Brain expansion (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, August 13, 2020, 11:04 (1351 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I still interpret your bolded theory the same way: the brain expanded (naturally) to create something new that was thought of by a previous smaller brain: the Moroccans had no new lifestyle and no new artifact. There are no facts to support your conjecture.

dhw: There are no facts to support ANY conjecture, including yours. Nobody knows what caused expansion. That is why we can only theorize.

DAVID: I theorize God as the agent running evolution.

If we accept God’s existence, the question will have to be HOW he runs evolution. You have him directly preprogramming or dabbling every single development, except when you sail off into your errors theory, which has him relying on random mutations which he either accepts or rejects (the divine equivalent of Darwin’s natural selection). An alternative is that he set up the mechanisms for evolution in such a way that organisms could ”run” themselves. In the context of brain expansion, this means the brain cells responded to new requirements by changing their structure through complexification or expansion. This process is confirmed by those that take place in the modern brain.
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DAVID: Latter forms of erectus had fire and skins. The Moroccans offer no support, so your theory stays pure theory.
I'll stick with God as engineer. The facts we have fit my theory better, IMHO

dhw: Of course it’s pure theory. Once more: NOBODY KNOWS the facts! What facts do you have to support your theory that God stepped in and did an operation on a group of Moroccans, and they woke up next morning with bigger brains and skulls and reshaped pelvises?

DAVID: It all requires coordinated design. Designs keeps you agnostic, so it is my most powerful argument for God the designer.

For the sake of argument, I am accepting God the designer. But in case you hadn’t noticed, I am proposing that God the designer designed a mechanism that enabled the cells of which all organs and organisms are made to carry out their own designing. Your vision of God doing a brain/skull/pelvis operation on the Moroccans is “pure theory” with no facts to support it. At least my theory has as support the known fact that the modern brain complexifies and/or expands (small scale) in response to new requirements.