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> My apologies for repeating this. I left out the second part earlier.
> 
> DAVID: [i]We appeared with different brains about 250,000 years after Neanderthals. Undoubtedly we had very different brain genes at that point. That they may have modified somewhat since our arrival is totally beside the point. We were never Neanderthal.[/i]
> 
> Neanderthals died out about 40,000 years ago, and interbred with sapiens. I’m asking when the 61 different sapiens genes might have appeared. I’m not saying we were once Neanderthal!
> 
> dhw: [i]In any case, we have been over this a thousand times: nobody knows how brain changes occurred in the past. But we agreed that there was a long period of stasis between the arrival of the sapiens brain and the burst of activity that produced our current advanced civilization. This is consistent with the even longer periods of stasis that occurred between earlier stages of brain change. I have proposed that each brain change is the result of some new activity or requirement (as evidenced by changes that take place in the modern brain), whereas you propose your God stepped in and performed operations on groups of hominins and homos [b]before[/b] they engaged in new activities. I really don’t know why we have to go over all this again.[/i]
> 
> DAVID: [i]The point is preparatory changes in DNA.[/i]
> 
> The point is that sapiens has some genes that were not present in Neanderthal. Nobody says anything about “preparatory”. I’m trying to work out what the article is meant to prove. As far as our discussions are concerned, I have simply repeated and summarized the views already expressed on the whole subject.
> 
> Xxxxxx
> 
> DAVID:  [i]You have not answered the real issue, how did it happen that a mechanism for advance was present undoubtedly in the first bacteria? […] Designer is implied, strongly. [/i][…]
> 
> dhw:[…]. [i]Meanwhile, you are glossing over a truly momentous development in your thinking: that “the mechanism for advance was present undoubtedly in the first bacteria”. No need for a 3.8-billion-year programme for every individual advance, and no need for your God to perform millions of operations.[/i]
> 
> DAVID: [i]My pre-programming thought always included the concept that early bacteria contained coding for further advances, as shown in current research in a new entry today.[/i]
> 
> What do you mean by “coding”? Why have you switched from “mechanism”? 
> 
> DAVID: [i]Any evidence of advanced preparation in preceding DNA puts totally aside the Darwinoid interpretation of evolution as a totally purposeless chance advancing process. These preparations definitely show a planning designer.[/i]
> 
> We are not talking about the purpose or non-purpose of evolution, but about the mechanism that enables bacteria to solve new problems and life forms to change into different life forms. Previously you have limited yourself to either a divine 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for every solution and every innovation, or your God personally stepping in to perform operations or deliver lectures to the lucky few. I have proposed a mechanism (cellular intelligence) that would enable bacteria and all life forms to solve problems and design their own innovations. I agree with you that this mechanism may well have been designed by a designer, and I suggest that his plan may have been to allow life forms a free hand, resulting in the vast diversity of the life forms that make up life’s history.