On the non-necessity of evolving large brains:
It requires big brains and they in turn demand lots of protein, which, outside modern yuppie societies, generally means meat. As the late evolutionary paleontologist Jack Sepkoski used to say: “I see intelligence as just one of a variety of adaptations among tetrapods for survival. Running fast in a herd while being as dumb as shit, I think, is a very good adaptation for survival.”
(from a review of an interesting book.)
My son was once involved in some prank that could have attracted police attention. His friend asked if he thought he could outrun the cops. He replied “I just have to outrun you”. Fortunately, he seems to have outgrown that stage.
My wife is a horse trainer and I can tell you that quote is supported by the fact that there are plenty of stupid, stupid horses.
As an old mammalogy prof of mine once put it, you don’t need to be too intelligent to sneak and then pound on a blade of grass.
To each his suff’rings: all are men,
Condemn’d alike to groan,
The tender for another’s pain;
Th’ unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
‘Tis folly to be wise.
-Thomas Gray
What a great comment. Jack Sepkoski and his partner-in-crime David Raup are my favourite paleontologists.
Scared me for a second when I saw that the author’s name was de Sousa.
I live out west, and I get to see many types of wild herding animals – antelopes, deer, elk, buffalo – not to mention all the avian species that flock. They are all beautiful and graceful, especially when in motion.
It hurts when you compare Creationists to them.
chancelikely Yeah, me too when I saw that crapola name of desousa. I got to hate the one we are referring to that I found one of his earlier books,”The End Of Racism” in my library and threw it out. He wasn’t quite bonkers then, but that former title had his name on it and that was enough to heave ho the now notorious slimebag.
Oh my goodness. I almost fell out of my chair laughing. That’s great.
i found this once on the internet somewhere:
> > Actualy, you’re generalizing from a single datum. Perhaps a big
> > resource-sucking brain could develop as a secondary sexual characteristic.
>
> As a secondary sexual characteristic, it need only be big, not functional.
> The extra volume could consist entirely of fat and the effect would be the
> same.
Not if the *use* of the brain was the sexual characteristic. Homo erectus
males would wander out onto the plains and start reciting the
multiplication tables. Whoever got highest got swarmed by females.
Then it got out of hand, and eventually turned into calculus and the
categorization of finite division algebras. Very much like peacock tails.
Except by then someone had invented money, and that had taken over
as the secondary sexual characteristic which dominates our society.
Somewhere, deep in the heart of every mathematician, there is a niggling
little recognition that something is *not coming out right*. But they
blame it on whichever theorem they’re working on, and go back to work.
This explains a lot about mathematicians.
No chance the fundies could outrun those stupid designed dinosaurs and made it all the way to the present century. Now they don’t have to run anymore but can remain stupid.
So, PZ, are you saying that if we were to do a Calvaria cut on Behe’s skull, lifting the lid would reveal a cerebrum as smooth as a bowling ball?
I though our big brains needed glucose to function. Hence, more energy, hence needing to be a little more intelligent.
But that’s just nitpicking. Not like we expect philosophers to get everything right.
Yet another book discovered here to add to the list.
Not if the *use* of the brain was the sexual characteristic.
bingo.
behaviors are just traits that selection can act on just like any physical traits.
If a big brain allowed for behavioral plasticity, there could indeed be a sexually selected aspect of that*.
Looking at fish, for example (shocker!), we can certainly see behavioral as well as physical traits that are sexually selected for, like aggressiveness in defense of nests, amount of time spent displaying, etc.
*(don’t ask Joan Roughgarden, though).
Ah yes, takes me back to my youth: “The Lord is my Shepherd…”
One of the churches I grew up in had a mural on the back wall, behind the preacher, of a smiling Jesus tending a flock of sheep. (Of course, those sheep weren’t running, they were just lying about the place being blissed out. And I think a few of them were drooling…or maybe that was from the congregation …I just remember there were an awful lot of vacuous expressions in the place.)
I dunno – just seems like there should be a “..not that there’s anything wrong with that..” squeezed in there somewhere.
Creationism explained, in one sentence
I like:
I can sum it all up in three words: Evolution is a lie
— JohnR7, Christian forums [2006-Nov-04] (http://rlrr.drum-corps.net/religion/780)
Bah.. I can define creationism in one word: Bullshit.
So it would seem that the trait of reason (read: rationalizing) must of been advantageous early in the brain’s history, but are now realizing that without logical-reasoning, the trait of just reason alone could perhaps be our downfall. Only reason without logic can bring comfort to one who thinks that paradise awaits them after they obliterate themselves along with those they classify as “infidels”.
Running fast in a herd while being as dumb as shit, I think, is a very good adaptation for survival.
Y’mean, like Nürnberg ca. 1935? Worked for awhile … Konrad Lorenz had a good deal to say (in Das sogennante Böse = On Aggression) about human herd mentality, what his English translator called “militant enthusiasm”. I understand later work has challenged some of his assertions. But I found his main theme compelling when I first read the (English) work a couple of decades ago, and I still do.
Large brains require large skulls. Large skulls require the evolution of large birth canals. Which, in turn, promote the evolution of large penises, to properly service said birth canals.
My point is, I guess, that large brains are good.
“When enough people share a delusion, it loses its status as a psychosis and gets a religious tax exemption instead.”
There’s another one sentence characterization of religion.
There’s another one sentence characterization of religion.
and a damn fine one, too.
I would argue two things:
#1. In all likelihood, most creationists do not run fast..
#2. Calling them dumb as shit is an insult to fecal matter everywhere, it does not have a brain to begin with. Creationists willing excise their own..
Creationism explained, in one sentence
Hey, I can do it in one word:
Bullshit.
I can sum it all up in three words: Evolution is a lie
— JohnR7, Christian forums [2006-Nov-04]
Oh, JohnR7! Back when I read FSTDT, before it got so depressing I had to quit, he was a source of great mirth.
Large brains are quite a detriment to us, physically speaking. That’s why we’re born in such an underdeveloped dependent state, because any older and the stupid brains would get us stuck coming out. I think Geoffrey Miller is really onto something with the “smart men are sexy” evolutionary hypothesis.
Frankly I am more convinced by ‘smart women (oh, an men) can farm’ as an evolutionary hypothesis. Ditto standing upright allows one to hold helpless infants, as well as throw macho pointy weapons. I would have thought we had got beyond the heroic/macho bias in evolutionary thought by now?
Farm? We’ve been doing that only for a little over 10,000 years, many peoples much less than that. Actually our brains got smaller the same time we started farming.
But there’s another hypothesis that says that smart people can tend fires and cook, and plan ahead to bring food to the hearth instead of eating it right away, and get even smarter by eating the energy-rich cooked food.
Sexual selection is not “heroic/macho bias”. Besides, wouldn’t sexual selection for smartness be “nerd bias”?
Ditto standing upright allows one to hold helpless infants, as well as throw macho pointy weapons.
http://www.jumpstation.ca/recroom/comedy/python/banana.html
…
It’s good to examine abnormal behavior
(Whatever “abnormal” might mean)
Just remember, we’re usually seeing ourselves
In the things we’re surprised to have seen.
We like to point fingers at somebody else
For the troubles, today, that we face;
But don’t point at others; the problem is us–
We’re the batshit-insane human race.
(the first part is at…)
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2008/03/natural-state-of-featherless-biped.html
Evolution is like lightning striking a mud puddle, according to Ben Stein.
Creationism is like UltimateTard.
That’s what I always think when I hear people saying there has to be some sort of intelligence behind the universe, whether they mean God or some alien hyper-universal thingamajig.
Who says intelligence is all that? Who says that at the level of “universal,” that intelligence is any more impressive than “can burn in an oxygen-rich atmosphere?”
Ants, is they were intelligent enough to be as stupid as we sometimes are, would insist that God was like a huge Queen, with the power to make others build an immense anthill in the sky.
We think intelligence is “godlike” because that’s what we’ve got. The human god is really smart, so smart he’s able to do anything.
The giraffe god would have a neck so long it could reach the tasty stars.
A rock’s god would be a really big friggin rock.
Intelligence is impressive and important to us. To whatever force (or non-force or whatever the fuck) causes the universe to exist, intelligence may be on the same importance level (some or none) as water turning to ice.
And maybe there’s something as yet undiscovered that makes intelligence look like a stupid card trick.
Yeah, I know, I’m getting repetitive.
I dunno about that. I haven’t read the entire book–I doubt I could stand to, frankly–but the excerpt I have read was enough to make me think that he was, indeed, quite bonkers back then. He was basically arguing that stereotypes must not be racist because a lot of people believe them, even now, when nobody is racist. Among other ludicrous things.
Look out – ERV just got angry(er).
Seems the Expelled *stole* more stuff for their propaganda flick.
http://endogenousretrovirus.blogspot.com/2008/04/expelled-erv-finally-gets-angry.html
Ronnie de Sousa is the man!
William Calvin has seriously proposed something like this for the evolution of language. If rudimentary verbal communication is important for coordinating group activities, then it becomes reasonable for women to select mates on the basis of their verbal skills, and for men to display those skills during courtship by chatting up prospective mates. Pretty soon the smooth-talking gene becomes linked to the “likes smooth-talking men” gene, and we’re off to the races with a self-perpetuating cycle of escalating language skills.
Something similar was seen in the ghettos; the Jews have selected for verbal skills, because the boys who did best in their Bar Mitzvahs would be most favoured by those famous jewish mothers.
Which is why there are so many names in the Hannukah song. They’ve been bred for verbal skills, and now they’re using them to become famous.
It all makes sense!
1. big brain
2. big head
3. big birth canal
4. big penis
5. standing erect
6. big feet
7. goto 4.
Matt M (#22)
Do you have a source for the large birth canal -> large penis theory? I’ve just started reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond and circa 1991 when it was published the cause of our comparatively enormous (cue self-satisfied smirk) penises was still up in the air.
Large Penis … erm … aquatic apes?
Like Dolphin and Seal pricks?
Upright bipedalism NOT feom the Savannah, so where from, please?
Large brain demands lots of protein? Why, and says who? Sounds like North American protein-obsession to me :-)
Like Dolphin and Seal pricks?
you want big?
go walrus.
Consider yourself lucky you were only reading it. I argued with him on occasion. And he was one of the relatively sane ones, believe it or not.
Good review, but for this statement there is a counterexample (talking about the value of female children)
“This prevails until equality is achieved. It will be interesting to see in China and India, countries where policies have led to a surplus of males,”
Thailand.
Although women are incredibly unequal in Thailand, female children are valued. There are actually cases of infanticide of *male* children, contrary to China. Males are a burden on the family, females are a boon
The reason for this appears to be that female children are expected to look after their family by marrying good men.
This has of course led to the “matrimonial prostitution” that pervades Thai society.
So there is more than one familial strategy, the “warrior and good provider” can be replaced by the Thai model very easily. Equality is not necessary for females to be valued.
yay! Always nice to see a paleontology quote that recognizes the importance adding significant amounts of meat to our diet had in our evolution. The fact that the difference between a laser-wielding spaceman and an exceptionally clever ape is a well-seared steak has always appealed to me for one reason or another.
The bonobos have even bigger ones.
The gorillas have the smallest ones, because they don’t need them to compete.
The closer you get to “make love, not war”, the stronger the selection for increased size. Real machos don’t need that.
Ever seen a gibbon move without climbing? You’re in for a surprise.
(Lots of surprises, actually.)
The bonobos have even bigger ones.
The gorillas have the smallest ones, because they don’t need them to compete.
The closer you get to “make love, not war”, the stronger the selection for increased size. Real machos don’t need that.
Ever seen a gibbon move without climbing? You’re in for a surprise.
(Lots of surprises, actually.)
In human beings at least, sexual selection works both ways. Men may be less fussy than women, but are much more so than most male mammals; and some of us even value intelligence and sensitivity as well as looks. Also, in humans, sexual selection is a special case of social selection: it pays to be friends with the bright as well as the strong and healthy, and having lots of friends is a big advantage.
I’m going with the raw, planet-devouring power of Galactus.
Maybe I’m biased, but my favorite part of that article was the takedown of that obscurantist fool, Alvin Plantinga.
And maybe there’s something as yet undiscovered that makes intelligence look like a stupid card trick.
Like, say, rapid reproduction and plasmid exchange?
Running fast in a herd while being as dumb as shit, I think, is a very good adaptation for survival.”
Add “fucking around a lot” and you’ve described most of middle management.