Brain expansion (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, August 10, 2020, 09:02 (1349 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I'll stick with history. Bigger brains, better artifacts is all we know.

dhw: You don’t stick with history. Your invention is described above.[Now please see below!] The existence of bigger brains and better artefacts does not in any way contradict my theory.

DAVID: All we know is bigger brains are found with improved artifacts.

dhw: So how does that support your theory that your God stepped in one night and expanded the brains, skulls and pelvises of the Moroccans? And how does it invalidate the theory that the effort of designing and producing improved artefacts may have been one of the possible causes of brain expansion, just as we know through modern science that the effort of performing new tasks causes the brain to change?

DAVID: Same old discussion. All we know is our brain shrank with complexification. The opposite finding of big-brained sapiens in Morocco without new artifacts denies the idea of implementation caused expansion.

Same old comment, except that we now have two different "all we know" references (artefacts and shrinkage). In both cases, you continue to ignore all the answers I keep giving you! For the repeated answer to "artefacts", see above. The brain shrinking is NOT all we know. We know that the sapiens brain stopped expanding. We know that it changes when it is made to perform new tasks, and these changes entail either complexification or minor expansion of individual areas. You and I have agreed that shrinkage was the result of efficient complexification which rendered certain cells redundant. Since brain change is known to be the RESULT of performing new tasks, it is not unreasonable to argue that in former times brains may have expanded as a RESULT of performing new tasks.

I suppose I'd better repeat that NOBODY knows what tasks these were, and the invention of new artefacts was simply a concrete example to show how the process might have worked. The fact that there were no new artefacts found with the fossils of big-brained Moroccans is irrelevant. They may have performed other new tasks, or they may have interbred with other big-brained homos who had performed other tasks. New fossils are being discovered all the time, and the fact that the CAUSES of brain expansion remain a mystery does not provide one jot of evidence for your own solution to the mystery, which is that your God stepped in to operate on the Moroccans’ brains, skulls and pelvises – presumably knocking them out with some sort of divine anaesthetic while he did so.