Human Gene for Big Brain

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@anon46279830

This was something that was inactive, truncated, and according to everything we know about how genes work it was piling up random mutations all the time. Yet not only did it get re-activated (they use that term even though there was no evidence it was ever active in chimps and gorillas or their ancestors) when it did it made hominids smarter.

Yes that is right.

@anon46279830

It had better function than the other cortex genes that were working in chimp ancestors all along and presumably under evolutionary pressure.

Because it was not a perfect copy. It acquired mutations that make it beneficial.

@anon46279830

Why did nature resort to using some truncated inactivated gene for which selection pressure was non-existent in order to make this great leap forward?

Because this worked better. It was easier to modify an existing gene with an imperfect copy, than to make one from scratch.

@anon46279830

You don’t find that the least bit eye-brow raising? Well, you have seen a lot more of this stuff than I have. Maybe you could cite a half-dozen examples of something similar happening right off the top of your head?

Definitely amazing. Definitely not anything that challenges evolutionary science.