Brain expansion: different theories about rapid expansion (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, September 13, 2020, 12:30 (1320 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You have offered no new requirements. All that is present is a new-sized brain with no new advances in life-style in a pleasant climate.

dhw: How can I offer new requirements when nobody in the whole world knows what has caused brain expansions? And how on earth do you know that the change of climate did NOT trigger new requirements? Do you think your Moroccans should have kept a diary? Have you read newspapers from 315,000 years ago recording the temperature? Meanwhile, what evidence do you have that your God operated on a group of Moroccans to enlarge their brains, skulls and pelvises, and what was the point if they and their descendants then hung around for 280,000 years doing nothing with their new heads? "Are you blind to stasis now"?

DAVID: No, stasis is my main point and you haven't refuted my objection to your theory that a nebulous demand enlarges the brain.

I’m glad stasis is your main point. In my theory, the brain complexifies and/or expands in order to meet new requirements. It ceases to complexify/expand if there are no new requirements, and so there is stasis. In your theory, your God expanded the Moroccans’ brains 315,000 years ago, and they did nothing with them for the next 280,000 years. What nebulous reason can you come up with for this premature operation, if there were no new requirements? Please don’t say “anticipation”, or “learning how to use them”. Anticipation does not explain why the Moroccans didn’t do anything, and you can’t learn how to do something without doing something, and your whole point is they did nothing. And please remember that in your own words, our brains REACT to the demands we place on them. They do not anticipate demands. As for your objection to my own theory, I can only repeat that NOBODY knows what caused the different enlargements. I have suggested “new ideas, ways of life, changes of environment” – and you very kindly suggested a change of climate, though you didn’t mean to.

DAVID: My answer is God enlarged the brain and had the complexification mechanism built in.

dhw: But we have agreed that the autonomous complexification mechanism must already have existed in pre-sapiens brains, and since modern brains are known to add a few cells to meet specific requirements, why do you exclude the possibility that in former times the same mechanism could have added lots of cells to meet specific requirements? After all, you yourself have told us that the brain has an autonomous “adaptability to react to any and all physical and mental and emotional demands we place on it.” Why is it not feasible that the pre-sapiens brain also reacted autonomously to the demands placed on it?

Your only answer to this question so far has been that God did it. Now, once more: please tell us why you don’t think it possible that the autonomous mechanism you believe your God designed for complexification, plus the addition of a few cells, could not also have complexified and added a lot of cells in earlier times.