31–40 of 103 posts
This 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.
"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…
I sometimes joke that our brains were needed during glacial periods to survive, and now we just invent chores and make fuss over everything just to keep it busy.
Where's the joke though?
This 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?
This 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.
In my opinion, other sciences are not immune to this.
"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…
"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.
In a hunter-gatherer society, all members require this intelligence described in the article.
In a hierarchical early agricultural society, only the ruling classes and to an extent middle classes do.
Thus you end up with a distribution of intelligence (and brain size) aligned along caste, with a wide range. Who you sample influences your measurements.
"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…