Brain Expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, April 20, 2020, 16:47 (1467 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: […] logically your God, who can do whatever he wants whenever he wants, shouldn’t have had to bother with any of these in-between stages since his one and only purpose was to directly design H. sapiens!

DAVID: Once again, you invoke your strange view of an all-powerful God who shouldn't be so patient as to evolve us over time, but should act impatiently. That is never my view of my God.

dhw: Nothing to do with patience! Please explain why a God whose only purpose was to produce H. sapiens and who was able to do whatever he wanted whenever and however he wanted, produced gap after gap before, according to you, directly designing the only brain he wanted to design.

You've simply restated your weird idea God should not have been patient. Repetition proves nothing.

DAVID: Long stasis of advanced intellectual ability interrupts your thought that thinking drives major brain enlargement.

dhw: Of course it doesn’t. If there are no new concepts demanding new uses of the brain, then there will be no enlargement! Now please explain (a) how you think sapiens “learned” to use his brain, and why your omniscient God, who must have known it wouldn’t be “used” for 260,000 years, expanded it when he did.

DAVID: That is what history shows us. We arrived 315,000 years ago as of current dating, and left the stone age 10,000 years ago. We have really learned how to use all parts of our brain in the past 5,000 years. Most of it lay fallow until then, although with some preliminary use it started to shrink.

dhw: Yes, that is the history, and you wanted to know why it took 260,000 years (more now) for sapiens to make advanced progress, and I explained why, and asked you two questions which you have not answered.

Answer one: each early larger brain had to learn to be used. Answer two: God knew it would take time to develop the learning. Can you deny our brain lay primarily fallow until 50,000 years ago creating a delay of 265,000 years, based on current fossil findings? Simple facts to be analyzed

dhw: So now please tell us why you think your God had all these different homos hanging around for thousands of years making no progress, and then had homo sapiens do the same.

Your same 'patient God' problem. God in charge of evolution evolved everything over the time it took. Why do you struggle with that? We are discussing my theory.

dhw: [...] if your God gave us a brain mechanism that now complexifies and expands in certain areas without his intervention, how can you discount the possibility that the same mechanism would have expanded the earlier brain for the same reason: that brains must change in order to perform new tasks?

DAVID: I've answered. Our very different brain can modify tiny areas as necessary for new uses and in fact has shrunk about 150 cc in the past 35,000 years as we've increased use, just the opposite of your thoughts. Your theory demands heavy thought expands brains, just the opposite of the reality of our brain's functional workings.

dhw: Firstly, I have suggested that our brains had reached a maximum size for anatomical comfort, and so complexification took over, and shrinkage was the result of its efficiency.

Your suggestion is not close to fact. I've read a theoretical article I have not presented that theorized the human brain could ideally reach 3,300 cc! Please try to convert to ounces: 2,000 extra cc are only seventy ounces. You think our muscles can't handle that? Back packs are much heavier.

dhw: Secondly, you have not answered my question! You believe your God gave our brains the ability to perform new tasks by complexifying and mini-expanding without his intervention. So why should he not have done the same with earlier brains – enabling them to expand without his intervention?

Obvious. Our current brain shrunk with extensive use, 150 cc, the size of most past enlargements exactly the opposite of your theory about earlier brains, where more extensive use forces large expansions. Now you will reproduce your contorted excuses about this woolly theory. You've made a silk purse out of a sow's ear.