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I find their hypothesis suspect. > According to the researchers, the decrease in the size of game and the need to hunt small, swift animals forced humans to di
by _RPL5_ 6y ago
I find their hypothesis suspect.
> According to the researchers, the decrease in the size of game and the need to hunt small, swift animals forced humans to display cunning and boldness—an evolutionary process that demanded increased volume of the human brain.
There are plenty of predators that hunt fast small prey, but don't have advanced cognitive capacities. Cats, for example, are adapted to hunting rodents, but have pretty small brains.
> As humans moved into permanent settlements and became farmers, their brain size decreased to its current volume of 1300-1400cc. This happened because, with domesticated plants and animals that don't take flight, there was no more need for the allocation of outstanding cognitive abilities to the task of hunting.
There are active hunter-gatherer societies out there (or at least societies that lean heavily that way along the hunter-farmer axis). Do these societies have larger brains than everyone else? Seems like a simple way to test their hypothesis.
- jiofih 6y agoI’m sorry but this is very low effort commentary. Is it adding anything new to discussion? Seems pointless to dispute the paper’s hypothesis with a handful of anecdotes.
- iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y agoI think some cats are different because they are antisocial and there aren't that many of them. Compared to humans (and e.g. dogs) that have to hunt but also feed a group and support a social structure. Social cats like lions I believe do mostly eat bigger game. But cats overall are also extremely smart compared to most animals. Look into how intelligent tigers are. But they dont collaborate so they don't need that side of intelligence. I do like your idea about the extant hunter gatherers, that should be easy to confirm.
- tshaddox 6y ago> There are plenty of predators that hunt fast small prey, but don't have advanced cognitive capacities. The hypothesis doesn’t imply that large brains are necessary for any animal to hunt small fast prey. Cats are really fast and have great senses and built-in weapons and it was probably “easier for evolution” to improve the brain than to build cat-like senses and weapons from scratch.