 11, 2022, 12:01 (986 days ago) @ David Turell

New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com

dhw: […] The article refutes your proposal that 1) the complexities of the frontal lobe originated with sapiens, and 2) that the brain changes took place before they were required. What is the dichotomy? (dhw's bold)

DAVID: So in your misinterpretation Broca's was not present before speech?

dhw: Of course it was present. I reproduced the quote that said it was present, and what its function may have been: "She also notes that the Broca area is involved in tool-making, and that all this begs the question: What kind of selection pressure may have been responsible for the reorganization of the human frontal lobes? Good question."
She suggests that the pressures were related to the need for “new capabilities and technologies” and enhanced communication, and her article explicitly refutes your two proposals I have bolded above. What was supposed to be a “dichotomy”, and what have I misinterpreted?

DAVID: Again we are back to interpretation. I am allowed to reinterpret Darwinist articles. Broca's area was there before speech is the point, not that it also had something to do with tools. of course , we agree, it did something before language developed. It was there prepared to handle future speech.

The point is firstly, that the complications of the frontal lobe, which you claimed were unique to sapiens, in fact go back millions of years, and secondly that according to the article they came into existence to meet new requirements. They were not inserted as preparation for unknown uses millions of years later.

Memory formation

DAVID: We came with memory ability, without which nothing could be accomplished.

dhw: Agreed. The same applies to all life forms. That does not mean that your God operated on pre-sapiens brains in order to give them extra cells that would not be used until some vague future time.

DAVID: That is exactly how it works.

dhw: Ah well... I’d have thought it would make more sense for new cells to be created in response to new needs rather than just to stick around for a few thousand years doing nothing. (Or 7 million years – see under “our special genes”.) I wonder if all your ID-ers agree with this theory of yours.

DAVID: Start following ID to see how they think. The preparatory cells do something before eventual intended use.

What does that mean? That meeting the requirements of the time is NOT their intended use? And ID-ers think that God preprogrammed or dabbled pre-sapiens brains millions of years in advance of their “intended” use?