Human evolution: savannah theory fading; big brain (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, March 14, 2025, 17:01 (19 days ago) @ dhw

The human brain

DAVID: Our agreements apply to the large existent brain , not how it got to be so big and complex.

dhw: Explained above, with the small example of the spear, extending to the huge example of new environmental conditions requiring new responses. All agreed years ago.

You want natural evolution. I have God the designer.

dhw: […] our subject here is the origin of sapiens: why is your divine surgery on groups of ancestors more likely in your eyes than a group of ancestors being forced from the trees, surviving in the savannah, and spreading far and wide into all sorts of environments?

DAVID: The new findings timing in history negate the savannah theory. There were lots of non-savannah folks living all at the same time.

dhw: The new findings show that they were living with sapiens. They could not have been living with sapiens if sapiens did not exist. And the question answered by the savannah theory is HOW sapiens came to exist – not what he did after he had come into existence.

DAVID: The savannah theory was a phantasy based on one finding.

dhw: It is a logical explanation for bipedalism and brain expansion. Please tell us what findings confirm your theory that there is a God who performed operations on the legs, pelvises and brains of one group or multiple groups of our ancestors.

Of course logical, but unnecessary with the known new facts.

dhw: Nothing is certain. Even you can’t explain why your God would go on designing life form after life form for 3.X billion years before designing “de novo” the only forms he wanted to design. Nor does it make sense that your all-powerful God should have “evolved” all kinds of hominins and homos, but then had to perform operations on particular groups to turn them into the only species he really wanted - sapiens with new legs, pelvises and brains.

DAVID: What is simple is we do not understand the use of evolution by God.

dhw: Even if we accept the existence of God, there is no logic that can possibly justify your theory that his sole purpose for creating life was to design us and our food and so he had to design and cull 99 out of 100 species that had no connection with us and our food. Please stop pretending that your illogical theory is the only possible explanation for evolution.

Yes, God given or natural.

Earliest humans in Europe
At 1.2 million years ago:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/western-europe-face-fossil-evolution

QUOTES: "Excavations at a site known as Sima del Elefante produced several fossil fragments that, when pieced together, form a partial left upper jaw and cheek bone dated to between 1.4 million and 1.1 million years old…”
"Fossil remains of four H. erectus faces at Dmanisi display considerable variation in nasal structure and other midface traits, Rightmire says. One of those faces aligns closely with the Spanish midface discovery, he contends. After H. erectus left Africa, “I would put my money on a long-lasting regional [H. erectus] population occupying Dmanisi around 1.8 million years ago, with later populations moving into Europe,” Rightmire says."

DAVID: this puts us out of Africa at a very early time compared to other evidence.

dhw: The movement to different environments would certainly explain different traits between members of our own species. But of course it doesn’t tell us anything about the origin of our species.

Lucy-forms from unknown forces or God at work.