so with the mass extinction of the honey bee, we'll turn into super geniuses and convert nuclear fusion directly into food.
The human brain grew as a result of the extinction of large animals: new paper
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Re: The human brain grew as a result of the extinction of large animals: new paper
#22The Khoisan people are the oldest living lineage of humans IIRC and they only adopted agriculture in the last century.
Re: The human brain grew as a result of the extinction of large animals: new paper
#23This line of thinking falls into a common issue I have with evo-psych work. The paper proposes a mechanism that could select for intelligence, but doesn't provide evidence that the mechanism caused humans to evolve to be intelligent. It's the equivalent of the "Is-Ought" fallacy for empirical sciences.
A charitable way to put it. The more straightforward term is "just-so story".
Re: The human brain grew as a result of the extinction of large animals: new paper
#24This line of thinking falls into a common issue I have with evo-psych work. The paper proposes a mechanism that could select for intelligence, but doesn't provide evidence that the mechanism caused humans to evolve to be intelligent. It's the equivalent of the "Is-Ought" fallacy for empirical sciences.
Would a mechanism that selects for more intelligence automatically create evolutionary pressure into that direction?
Re: The human brain grew as a result of the extinction of large animals: new paper
#25"As they adapted to hunting... brain volume [grew] from 650cc to 1,500cc."
"As humans moved into permanent settlements and became farmers, their brain size decreased to its current volume of 1300-1400cc."
Its interesting that we today have smaller brains than our prehistoric ancestors.
I wonder if we can look through our genetic code and find some remnants of this past, and re-engineer the relevant genes into future generations?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...
Given that Asians (1364cc) have a larger brain size than Whites (1347cc) and Blacks (1267cc), did these kind of pre-historic trends also play out differently across different landmasses?
Re: The human brain grew as a result of the extinction of large animals: new paper
#26This line of thinking falls into a common issue I have with evo-psych work. The paper proposes a mechanism that could select for intelligence, but doesn't provide evidence that the mechanism caused humans to evolve to be intelligent. It's the equivalent of the "Is-Ought" fallacy for empirical sciences.
A charitable way to put it. The more straightforward term is "just-so story".
Thanks for pointing me to that term, I've been looking for a more succinct description for this.
Re: The human brain grew as a result of the extinction of large animals: new paper
#27"As they adapted to hunting... brain volume [grew] from 650cc to 1,500cc." "As humans moved into permanent settlements and became farmers, their brain size decreased to its current volume of 1300-1400cc." Its interesting that we today have smaller brains than our prehistoric ancestors. I wonder if we can look through our genetic code and find some remnants of this past, and re-engineer the relevant genes into future…
Do we really currently use our brains as efficiently as possible?
The decrease in size could be the outcome of one of the bottlenecks, like the one 200k years ago.
Re: The human brain grew as a result of the extinction of large animals: new paper
#28the sexual selection theory presented in the book ,,the mating mind,, is the most plausible i,ve read to date, including compared to this one.
Re: The human brain grew as a result of the extinction of large animals: new paper
#29This line of thinking falls into a common issue I have with evo-psych work. The paper proposes a mechanism that could select for intelligence, but doesn't provide evidence that the mechanism caused humans to evolve to be intelligent. It's the equivalent of the "Is-Ought" fallacy for empirical sciences.
It is called ad hoc explanation.
Re: The human brain grew as a result of the extinction of large animals: new paper
#30so with the mass extinction of the honey bee, we'll turn into super geniuses and convert nuclear fusion directly into food.
The supply chain would have a few steps between fusion and food, but if we had fusion powered electricity generation then the end result isn't too far removed from that.
Fusion > electricity > hydrogen via hydrolysis > Haber process produced fertilizer > food