https://evolutionnews.org/2025/05/bombshell-new-research-overturns-claim-that-humans-an...

"new data reported in a recently published Nature paper by Yoo et al. has overturned this previous claim. The new findings reveal that human DNA is far more different from chimp DNA than previously thought.

***

"The results are groundbreaking:

"At least 12.5 percent and possibly up to 13.3 percent of the chimp and human genomes represent a “gap difference” between the two genomes. That means there’s a “gap” in one genome compared to the other, often where they are so different, they cannot even be aligned.
There are also significant alignable sections of the two genomes that show “short nucleotide variations” which differ by only about 1.5 percent. We can add this difference to the “gap difference,” and calculate a 14 percent to 14.9 percent total difference between human and chimp genomes. This means that the actual difference between human and chimp DNA is 14 times greater than the often-quoted 1 percent statistic.

***

"...the new data reveal just how little this one fact tells us about the overall picture. We now know that major portions of the two genomes — 12.5 percent to 13.3 percent of the human genome, in fact — are so different that arguably the sections are unalignable and/or not directly present in one genome or the other."

Comment: this study does away with the one-two percent difference widely quoted. Casey Luskin had to dig it out of the original paper. Current prejudice wishes to hid our exceptionism.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/09/230905202500.htm

"Researchers report that the flexible shoulders and elbows that allow us to throw a football or reach a high shelf may have evolved as a natural braking system that let our primate ancestors get out of trees without dying. The researchers used sports-analysis software to compare the climbing movements of chimpanzees and small monkeys called mangabeys. While the animals climb up trees similarly, the researchers found that the shallow, rounded shoulder joints and shortened elbow bones that chimps have -- similar to humans -- allow them to fully extend their arms above their heads when climbing down, holding onto branches like a person going down a ladder to support their greater weight. When early humans left forests for the grassy savanna, these versatile appendages would have been essential for gathering food and using tools for hunting and defense. The findings are among the first to identify the significance of 'downclimbing' in the evolution of apes and early humans.

***

"The researchers used sports-analysis and statistical software to compare videos and still-frames they took of chimpanzees and small monkeys called mangabeys climbing in the wild. They found that chimps and mangabeys scaled trees similarly, with shoulders and elbows mostly bent close to the body. When climbing down, however, chimpanzees extended their arms above their heads to hold onto branches like a person going down a ladder as their greater weight pulled them downward rump-first.

***

"'Getting out of a tree presents all kinds of new challenges. Big apes can't afford to fall because it could kill or badly injure them. Natural selection would have favored those anatomies that allowed them to descend safely."

"Flexible shoulders and elbows passed on from ancestral apes would have allowed early humans such as Australopithecus to climb trees at night for safety and come down in the daylight unscathed, DeSilva said. Once Homo erectus could use fire to protect itself from nocturnal predators, the human form took on broader shoulders capable of a 90-degree angle that -- combined with free-moving shoulders and elbows -- made our ancestors excellent shots with a spear (apes cannot throw accurately).

***

"Mangabeys and other monkeys are built more like quadrupedal animals such as cats and dogs, with deep pear-shaped shoulder sockets and elbows with a protruding olecranon process that make the joint resemble the letter L. While these joints are more stable, they have a much more limited flexibility and range of movement.

"The researchers' analysis showed that the angle of a chimp's shoulders was 14 degrees greater during descent than when climbing up. And their arm extended outward at the elbow 34 degrees more when coming down from a tree than going up. The angles at which mangabeys positioned their shoulders and elbows were only marginally different -- 4 degrees or less -- when they were ascending a tree versus downclimbing.

"'If cats could talk, they would tell you that climbing down is trickier than climbing up and many human rock climbers would agree. But the question is why is it so hard," said study co-author Nathaniel Dominy, the Charles Hansen Professor of Anthropology and Fannin's adviser.

"'The reason is that you're not only resisting the pull of gravity, but you also have to decelerate," Dominy said. "Our study is important for tackling a theoretical problem with formal measurements of how wild primates climb up and down. We found important differences between monkeys and chimpanzees that may explain why the shoulders and elbows of apes evolved greater flexibility.'"

Comment: written in Darwin-speak this study could easily be seen as a designer preparing for the amazing agility of humans.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2379077-chimpanzees-can-prepare-for-alternative-fu...

"We are no longer the only animal known to think ahead and prepare for two possible futures – chimps can do it too.

"If you are unsure whether it will be sunny or raining later, you might grab sunscreen and an umbrella before you leave home. This ability to consider different eventualities, known as modal reasoning, is essential to human cognition.

***

"Working at Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Uganda, where the animals can roam in 95 acres of forest, the researchers put individual chimps in front of two tilting platforms, each with a piece of food on it. The first version of the experiment used an opaque cylindrical tube above one of the platforms, through which the team would drop a rock.

"If the chimpanzee didn’t intervene, the food would fall, but if it stabilised the platform with its hands, it was given the food as a reward. In this scenario, the 15 chimpanzees only stabilised the platform they knew the rock would hit.

"The second experiment used an opaque inverted Y-shaped tube with an exit above each platform. Not knowing which platform the rock was going to hit meant the chimpanzees behaved differently. Thirteen of the 15 were more likely to cover their bases and steady both platforms to protect both pieces of food.

“'To my knowledge, they’re the first [non-human] animals who demonstrate competence in a task measuring the representation of alternative possibilities,” says Engelmann.
Some evidence suggests that children aged between 1 and 2.5 years can consider mutually exclusive outcomes, says team member Mariel Goddu at Harvard University. But there are researchers who argue that these abilities don’t develop until the age of 4, when children are able to talk about multiple possibilities. The chimpanzee findings support the earlier age range, showing that this ability may not be dependent on language, she says.

“'The representation of alternative possibilities is fundamental to many cognitive capacities that humans are proud of, like creativity and morality,” says Engelmann. “It’s quite exciting to think that there might be an evolutionary history to this ability as well.'”

Comment: A well-thought-out study. Certainly alternatives can appear in the Chimps simple lives.

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2023/03/04/the_cognitive_tests_in_which_humans_lo...

"Though humans share 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees, we regularly shrug off the biological similarity with a haughty air of superiority, confident that our cognitive abilities — endowed by a brain three times larger, with 14 billion more neurons — firmly trounce theirs.

"We shouldn’t be so sure.

True, chimpanzees have yet to master flight, manufacture semiconductors, or cure a disease, but there are a number of basic cognitive tasks where, in a battle between human and ape, they come out on top.

"For example, in a 2014 study, scientists at the Kyoto University Primate Research Institute pitted pairs of humans and pairs of chimpanzees against each other in a competitive game. A chimp would sit down with another chimp and play a basic strategy game, essentially a variation of “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” in which each player would have to learn from the other’s past moves to predict what their competitor would do next. Ultimately, an ideal game develops an optimal pattern predicted by game theory, in which each player makes the most strategic choice possible. The researchers found that chimpanzees would reach this “equilibrium” well before humans. Considering that chimpanzee society tends to be competitive while human society is often more collaborative, it makes sense that chimps would have an edge in rudimentary competitive strategizing.

"Another test in which chimpanzees top humans — in this case, four- and eight-year-olds — is called the inaccessible peanut task. Here, kids and chimps simply face the conundrum of a peanut or treat placed at the bottom of a vertical transparent tube that’s locked in place. The treat can’t be shaken or dumped out, and it’s inaccessible by reaching in with a finger. When tested at the Yerkes Primate Center in Georgia, chimpanzees quickly learned to fill their mouth with water from the nearby drinking fountain and spit it into the tube, raising the peanut to the surface. Only half of the eight-year-olds and less than one tenth of the 4-year-olds figured out this solution.

"A third study, conducted all the way back in 2007, showcases chimpanzees’ commanding edge over humans in working memory, the ability to quickly remember information and apply it soon thereafter. Both chimpanzee and human subjects played a game in which they were displayed the numbers one through nine on a screen in varying locations. When a player hit the number one, all the other numbers were replaced with blank boxes. Then the player had to click the remaining boxes in the order of their prior numbers.

"The chimpanzees and humans were equally accurate, but the chimps were far faster at completing the task. Moreover, even with six months of training, students couldn’t catch up to the chimps.

***

"Perhaps this bias is why, as a team of researchers argued in a 2017 paper, studies comparing human and ape cognition have for decades been methodologically biased against apes. “All direct ape-human comparisons that have reported human superiority in cognitive function have universally failed to match the groups on testing environment, test preparation, sampling protocols, and test procedures,” they wrote.

"For example, historically, apes have been tested through bars, while humans understandably have not. Research apes also have been been deprived of similar social interactions that humans are exposed to, potentially stunting their abilities. Physical testing procedures in the studies themselves also differed between the species, favoring humans.

"The takeaway? The scientific literature is almost certainly underestimating the cognitive abilities of chimpanzees and other apes compared to our own. In the near future, we may learn of new mental realms where chimpanzees rule."

Comment: an excellent point.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/10/17/no-signs-of-a-climate-emergency-for-w-hudson-bay...

"In a new study, stem cell scientists at the Lund University, Sweden, explore the role of non-coding regions of the genome—previously deemed to be functionless “junk” DNA—and find humans and chimpanzees use a part of their non-coding DNA in different ways. This they claim affects how and when the human brain develops.

"Chimpanzees are our closest living relatives. Despite significant similarities in our DNA and few differences in our protein-coding genes, the human forebrain is larger and more complex than that of the chimpanzee.

***

"In the new study, the researchers have discovered a transcription regulating protein called ZNF558 that is expressed in the human but not chimpanzee forebrain neural progenitor cells. Originally, about 100 million years ago, ZNF558, evolved to regulate the expression of a family of transposable elements, but now it regulates a gene called SPATA18 that regulates the selective dismantling of mitochondria.

"The expression of ZNF558 itself is regulated by the size of a non-coding structural element in DNA called a VNTR, short for variable number tandem repeat that is longer in chimpanzees than in humans. VNTRs, also called minisatellites, are families of DNA sequences where a short nucleotide sequence is consecutively repeated, with variations in length between individuals."

Comment: Why should a gene and non-coding DNA that eventually makes us, have appeared way before us at 100 million years ago? Luck or God's purpose?

https://phys.org/news/2021-10-human-overlooked-dna.html

"Our DNA is very similar to that of the chimpanzee, which in evolutionary terms is our closest living relative. Stem cell researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now found a previously overlooked part of our DNA, so-called non-coded DNA, that appears to contribute to a difference which, despite all our similarities, may explain why our brains work differently. The study is published in the journal Cell Stem Cell.

"In a new study, stem cell researchers at Lund examined what it is in our DNA that makes human and chimpanzee brains different—and they have found answers.

"'Instead of studying living humans and chimpanzees, we used stem cells grown in a lab. The stem cells were reprogrammed from skin cells by our partners in Germany, the U.S. and Japan. Then we examined the stem cells that we had developed into brain cells," explains Johan Jakobsson, professor of neuroscience at Lund University, who led the study.

"Using the stem cells, the researchers specifically grew brain cells from humans and chimpanzees and compared the two cell types. The researchers then found that humans and chimpanzees use a part of their DNA in different ways, which appears to play a considerable role in the development of our brains.

"'The part of our DNA identified as different was unexpected. It was a so-called structural variant of DNA that were previously called "junk DNA," a long repetitive DNA string which has long been deemed to have no function. Previously, researchers have looked for answers in the part of the DNA where the protein-producing genes are—which only makes up about two percent of our entire DNA—and examined the proteins themselves to find examples of differences."

"The new findings thus indicate that the differences appear to lie outside the protein-coding genes in what has been labeled as "junk DNA," which was thought to have no function and which constitutes the majority of our DNA.

"'This suggests that the basis for the human brain's evolution are genetic mechanisms that are probably a lot more complex than previously thought, as it was supposed that the answer was in those two percent of the genetic DNA. Our results indicate that what has been significant for the brain's development is instead perhaps hidden in the overlooked 98 percent, which appears to be important. This is a surprising finding.'"

Comment: no surprise considering the differences in brain function. Another study that kills 'junk DNA'. It is obvious most DNA has important function, removing any last evidence that DNA appeared from random chance mutations. So complex it had to be designed.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2274938-lucy-the-human-chimp-review-the-ape-that-w...

"Lucy, the Human Chimp, a new TV documentary from KEO Films and Channel 4, explores the meeting of those worlds through the story of one unique relationship: that between Lucy, a chimpanzee raised as a human, and Janis Carter, a graduate student hired to clean her cage. Through the late 1960s, Lucy was the subject of a high-profile study by psychologists Maurice and Jane Temerlin, ostensibly to explore the limits of nature versus nurture.

"The Temerlins brought Lucy up in their home more or less as though she was a human child, to the point of teaching her to dress herself, eat with silverware and even fix a gin and tonic. Primatologist Roger Fouts, whose success teaching a chimp named Washoe a form of American Sign Language was heavily publicised in 1970, likewise taught Lucy a vocabulary of around 100 signs (though the extent of apes’ comprehension of signing remains disputed).

"Eventually, the Temerlins came to regard the chimp as their daughter. Much has been made of Lucy’s story, including an episode of the acclaimed Radiolab podcast. Lucy, the Human Chimp, written and directed by Alex Parkinson, puts forward Carter to share what happened next.

"Carter had been a 25-year-old psychology student within the University of Oklahoma’s chimp research project when, in 1976, she answered the Temerlins’ advertisement for a part-time carer for Lucy. After a frosty start – Carter remembers the chimp as “arrogant, and very condescending” about her poor comprehension of sign language – the two forged a close bond. But the adolescent chimp increasingly posed a threat to her human family, and was confined to a cage.

"In 1977, the Temerlins decided to take 12-year-old Lucy to Gambia to be taught how to live in the wild; Carter went along to help. For her, a trip of a few weeks turned into years as Lucy struggled to adjust to life as a chimp. From 1979, she lived for nearly seven years on an otherwise uninhabited island in the Gambia river, alongside Lucy and a small troupe of orphaned and captive chimps. Carter left the island only after a young male attacked her in 1985, supplanting her as leader.

"More so than might be inferred from its title, the focus of Parkinson’s film is on Carter and her relationship with Lucy, as told by Carter herself. An interview with Jane Temerlin and re-enactments by actors (based on first-hand accounts) provide some context, but little by way of critical distance.

"Carter’s decades-long dedication to protecting Lucy – and now her species, as director of the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Project in Gambia – is, without a doubt, remarkable. But Parkinson’s film doesn’t interrogate a view that Lucy, having been born and raised in captivity, was never a suitable candidate for rehabilitation and release into the wild, and suffered in the attempt.

***

"Just as Lucy was raised a human, Carter lived as a chimp. But, after the best part of a decade, she had to extract herself and return to her own kind. She says: “I couldn’t live in both worlds.'”

Comment: It is a giant gap and real domestication doesn't work

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-technique-reveals-genes-underlying-human.html

"Through two separate sets of experiments with this technique, the researchers discovered new genetic differences between humans and chimpanzees. They found a significant disparity in the expression of the gene SSTR2—which modulates the activity of neurons in the cerebral cortex and has been linked, in humans, to certain neuropsychiatric diseases such as Alzheimer's dementia and schizophrenia—and the gene EVC2, which is related to facial shape. The results were published March 17 in Nature and Nature Genetics, respectively.

***

"The Fraser lab is particularly interested in how the genetics of humans and other primates compare at the level of cis-regulatory elements, which affect the expression of nearby genes (located on the same DNA molecule, or chromosome). The alternative—called trans-regulatory factors—can regulate the expression of distant genes on other chromosomes elsewhere in the genome. Due to their broad effects, trans-regulatory factors (such as proteins) are less likely to differ among closely related species than cis-regulatory elements."

Comment: Before genetic studies were so accurate, it was estimated and presented here, the difference is chimps and we are about 79% similar in expressed gene activity.

https://www.icr.org/article/human-genome-radically-different-from-chimp

"...a new study published in Trends in Genetics evaluates research in this emerging field that shows the human 3-D genome is distinctly unique to humans, confirming previous research that showed it is as different compared to chimp as it is to mouse.

***

"One of the best ways to empirically understand the 3-D configuration of chromosomes in the nucleus of the cell is to define topologically associating domains (TADs) in the DNA sequence. TADs are characterized as regions whose DNA sequences preferentially contact and interact with each other in association with specific cell types and biological functions.

***

"One important aspect of 3-D genome structure has to do with the epigenetic modification of proteins called histones that the DNA is wrapped around. A 2011 study showed that a specific type of histone modification had only about a 70% overlap or similarity between humans and chimps.4 Remarkably, another study in 2012 showed that humans had about a 70% similarity for the same feature with mice.5 In other words, humans were as different to mice as they were to chimps for this particular genome conformation metric.

***

"They found that in comparing humans and chimps, “only ~43% of TADs conserved [similar] between these species, but across many different parameters (e.g., resolution, window size, genome assembly) and different downstream analysis decisions, no more than 78% of domains and 83% of TAD boundaries were found to be shared between humans and chimpanzees.”

***

"This new study, along with many others, is continuing to debunk evolution and confirm the uniqueness of the human genome. For example, previous research by this author has shown that the human and chimp genomes are no more than 85% similar, and it’s likely the final findings will be far less than that."

Comment: We may have 98% similar bases with chimps but the 3-D DNA's are at least 78% different as discussed in our past entries.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201216085039.htm

"With only 1 percent difference, the human and chimpanzee protein-coding genomes are remarkably similar. Understanding the biological features that make us human is part of a fascinating and intensely debated line of research. Researchers have developed a new approach to pinpoint adaptive human-specific changes in the way genes are regulated in the brain.

***

"To explain what sets human apart from their ape relatives, researchers have long hypothesized that it is not so much the DNA sequence, but rather the regulation of the genes (i.e. when, where and how strongly the gene is expressed), that plays the key role. However, precisely pinpointing the regulatory elements which act as 'gene dimmers' and are positively selected is a challenging task that has thus far defeated researchers (see box).

"Marc Robinson-Rechavi, Group Leader at SIB and study co-author says: "To be able to answer such tantalizing questions, one has to be able identify the parts in the genome that have been under so called 'positive' selection [see box]. The answer is of great interest in addressing evolutionary questions, but also, ultimately, could help biomedical research as it offers a mechanistic view of how genes function."

"Researchers at SIB and the University of Lausanne have developed a new method which has enabled them to identify a large set of gene regulatory regions in the brain, selected throughout human evolution. Jialin Liu, Postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the study explains: "We show for the first time that the human brain has experienced a particularly high level of positive selection, as compared to the stomach or heart for instance. This is exciting, because we now have a way to identify genomic regions that might have contributed to the evolution of our cognitive abilities!"

"To reach their conclusions, the two researchers combined machine learning models with experimental data on how strongly proteins involved in gene regulation bind to their regulatory sequences in different tissues, and then performed evolutionary comparisons between human, chimpanzee and gorilla. "We now know which are the positively selected regions controlling gene expression in the human brain. And the more we learn about the genes they are controlling, the more complete our understanding of cognition and evolution, and the more scope there will be to act on that understanding," concludes Marc Robinson-Rechavi."

Comment: it has been obvious that we are very different from chimps despite the one percent DNA difference in coding bases. It is in 3-D relationships and gene expression controls in the non-coding areas. In teh past I have put here an estimate that the real difference approaches 20%.

https://www.agnosticweb.com/%22http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200831165658.htm

"To shed light on the development of this critical cognitive process during early infancy, researchers at the UNC Biomedical Research Imaging Center (BRIC) at the UNC School of Medicine conducted a brain imaging study in infants to examine the emergence of neural flexibility, which refers to the frequency with which a brain region changes its role (or allegiance to one functional network to another). Neural flexibility is thought to underlie cognitive flexibility.

***

"...the researchers show that brain regions with high neural flexibility appear consistent with the core brain regions that support cognitive flexibility processing in adults, whereas brain regions governing basic brain functions, such as motor skills, exhibit lower neural flexibility in adults, demonstrating the emergence of functionally flexible brains during early infancy.

***

"The researchers,...found that neural flexibility increased with age across the whole brain, and specifically in brain regions that control movement, potentially enabling infants to learn new motor skills. Neural flexibility also increased with age in brain regions involved in higher-level cognitive processes, such as attention, memory, and response inhibition, indicating continuing development of these functional networks as babies become toddlers.

"The age-related increase in neural flexibility was highest in brain regions already implicated in cognitive flexibility in adults, suggesting that cognitive flexibility may start to develop during the first two years of life.

***

"Additional analysis of brain regions with especially high neural flexibility revealed the presence of relatively weak and unstable connections from these regions to other parts of the brain, potentially showing how these regions can rapidly switch their allegiances between different functional networks. By contrast, neural flexibility in brain regions involved in visual functions remained relatively low throughout the first two years of life, suggesting that these regions had already matured.

"Lower levels of neural flexibility (i.e., greater established brain maturity) of visual brain regions at three and 18 months of age were associated with better performance on cognitive and behavioral assessments at the age of five or six years.

"These findings provide insights into the development of higher-level brain functions, and could be used to predict cognitive outcomes later in life."

Comment: cognitive function slowly develops in infants as do memory areas. The concept of a generally blank slate cannot be ignored.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-big-brains-dexterous.html

"People are skilled with their hands, but take a long time to learn dexterous abilities. It takes babies generally around five months before they can purposely grip an object. Learning more complicated skills such as eating with fork and knife or tying shoelaces can take another five to six years. By that age, many other primate species already have offspring of their own. Why do we take so much longer than our closest relatives to learn fine motor skills?

***

"She studied 128 young animals in 13 European zoos from birth until the age at which they had reached adult-level dexterity. What surprised her was that all species learned their respective manual skills in exactly the same order. "Our results show that the neural development follows extremely rigid patterns—even in primate species that differ greatly in other respects," says Heldstab.

"The researchers found, however, big differences in the specific fine motor skills of adults from different primate species. Large-brained species such as macaques, gorillas or chimpanzees can solve much more complex tasks using their hands than primates with small brains such as lemurs or marmosets. "It is no coincidence that we humans are so good at using our hands and using tools, our large brains made it possible. A big brain equals great dexterity," says Heldstab.

"Dexterity comes at a cost, however: In species with large brains like humans, it takes a long time for infants to learn even the simplest hand and finger movements. "It's not just because we are learning more complex skills than lemurs or callitrichids, for example. It's mainly because we do not begin learning these skills until much later," says Heldstab. The researchers think that the reason for this may be that the larger brains of humans are less well developed at birth.

"In addition, learning takes time and is inefficient, and it is the parents who pay for this until their offspring are independent. "Our study shows once again that in the course of evolution, only mammals that live a long time and have enough time to learn were able to develop a large brain and complex fine motor skills including the ability to use tools. This makes it clear why so few species could follow our path and why humans could become the most technologically accomplished organism on this planet," concludes Sandra Heldstab."

Comment: It is all of the same pattern we have see about human brains. Our human kids learn to slowly tailor their brains as areas develop for use, just as early sapiens brains were bigger than needed and allowed earlier tailoring. The plasticity mechanism is a marvelous tool we have been given. I view the brain as an instrument we learn to use.

DAVID: Lots of the world is on my side. Of course the big brain, once present, took time to learn to be used. But still big 'old' brain first and use second. You provide non-rebuttals.

dhw: It took time for the big brain, once present, to progress from simple language to the complexities of modern language, but I have no doubt that every generation of homo that possessed the big brain of modern humans would have used it. How else would they have communicated? The issue on which we differ is how and when the earlier smaller brain became the big brain. You say God did a dabble to enlarge the brain, which wasn't used for thousands of years, and I propose that pre-sapiens required more complex forms of communication and the brain cells responded to the new need by enlarging the brain through the new uses (like pre-whale legs turning into whale flippers through new uses). But of course once the brain was in place, it continued to be used right up to the present day!

DAVID: Our only disagreement now seems to be God's role in creating the human brain.

dhw: If you agree that it is sheer nonsense to assume that pre-sapiens and sapiens did not use their expanded brain (which lay “fallow”) for umpteen thousand years, our disagreement is over how and when the brain expanded, as detailed above. If that is what you mean by “God’s role”, then OK.

We have identified our disagreement.

dhw: It took time for the big brain, once present, to progress from simple language to the complexities of modern language, but I have no doubt that every generation of homo that possessed the big brain of modern humans would have used it. How else would they have communicated? The issue on which we differ is how and when the earlier smaller brain became the big brain. You say God did a dabble to enlarge the brain, which wasn't used for thousands of years, and I propose that pre-sapiens required more complex forms of communication and the brain cells responded to the new need by enlarging the brain through the new uses (like pre-whale legs turning into whale flippers through new uses). But of course once the brain was in place, it continued to be used right up to the present day!

DAVID: Our only disagreement now seems to be God's role in creating the human brain.

If you agree that it is sheer nonsense to assume that pre-sapiens and sapiens did not use their expanded brain (which lay “fallow”) for umpteen thousand years, our disagreement is over how and when the brain expanded, as detailed above. If that is what you mean by “God’s role”, then OK.

Dhw: Nobody knows why there was a cultural leap some 70,000 years ago (or whenever), but there is no argument over the obvious fact that the apparatus was in place approx. 300,000 years ago (or maybe even 600,000), the apparatus was always in use, and language has evolved from the comparatively simple to the extremely complex. Where we disagree is over your claim that the apparatus was dabbled by God in advance of any need for it, whereas I propose that whenever it changed, it did so in response to pre-sapiens'need for more complex forms of communication, just as the pre-whale’s legs changed to flippers when required to perform new actions. On this we shall have to differ.

DAVID: So you recognize the gap in time between available brain mechanism and learning to use it. A great advance in your thinking. Of course you won't admit God did it by providing the new brain. Talk about rigid/fixed thinking.

dhw: When I say “the apparatus was always in use” (now bolded), I do not mean there was a gap in time before it was used. The word “always” precludes any possibility of a gap. I do not believe there was any time when pre-sapiens and early sapiens did not use the apparatus at their disposal in order to communicate. And it wasn’t a new brain – it was a development of the old brain. And why should I “admit” that your theory is right and my alternative proposal is wrong? Do you honestly believe that the whole world accepts your theory that your God changes anatomies in advance of any need for change?

DAVID: Lots of the world is on my side. Of course the big brain, once present, took time to learn to be used. But still big 'old' brain first and use second. You provide non-rebuttals.

dhw: It took time for the big brain, once present, to progress from simple language to the complexities of modern language, but I have no doubt that every generation of homo that possessed the big brain of modern humans would have used it. How else would they have communicated? The issue on which we differ is how and when the earlier smaller brain became the big brain. You say God did a dabble to enlarge the brain, which wasn't used for thousands of years, and I propose that pre-sapiens required more complex forms of communication and the brain cells responded to the new need by enlarging the brain through the new uses (like pre-whale legs turning into whale flippers through new uses). But of course once the brain was in place, it continued to be used right up to the present day!

Our only disagreement now seems to be God's role in creating the human brain.

DAVID: So you recognize the gap in time between available brain mechanism and learning to use it. A great advance in your thinking. Of course you won't admit God did it by providing the new brain. Talk about rigid/fixed thinking.

dhw: When I say “the apparatus was always in use” (now bolded), I do not mean there was a gap in time before it was used. The word “always” precludes any possibility of a gap. I do not believe there was any time when pre-sapiens and early sapiens did not use the apparatus at their disposal in order to communicate. And it wasn’t a new brain – it was a development of the old brain. And why should I “admit” that your theory is right and my alternative proposal is wrong? Do you honestly believe that the whole world accepts your theory that your God changes anatomies in advance of any need for change?

DAVID: Lots of the world is on my side. Of course the big brain, once present, took time to learn to be used. But still big 'old' brain first and use second. You provide non-rebuttals.

It took time for the big brain, once present, to progress from simple language to the complexities of modern language, but I have no doubt that every generation of homo that possessed the big brain of modern humans would have used it. How else would they have communicated? The issue on which we differ is how and when the earlier smaller brain became the big brain. You say God did a dabble to enlarge the brain, which wasn't used for thousands of years, and I propose that pre-sapiens required more complex forms of communication and the brain cells responded to the new need by enlarging the brain through the new uses (like pre-whale legs turning into whale flippers through new uses). But of course once the brain was in place, it continued to be used right up to the present day!

Dhw: Nobody knows why there was a cultural leap some 70,000 years ago (or whenever), but there is no argument over the obvious fact that the apparatus was in place approx. 300,000 years ago (or maybe even 600,000), the apparatus was always in use, and language has evolved from the comparatively simple to the extremely complex. Where we disagree is over your claim that the apparatus was dabbled by God in advance of any need for it, whereas I propose that whenever it changed, it did so in response to pre-sapiens'need for more complex forms of communication, just as the pre-whale’s legs changed to flippers when required to perform new actions. On this we shall have to differ.

DAVID: So you recognize the gap in time between available brain mechanism and learning to use it. A great advance in your thinking. Of course you won't admit God did it by providing the new brain. Talk about rigid/fixed thinking.

dhw: When I say “the apparatus was always in use” (now bolded), I do not mean there was a gap in time before it was used. The word “always” precludes any possibility of a gap. I do not believe there was any time when pre-sapiens and early sapiens did not use the apparatus at their disposal in order to communicate. And it wasn’t a new brain – it was a development of the old brain. And why should I “admit” that your theory is right and my alternative proposal is wrong? Do you honestly believe that the whole world accepts your theory that your God changes anatomies in advance of any need for change?

Lots of the world is on my side. Of course the big brain, once present, took time to learn to be used. But still big 'old' brain first and use second. You provide non-rebuttals.

DAVID: So you recognize the gap in time between available brain mechanism and learning to use it. A great advance in your thinking. Of course you won't admit God did it by providing the new brain. Talk about rigid/fixed thinking.

When I say “the apparatus was always in use” (now bolded), I do not mean there was a gap in time before it was used. The word “always” precludes any possibility of a gap. I do not believe there was any time when pre-sapiens and early sapiens did not use the apparatus at their disposal in order to communicate. And it wasn’t a new brain – it was a development of the old brain. And why should I “admit” that your theory is right and my alternative proposal is wrong? Do you honestly believe that the whole world accepts your theory that your God changes anatomies in advance of any need for change?

QUOTE: In other words, by 600,000 years ago, the number of distinct verbalizations used for communication must have been on par with the number of words in modern languages.

According to this, the apparatus was already being used by pre-sapiens for communication 600,000 years ago, so what was all that nonsense about H. sapiens not using it for 100,000 years? Language of whatever kind is ALWAYS necessary and always in use!

QUOTE: "On the other hand, artifacts signifying modern imagination, such as composite figurative arts, elaborate burials, bone needles with an eye, and construction of dwellings arose not earlier than 70,000 years ago. The half million-year-gap between the acquisition of the modern speech apparatus and modern imagination has baffled scientists for decades. (DAVID’s bold)

DAVID: Once again new research supports my view of mechanism first and use second. Modern H. sapiens appeared 315,000 year ago with a large brain, a modern speech apparatus but only a primitive language. Please note the nuance in my bold above. The large brain and the speech apparatus allowed simplistic speech, but with time and practice over 245,000 years we finally achieved the modern language and speech we now experience.

dhw: I don’t know why you’ve bolded it. Nobody knows why there was a cultural leap some 70,000 years ago (or whenever), but there is no argument over the obvious fact that the apparatus was in place approx. 300,000 years ago (or maybe even 600,000), the apparatus was always in use, and language has evolved from the comparatively simple to the extremely complex. Where we disagree is over your claim that the apparatus was dabbled by God in advance of any need for it, whereas I propose that whenever it changed, it did so in response to pre-sapiens'need for more complex forms of communication, just as the pre-whale’s legs changed to flippers when required to perform new actions. On this we shall have to differ.

So you recognize the gap in time between available brain mechanism and learning to use it. A great advance in your thinking. Of course you' won't admit God did it by providing the new brain. Talk about rigid/fixed thinking.

According to this, the apparatus was already being used by pre-sapiens for communication 600,000 years ago, so what was all that nonsense about H. sapiens not using it for 100,000 years? Language of whatever kind is ALWAYS necessary and always in use!

QUOTE: "On the other hand, artifacts signifying modern imagination, such as composite figurative arts, elaborate burials, bone needles with an eye, and construction of dwellings arose not earlier than 70,000 years ago. The half million-year-gap between the acquisition of the modern speech apparatus and modern imagination has baffled scientists for decades. (DAVID’s bold)

DAVID: Once again new research supports my view of mechanism first and use second. Modern H. sapiens appeared 315,000 year ago with a large brain, a modern speech apparatus but only a primitive language. Please note the nuance in my bold above. The large brain and the speech apparatus allowed simplistic speech, but with time and practice over 245,000 years we finally achieved the modern language and speech we now experience.

I don’t know why you’ve bolded it. Nobody knows why there was a cultural leap some 70,000 years ago (or whenever), but there is no argument over the obvious fact that the apparatus was in place approx. 300,000 years ago (or maybe even 600,000), the apparatus was always in use, and language has evolved from the comparatively simple to the extremely complex. Where we disagree is over your claim that the apparatus was dabbled by God in advance of any need for it, whereas I propose that whenever it changed, it did so in response to pre-sapiens'need for more complex forms of communication, just as the pre-whale’s legs changed to flippers when required to perform new actions. On this we shall have to differ.