Human evolution; savannah theory fading (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, August 24, 2022, 15:53 (820 days ago) @ dhw

Brain expansion

DAVID: It is preposterous to assume that huge new brain was fully used at its beginning.

dhw: Why have you inserted the word “fully”? Of course it’s preposterous. The brain can never be “fully” used – unless you think there will never be any more new ideas or conditions for the rest of time! I dispute your claim that the new cells were not used when they arrived but simply sat around for a few thousand years doing nothing. I find it “preposterous” to assume that new cells were added without any need for them at the time. I propose that they were needed and used to meet a new requirement, and have continued to be used ever since, complexifying as they and their buddies continue to meet new requirements. (But if shrinkage occurred, complexification proved so efficient that some previously useful cells became redundant).

Thank you for admitting the new 315,000-old neurons still have future use. That is the whole point: they existed for tiny uses back then with a capacity for our now huge uses. What prepared them for them for an unknown future? Not Darwin theory, which handles only the present. Logical to assume God, the designer set up teh brain for the future.

DAVID: The bold is the right way to view it. Minor use early, heavy use later.

dhw: We agree. They did NOT arrive “unused in preparation for the future use”, but were used right from the start. And I extend this principle to the whole of evolution: changes do not take place in anticipation of future requirements but as a response to current new requirements.

We do not agree at all based on this new revision from you.

Cerebellum

DAVID: Simply a weak criticism of God's method of evolution to create us.

dhw: It is not a criticism of God! It is a criticism of your theory that his one and only purpose was to create us and our food! The history of life does not reveal the single-minded pursuit of a single purpose which characterized your own form of design and made direct action the most efficient way of achieving your goal.

God's direct action at the end was to produce humans, so unusual Adler uses us as proof of God. From the beginning of time God knew we were coming!!! That answers your muddle about evolution which God used as His mechanism to create us.

dhw: I suggest that he designed what he wanted to design, and that he actually wished for all those countless forms and foods and stages, as life unfolded its ever-changing variety. What better way than to give the original life forms their own means of designing? You agree that he gave brain cells an autonomous mechanism for complexification. And so once more, why couldn’t he possibly have given them the autonomous means of adding to their numbers?

DAVID: Back to secondhand design. Not worth the trouble it presents. covered before.

dw: Still you refuse to answer my question, now bolded. The silly “secondhand” argument, in which you modestly compared yourself to God, has been dealt with above, and you have simply ignored it.

Answered above