Human Brain Evolution Was a 'Special Event'

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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There is no must for beneficial mutations to have occured during the time of civilization. And if there were any, they would not have to be increases in brain size.

There are maybe half a dozen genes that are attracting special attention by Lahn's research group. Here's an abstract of a recent paper from his group. Just a moment...This particular variant is not present in all humans but is the most recent development found. So, although it appeared around 6000 years ago, it doesn't really help a creationist viewpoint. Another more recent paper has questioned the notion the gene is undergoing positive selection (Currat et al., 2006). A mutation of ASPM causes microencephaly. Bruce T. Lahn, PhD | HHMI These are the others that are under examination. Not to say these are the only genes involved in the evolution of the human brain, of course.The Lahn group are doing some very interesting stuff.Edited by melatonin, : iffy html code

You know, you just gave me an idea

Also size is not necessarily 'beneficial':

• a brain can be bigger and still not as well connected
• a larger human brain can be detrimental when the mother and fetus die in childbirth
• there are a lot of animals with larger brains than humans
• size is NOT what is being selected
• active mutations in connectivity are still occurring
• the major difference between homo sap brains and the brains of other animals is in the degree of connectedness

The question on brain development in humans is WHAT is being selected.Enjoy.

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Chaos theory probably explains it - I' not an expert, but...If you drop a plate and it breaks you get a few big bits and lots of medium sized bits and loads of tiny bits (and millions of teeny bits). Ice ages and other natural events exhibit this phenomenon, which I think is called "scale-free" phenomena. So, a concentration of mutations in a few generations is not astounding, and may be seen as special if one chooses to see it that way.

If mutations are random then the distribution of beneficial ones within the full spectrum will also be random. It would be a good start.If selection operates on mutations beneficial to a certain direction then any random mutations in that direction will be selected when they occur - and will also be randomly distributed over time.The appearance of clumping is predicted by this mechanism.Even without discussing whether or not mutations happen at a steady rate, or the rate oscillates around a medium that reacts to change in the environment.Even without discussing WHAT the selection is for in human brain development.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : added second quote - hopefully got it right. when you edit you don't get the "message you are replying to" for reference anymore.

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Thought this would be of interest in this thread... Freely available to download here...
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0606966103v1So maybe these particular genes were introduced from neanderthals or another archaic homo group. Quite interesting and I guess it was a 'special event' for the two individuals involved Edited by melatonin, : added link

Perhaps Homo erectus or Homo ergaster?http://www.dmanisi.org.ge/index.html

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To day we have recovered more than twenty hominid remains in Dmanisi. This includes three mandibles, three hominid skulls and several postcranial parts.

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The Dmanisi hominid remains are the first hominids discovered outside of Africa to show clear affinities to African H. ergaster rather than to more typical Asian H. erectus or to any European hominid.

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They had basic stone tools, for whatever that is worth.

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No bifaces or developed Oldowan artifacts have been found. Most of the artifacts retain sharp edges suggesting little transport and no refits of flakes or tools were observed. By the basic knapping technique Dmanisi lithic complex clearly belongs to the Oldowan or mode 1 industries. The Dmanisi artifacts are compatible with pre-Acheulean assemblages of East Africa .

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Neander is not the only conclusion to reach here. Seems to be a romantic neo-european bias here ... Enjoy.

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There does seem to be some sort of implicit bias towards neanderthals, could be some sort of latent remnant/collective unconscious of the 'special relationship', haha.Guess these guys can help consolidate the neanderthal interbreeding hypothesis... http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/...content/full/2006/1106/1

That would be the test. We had a thread on mtDNA evidence for neander mix, that pretty well showed no mitochondrial mixing, but that did not rule out the possibility of male neander genes.Mammuthus was involved with the data IIRC.

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I think that what's amazing about the brain isn't it's size but it's cognitive abilities. So, when I see a cartoon of a naked man that lived 1oo,ooo years ago looking unsure about, whether or not, the rock in his hand might be a tool, I know that he didn't have the cognitive brain I have.
It seems that brain size is supposed to be the great signature of the evolution of man. I suppose it's because it's the only remnant of the past that can be empirically measured which relates to the brain of man. This is a unfortunate state of affairs for the theory of evolution since, the data being discussed (brain size) is so crude that it can't ever rise to the level of scientifically rational extrapolation...er something other than hot air. The other data (quantity of mutations)only allows analysis of things as they are now.
What convinces me that the theory of evolution is falsified by these circumstances is my belief that man, can't survive, and couldn't have survived without cognitive ability enabling man to use fire, clothing and tools.
Without fire man can't cook, dry out nor keep warm. Man therefore, would've required adequate hair for survival. But, if man once upon a time had adequate hair there wouldn've been any need for clothes and so, any evolution of hair loss would've been immediately selected back out of existence.
Without tools man hasn't any advantage over nature. Without advantageous tools man would've perished in his competition with all the ferocious animals that do have all of the natural advantages.
Without clothing man can't protect his body against the perils of life in the wilds and will perish. It is interesting to note that the shame associated with nakedness has no evolutionary rationale.I submit that the lack of these three things (fire,clothing,tools) can be proven to be life threatening.
So, without congitive ability man perishes. So, how did man survive until he obtained the benefit of cognitive thought? If man once had all the natural endowments of things needed for survival as a wild beast, there remains no rationale for natural selection of the loss of those very things.BTW...what came first the eye's of man or the holes in his skull in which they fit, and funtion?Joman.Without tools man can't obtain advantage over his nature.

I think that what's amazing about the brain isn't it's size but it's cognitive abilities. So, when I see a cartoon of a naked man that lived 1oo,ooo years ago looking unsure about, whether or not, the rock in his hand might be a tool, I know that he didn't have the cognitive brain I have.
It seems that brain size is supposed to be the great signature of the evolution of man. I suppose it's because it's the only remnant of the past that can be empirically measured which relates to the brain of man. This is a unfortunate state of affairs for the theory of evolution since, the data being discussed (brain size) is so crude that it can't ever rise to the level of scientifically rational extrapolation...er something other than hot air. The other data (quantity of mutations)only allows analysis of things as they are now.
What convinces me that the theory of evolution is falsified by these circumstances is my belief that man, can't survive, and couldn't have survived without cognitive ability enabling man to use fire, clothing and tools.
Without fire man can't cook, dry out nor keep warm. Man therefore, would've required adequate hair for survival. But, if man once upon a time had adequate hair there wouldn've been any need for clothes and so, any evolution of hair loss would've been immediately selected back out of existence.
Without tools man hasn't any advantage over nature. Without advantageous tools man would've perished in his competition with all the ferocious animals that do have all of the natural advantages.
Without clothing man can't protect his body against the perils of life in the wilds and will perish. It is interesting to note that the shame associated with nakedness has no evolutionary rationale.I submit that the lack of these three things (fire,clothing,tools) can be proven to be life threatening.
So, without congitive ability man perishes. So, how did man survive until he obtained the benefit of cognitive thought? If man once had all the natural endowments of things needed for survival as a wild beast, there remains no rationale for natural selection of the loss of those very things. Admin message: The below is not on topic. The above is not necessarily entirely on or off topic - care must be taken when responding to it. Note to Joman - with some refinement it might suit a PNT

BTW...what came first the eye's of man or the holes in his skull in which they fit, and function?Joman.Edited by AdminModulous, : No reason given.

The Tasmanian aborigines were rather primitive: See The Future Eaters by Tim Flannery
I'll note that this seems to be partly contradicted by http://www.monash.edu.au/news/releases/2003/jan03-fire.html
For another page on these peoples, see Succeed.Net Broadband Internet and VOIP services - SUCCEED.NET

Welcome to the fray Joman, Which is only a matter of quantity (not quality) compared to the cognitive ability of other apes or even other animals. A recent article talks about elephant self recognition as one of many examples of cognitive ability in other animals.Cognitive ability is related to connectedness as well as to size - of the surface area rather than volume (hence the convolutions). So you base your understanding of ancient man on cartoons? Interesting. Homo neanderthalus had larger brains than Homo sapiens, but were not able to compete with us (even with tools), and there are many other species with larger brains, therefore SIZE is NOT the "signature" you are looking for. A more accurate claim would be cognitive ability, which as you (correctly) note, is not necessarily associated with size.Even there, we see a gradation between all animals, with several species having individuals with cognitive ability that overlaps those of individual humans at the low end of the human spectrum.As for what remains as evidence in fossil skulls, it is not just the size of the skull but the size and distribution of different parts of the brain within the skulls as we transitioned from ape ancestor to homo sap, and this can also tell us details about the development of the "special" human brain.From Message 60: color yellow for empHASis.So we don't just have brain SIZE for evidence, we also have relative areas and their development and change over time.KNM-ER 1470 is the "type" fossil for Homo rudolfensis, that lived about 1.8 million years ago and is skull (F) in the picture shown later in this post. I love it when people confuse their misunderstanding of evolution with it being a problem for science.Evolution is the change in species over time, so when we see evidence for change in species over time, how is that a "problem" for evolution?And there is plenty of evidence FOR the change in species over time resulting in larger brain capacities in the lineage of human ancestry:

(Source of this picture is 29 Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1) Except that we can compare the same data for closely related species - chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, etcetera, and see what elements were common and what are different. So you are convince by your incredulity without any reference to facts or evidence?In addition to nwr's evidence in Message 59, we also have the record of Darwin in Tierra del Fuego

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Here, two of Captain Cook's men died of the cold. WE went up to the same mountains the same day in the month AS THEY. Here you find the savage in plenty. Picture to yourself a canoe along side of a ship; with two or three men with as many women and a child, perhaps two, all absolutely naked.

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And certainly in Africa - where hominids evolved into Homo sap - there is not an issue of needing clothes or fire to keep warm.Apes also use tools and survive. Your argument is based on your personal incredulity that this could have occurred. All you prove by this argument is your incredulity and your inability to imagine.We don't need to imagine clothes in Africa. We don't need to imagine fire to eat food without it, a practice still used in the world today (funny as it may seem). When it comes to hair, what you are forgetting (or are ignorant of) is the force of sexual selection, and how it can select for a feature that may have less survival fitness, but gets passed on because it boosts reproductive success.Selection for a feature that threatens survival in those that best express it while at the same time showing evidence for increased selection in that direction is a signal of (Fisherian) runaway sexual selection. And selection continues to this day for humans to show less hair.If you are interested in more information on this issue go to Sexual Selection, Stasis, Runaway Selection, Dimorphism, & Human Evolution, especially Message 44And it is very interesting to note the total lack of shame in many native people that go naked day after day. All you are doing is projecting your personal (unnatural?) feeling onto others.The ladies in the (copyright) picture here: "a picture brought back from south africa to australia by my great grandfather in the early 1900s featuring two native girls " are neither shamed nor cold nor huddled around a fire. The facts above prove your hypothesis is false, but it is also false on several levels, not least of which is your assumption of all or nothing in these developments, while the evidence shows gradual developments in all those cultural features that benefited the ancestors that used them. By ignoring your argument from incredulity and your straw man argument. The way animals in the world today survive in spite of your ignorance of evolution. Please take this to a new topic (see Proposed New Topics) so we can discuss how eyes existed before bony skulls, before mammals, before primates, before apes and before humans, without taking this thread off topic and getting a bunch of people suspended for answering such a ... question here.Enjoy.

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