Hypothesis 5

Changes in brain function

Parade, Cusco, Peru, 27. 8. 1989
Parade, Cusco, Peru, 27. 8. 1989

As an evolutionary innovation, the human brain cannot have emerged as the biological basis of the human mind. The human brain must have developed in a different manner and was used as a finished organ by a functional change that was only secondarily responsible for the activity of the human mind.


1. Does the human brain represent evolutionary innovation? As we had seen, Darwin did not agree that there is a fundamental difference between an animal soul and a human soul:

But however great the difference between the souls of humans and the higher animals may be, it is only a gradual one and not a fundamental one. (p. 156)

Ernst Mayr agrees with Darwin:

If criteria such as consciousness or the possessing a spirit and intelligence are cited as uniquely human characteristics, this does not help us very much, since there are good examples that humans only differ quantitatively from the great apes and many other animals (even the dog!) with respect to such traits.
(Mayr 2002, p. 500)

But neither Darwin, Mayr nor others deny that there is a big difference between humans and animals. The intellectual achievements of humans, who built pyramids and moon rovers, clearly go beyond the intellectual achievements of animals. Therefore, considering the great intellectual achievements of the human brain, I assume that it is an evolutionary innovation.

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