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Are you implying that brain weight has a direct relationship with intelligence? So if someones brain is heavier that means they are more intelligent right?

dreamcompiler 7y ago
No. Large differences in brain weight (e.g. factors of 10 or more) can sometimes matter. But weight is just a poor proxy for more important factors: Number of neurons, number of neuronal interconnections, and specialization of brain areas. Within a species, brain weight differences are unimportant. Even between species it's often unimportant. Blue whale brains are 4x as heavy as human brains but the whales have fewer neurons, and most of those neurons are dedicated to audio processing. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/news-blog/are-whales-smarter-than-we-are/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/news-blog/are-whales-sm...
- darkerside 7y ago
  I'd imagine most of ours are similarly dedicated to visual processing, but that's just a shot in the... dark
emn13 7y ago
That effect almost certainly exists, but whether it amounts to anything much at the small relative differences you'd see between members of the same species is much less apparent. And of course, you're sort of implying that this it is absurd to suggest that brain weight explains intelligence; but note that just because there's a correlation between brain mass and intelligence doesn't mean it's the only factor or even major factor. Not that it's trivial to even measure intelligence or that it's even a well-defined concept, but hey. So before you jump to conclusions: there is obviously research on the matter; e.g. you might start here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-brain-size-matter1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-brain-size-m... But while the effects in humans may be small, the difference between 35g and 7kg is... huge, so even if the effect might be imperceptible and in any case likely irrelevant between healthy humans, that's another story at that kind of ratio. Not to mention that I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and conjecture that metabolic differences may even increase that difference (i.e. the orca's brain may be running hotter, too).
- seppin 7y ago
  Intelligence is a completely made up construct, by us. So no I don't think there is an comparison to be made.
  - yibg 7y ago
    Maybe human intelligence / IQ rest can be argued to be either incomplete or not a great measure of raw human intelligence, but you can’t seriously be saying all intelligence is made up and subjective. I think it’s pretty clear for example that humans are a bit more intelligent than a gold fish.
    - Rapzid 7y ago
      It's the new woke thing to downplay human intelligence in comparison to other species and AI. So you wouldn't say "Human intelligence is singularly spectacular and bridging the gulf between human and goldfish intelligence would be harder than traveling from one edge of the universe to another". You would say "Human and goldfish are smart at different things. Goldfish are smart at breathing in water and humans are smart at.. being smart".
      - inciampati 7y ago
        I find this unnecessarily condescending. If you want to honestly characterize the argument, you could use realistic examples of intelligence. For instance: Goldfish brains are probably more adept at integrating their particular sensory environment than ours would be. Humans excel at navigating our symbolic and memetic social environment which lies completely outside the realm accessible to the goldfish. We are definitely the smartest things in our known universe. But we will, by definition, not know what we can't know. So our universe is limited, and we are the only ones keeping score. It's woke to respect other related biological systems. Respect doesn't imply a reduction to absurdity.
      - seppin 7y ago
        > It's the new woke thing to downplay human intelligence in comparison to other species and AI. So you just argue against what you think someone else thinks, is that how this website works? Kinda the same as all the other ones, frankly.
stjohnswarts 7y ago
it's absolutely true between species, along with how developed particular areas are. Within a species with roughly the same relative size and brain area development it is not the case. The poster didn't imply anything else. Scientists tend to condition it with brain to weight ratio as a close correlation to intelligence. It's easy enough to find on the internet if you're interested.

dreamcompiler 7y ago

No. Large differences in brain weight (e.g. factors of 10 or more) can sometimes matter. But weight is just a poor proxy for more important factors: Number of neurons, number of neuronal interconnections, and specialization of brain areas. Within a species, brain weight differences are unimportant. Even between species it's often unimportant. Blue whale brains are 4x as heavy as human brains but the whales have fewer neurons, and most of those neurons are dedicated to audio processing. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/news-blog/are-whales-smarter-than-we-are/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/news-blog/are-whales-sm...

darkerside 7y ago
I'd imagine most of ours are similarly dedicated to visual processing, but that's just a shot in the... dark

emn13 7y ago

That effect almost certainly exists, but whether it amounts to anything much at the small relative differences you'd see between members of the same species is much less apparent. And of course, you're sort of implying that this it is absurd to suggest that brain weight explains intelligence; but note that just because there's a correlation between brain mass and intelligence doesn't mean it's the only factor or even major factor. Not that it's trivial to even measure intelligence or that it's even a well-defined concept, but hey. So before you jump to conclusions: there is obviously research on the matter; e.g. you might start here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-brain-size-matter1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-brain-size-m... But while the effects in humans may be small, the difference between 35g and 7kg is... huge, so even if the effect might be imperceptible and in any case likely irrelevant between healthy humans, that's another story at that kind of ratio. Not to mention that I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and conjecture that metabolic differences may even increase that difference (i.e. the orca's brain may be running hotter, too).

seppin 7y ago
Intelligence is a completely made up construct, by us. So no I don't think there is an comparison to be made.
- yibg 7y ago
  Maybe human intelligence / IQ rest can be argued to be either incomplete or not a great measure of raw human intelligence, but you can’t seriously be saying all intelligence is made up and subjective. I think it’s pretty clear for example that humans are a bit more intelligent than a gold fish.
  - Rapzid 7y ago
    It's the new woke thing to downplay human intelligence in comparison to other species and AI. So you wouldn't say "Human intelligence is singularly spectacular and bridging the gulf between human and goldfish intelligence would be harder than traveling from one edge of the universe to another". You would say "Human and goldfish are smart at different things. Goldfish are smart at breathing in water and humans are smart at.. being smart".
    - inciampati 7y ago
      I find this unnecessarily condescending. If you want to honestly characterize the argument, you could use realistic examples of intelligence. For instance: Goldfish brains are probably more adept at integrating their particular sensory environment than ours would be. Humans excel at navigating our symbolic and memetic social environment which lies completely outside the realm accessible to the goldfish. We are definitely the smartest things in our known universe. But we will, by definition, not know what we can't know. So our universe is limited, and we are the only ones keeping score. It's woke to respect other related biological systems. Respect doesn't imply a reduction to absurdity.
    - seppin 7y ago
      > It's the new woke thing to downplay human intelligence in comparison to other species and AI. So you just argue against what you think someone else thinks, is that how this website works? Kinda the same as all the other ones, frankly.

stjohnswarts 7y ago

it's absolutely true between species, along with how developed particular areas are. Within a species with roughly the same relative size and brain area development it is not the case. The poster didn't imply anything else. Scientists tend to condition it with brain to weight ratio as a close correlation to intelligence. It's easy enough to find on the internet if you're interested.