What bothers me about the evolution of Man

That's completely true and often missed, when you say "our brain is much more powerful than our close relatives", you have to remember that there are many other lineages of humans that went extinct (think Neanderthal), not to mention the "close" relationship between us and apes dates at least 3 million years.

There seems to be a pattern, that every Homo species that has come in contact with Homo sapiens is extinct.

Yes, the pattern is: survival of the fittest.

One theory is that the brain evolved alongside language - but it's inconclusive. Certainly once whatever it was that first caused the growth in brain size and function we can assume that it had significant competitive advantage because it just got bigger and bigger for millions of years.Why it only happened once in all of the animal kingdom is a little surprising too.

We don't know. There are no well constructed theories with a solid evidential backing. There isn't even anything close.My fellow posters have put forward the major contenders, but the truth is that we just plain don't know. Partly this is inevitable; it's difficult to imagine where we'd even get compelling evidence from given the lack of information that the fossil record can provide on the subject. Partly it's that our knowledge of how the brain works, and the molecular evolution of the human brain, are extremely rudimentary. The brain of a goldfish does not contain a "few cells", unless you consider 7 and a half million "a few".

Well compared to a dog who has a bigger brain then the whole fish

A related puzzle, or maybe more evidence of how valuable our brains are, is the fact that having such a large brain is a very distinct reproductive disadvantage. The babies brain is so large that it doesn't fit easily in the birth canal and without medical intervention a very large number of mothers and babies simply die in childbirth.Then the baby has to be born whilst it's still immature because if it carried on growing to the physical maturity of most mammals at birth, the head would be so large that it simply couldn't emerge from the mother. This means that the mother has to invest many years of full time nurturing inorder to get her offspring to the point were it can survive on its own.Quite a puzzle (or maybe a possible reason why our kind of conscious intelligence is as rare as rocking horse droppings.)

We don't know exactly how. However, all the empirical evidence we have indicate that it did.One thing we do for sure know is that our brains weren't poofed into existence from nothing.

Then by all means layout the exact way evidence suggests it came into existance.Since you "for sure know" it wasn't created at one moment in time then show us how it was.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.

It's called the Theory of Evolution.
Perhaps you have heard of it - even if you have never bothered learning about it?The evolution of man has been quite thoroughly researched.Do you have some evidence to show that our minds were instantly created?
Do you think that your own mind was poofed into existence?

Evidence. As has been pointed out to you: The Theory of Evolution. Together with lots of other types of evidence.Apart from all that, I've also seen new species evolving (through all kinds of mutations, genetic drift, natural selection, etc.) both in the lab and in nature, right in front of my very own little eyes.I can give you an example of where you can go and see evolution of a new species happening right in front of your own little eyes.Never seen a species "poofed" into existence, ever, though.Do you have an example of where a species would "poof" into existence where I can go and have a look where and when it happens?

I dont know either thats why im asking duh...lol The magic poofing theory is silly but there could be an alternative the Alien astronaut theory aliens needed a workforce that could do stuff for them So they genetically enhanced an indigenous friendly ape speciesAnd given that we dont know for sure how the process went down the possibility remains combined by all the "evidence" for the alien astronauts you find on the web it still remains plausible.added for a laough by EDIT:Teach the controversy alien astronaut theory should be taught alongside evolution and in creationist churches Edited by frako, : No reason given.

Makes sense to me.

The simple answer is that, yes, it is a disadvantage to have immature big headed kids.But, but and but, the disadvanted is massively out weighed by the advantage to the child (of having a big brain and neotogeny) if it survives childbirth.Many children would have died but, if you throw enough shit at a wall, some of it will stick.

There have been multiple species in the Homo genus that were fairly intelligent and not our ancestors. It happened more than once.