Brain expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, July 31, 2020, 19:17 (1364 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: No sudden leap from nowhere. As regards stasis, please explain why, in your own theory, your God stepped in one night 315,000 years ago to give some Moroccans bigger brains (with unnecessary 150 cc), skulls and pelvises, only for them and their descendants to do nothing with them for the next 270,000 years.

DAVID: God gave us the big brain, from which stasis shows we took time to learn how to use it.

dhw: According to you, there were no advances for 270,000 years! How do you know we were learning to use it if we didn't produce anything new?

I'm sure there were minor advances, but the major advances were in the past 50-70,000 years, with resulting shrinkage starting 35,000 years ago.

dhw: NOBODY knows what caused the expansion, but new artefacts might have been a factor.>
DAVID: We do not know the length of time the Moroccan sapiens had been around, when the artifacts were made of or thought of. I agree artifacts are a factor.

dhw: So your reference at the head of this post to the Moroccans does not in any way contradict my theory.

It is neutral, not support.

David’s second post deals with more finds relating to tools, which further confuses the issue of who did what when.

I expected you to be confused. It was clear in that post that advanced stone tools predated Moroccan sapiens. The true confusion is no homo fossils to tell us who thought of it. No support for your theory a bright idea drives expansion to a new brain, which is why you have perfunctorily sloughed off the post.

DAVID: We can agree that bigger brains are consistent with better made tools. What caused the bigger brains is our dispute. I'll stick with God running evolution.

dhw: My theory does not exclude God, but if he exists, I propose that his involvement lay in creating the mechanism which “ran” evolution, including brain expansion: instead of every detail being preprogrammed or dabbled, the cells of which all organisms are made were given the intelligence to do their own designing, including brain expansion.

As usual your theory lessens God.

DAVID: Proof of your theory requires as much faith as mine as there is no direct evidence. This article of findings 70,000 years before the Moroccans, with no fossil evidence shows the tools were around, and some of our homo ancestors were doing it. We have no proof if this new homo idea created sapiens brains.

dhw: Agreed. If there was proof of either theory, it would now be accepted as fact. But it’s belief in the theory, not proof of the theory, that requires faith.

Agreed