Human evolution; savannah theory fading (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, August 25, 2022, 11:21 (819 days ago) @ David Turell

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.[/b] (But if shrinkage occurred, complexification proved so efficient that some previously useful cells became redundant).

DAVID: Thank you for admitting the new 315,000-old neurons still have future use.

All successful evolutionary changes have future use! They wouldn’t survive if they didn’t!

DAVID: That is the whole point: they existed for tiny uses back then with a capacity for our now huge uses.

You initially claimed that they had no use but just sat around for thousands of years doing nothing. You then conceded that they may have had minor uses. THAT is the whole point. Your theory is that God popped them into the brains of some sleeping Moroccans so that thousands of years later, they would be useful. My theory is bolded above.

DAVID: 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.

The future is unknown for ALL life forms! According to you, every evolutionary change was engineered by God as preparation for the unknown future. You even have him transforming pre-whale legs into flippers before the animals enter the water. My proposal (why must you bring Darwin into it?) is that every evolutionary change, including the additional brain cells, has resulted from a new current requirement or opportunity presented by changing conditions. NOT from your God’s gazing into his crystal ball and forecasting all future requirements. But of course the additional cells will continue to be used and to complexify in response to new future requirements!

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.

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

What “new revision”? This is the theory I have presented all along. The only revision in the context of the extra brain cells has been yours: from no use at all to minor use. Now would you please tell us why you think it impossible for your God to have given brain cells the same autonomy for adding to their numbers as he apparently gave them for complexification. Your reply to this yesterday was:

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

This is not an answer, but I had already covered the silly “secondhand” argument, which you repeat on the “More miscellany thread”, and so I have reproduced the discussion there.

DAVID: God's direct action at the end was to produce humans, so unusual Adler uses us as proof of God.

It was not direct. You yourself cannot understand why “at the end” he would have designed various “species” of hominin and homo before finally designing sapiens. That is one of the theories that “make sense only to God”. Yes, you keep telling us that Adler uses us as proof of God. But we are not arguing about proof of God. We are arguing about your theories of evolution which do not make sense to you.

DAVID: 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.

I have covered the hypothesis that from the beginning he “knew we were coming” (or we were his purpose) by explaining all the disconnected life forms and food bushes which you cannot explain as experiments in his quest to create beings that might recognize him and have a relationship with him (your own concept). But you don’t like the theory because it entails “human” attributes which are not among those you want your God to have.

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?

DAVID: Answered above.

Again with your “secondhand” objection. See “More miscellany”.