That's true, but in hard times, (and there have been a lot of hard times), something as anti survival as a resource hungry giant brain, that hasn't yet reached real survival value, (and the brain is very resource hungry), would be very anti-survival. I don't remember exactly where I've read this but, I seem to recall that at one point the progenitors of current humanity were down to 8 or so individuals, (based on some genetic study or other). That is rather extreme speciation The only other modern species that had such a close call are cheetahs, at a much later time period.
AlunFoto wrote: > Human brain development may well be a runaway evolution process, just > like the tail feathers of paradise birds, reindeer antlers, etc. etc. > Any feature that enhance your probability of reproduction can continue > evolving far beyond mere likelihood of survival. > > There's a lot of literature... > > Jostein > > 2007/6/13, P. J. Alling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > >> No you've not paid attention to the literature. A larger brain is >> helpful up to the point where it stops helping with basic survival. >> This happens quite a bit smaller than ours. In fact at the size of homo >> habilis, after that, until the advent of true tool making and real >> cooperation beyond a hunt it's just dead weight. The brain is ghastly >> expensive in energy resources for the human body and incremental changes >> in size from that point don't add to capabilities enough to make up for >> the costs. The development of a larger than needed brain was not pure >> chance, it was incremental, but with no practical survival value. >> >> graywolf wrote: >> >>> No, you are missing a point there, Peter. Non-survival traits do away with >>> a line. Survival traits give it a boost. But traits that do not affect >>> survival are a dice roll, which is the point you are missing. Pure chance, >>> in other words. >>> >>> >>> >> -- >> All dogs have four legs; my cat has four legs. Therefore, my cat is a dog. >> >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> [email protected] >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> >> > > > -- All dogs have four legs; my cat has four legs. Therefore, my cat is a dog. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
