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> The brain is about as large as it can be while making birth possible. I wonder if it had been beneficial to have larger brains, we'd have evolved to support

> The brain is about as large as it can be while making birth possible. I wonder if it had been beneficial to have larger brains, we'd have evolved to support that. Diminishing returns maybe or just a local maximum we didn't get out of?

ifyoubuildit 2y ago
Beneficial kinda just means "leads to more procreation" right? So if bigger brains meant people reproducing more, our brains would get bigger to the point that most births are cesarean or something. I do wonder what happens when we eventually evolve to a point where we can't survive without more and more advanced technology. A lot of people who would have died off before reproducing 200 years ago now don't, which is of course incredible for us. But what are effects of that 100/1000 years down the line? Presumably we'll have plenty of more immediately pressing issues over that time frame.
- tehjoker 2y ago
  Check in with various farm animals, they are already there.
- wh0knows 2y ago
  It is interesting from a space-faring species perspective. By the time we can embark to other planets/asteroids our biology might require us to lug around significantly more technology just to survive.
endymi0n 2y ago
So how evolution works is that a feature needs to have an evolutionary advantage, but the specimen must also not die. So there are two adversarial pressures here, carefully balancing each other in a mammal species that already has one of the highest birth mortality rates of both mother and child. If heads were any larger, it would create a proportional amount of negative evolutionary pressure by both direct and indirect death (of the mother) at birth. Interestingly, there seem to be some indications showing that human interventions by modern technology already show clear evolutionary trends: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5338417/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5338417/ Humans might eventually evolve to not even being able to be born naturally anymore at some point.
- Alex-Programs 2y ago
  That's a fascinating thought. As people with larger brains are more successful in life and more likely to have children*, mortality rates for natural births would increase, and over time we would evolve to become dependent upon modern technology. The continued existence of our species would become dependent upon continued civilisation. A dark age could kill us, or at least cripple the population. *how true is this? Uni-educated people tend to have lower fertility rates.
  - kridsdale3 2y ago
    "Children? With these economic conditions?"
    - Izkata 2y ago
      "There's no way we could have a child now. Not with the market the way it is, no." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2tUW0HDHA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2tUW0HDHA
  - mmooss 2y ago
    > As people with larger brains are more successful in life and more likely to have children* > *how true is this? Uni-educated people tend to have lower fertility rates. In the U.S. university education depends mostly on mommy and daddy's wallet size, not brain size.
    - gonzan 2y ago
      I dont have data but I’d assume that wallet size is correlated to brain size
      - mmooss 2y ago
        That would be quite a claim and I certainly wouldn't assume it!
- barnabyjones 2y ago

ifyoubuildit 2y ago

Beneficial kinda just means "leads to more procreation" right? So if bigger brains meant people reproducing more, our brains would get bigger to the point that most births are cesarean or something. I do wonder what happens when we eventually evolve to a point where we can't survive without more and more advanced technology. A lot of people who would have died off before reproducing 200 years ago now don't, which is of course incredible for us. But what are effects of that 100/1000 years down the line? Presumably we'll have plenty of more immediately pressing issues over that time frame.

tehjoker 2y ago
Check in with various farm animals, they are already there.
wh0knows 2y ago
It is interesting from a space-faring species perspective. By the time we can embark to other planets/asteroids our biology might require us to lug around significantly more technology just to survive.

endymi0n 2y ago

So how evolution works is that a feature needs to have an evolutionary advantage, but the specimen must also not die. So there are two adversarial pressures here, carefully balancing each other in a mammal species that already has one of the highest birth mortality rates of both mother and child. If heads were any larger, it would create a proportional amount of negative evolutionary pressure by both direct and indirect death (of the mother) at birth. Interestingly, there seem to be some indications showing that human interventions by modern technology already show clear evolutionary trends: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5338417/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5338417/ Humans might eventually evolve to not even being able to be born naturally anymore at some point.

Alex-Programs 2y ago
That's a fascinating thought. As people with larger brains are more successful in life and more likely to have children*, mortality rates for natural births would increase, and over time we would evolve to become dependent upon modern technology. The continued existence of our species would become dependent upon continued civilisation. A dark age could kill us, or at least cripple the population. *how true is this? Uni-educated people tend to have lower fertility rates.
- kridsdale3 2y ago
  "Children? With these economic conditions?"
  - Izkata 2y ago
    "There's no way we could have a child now. Not with the market the way it is, no." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2tUW0HDHA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2tUW0HDHA
- mmooss 2y ago
  > As people with larger brains are more successful in life and more likely to have children* > *how true is this? Uni-educated people tend to have lower fertility rates. In the U.S. university education depends mostly on mommy and daddy's wallet size, not brain size.
  - gonzan 2y ago
    I dont have data but I’d assume that wallet size is correlated to brain size
    - mmooss 2y ago
      That would be quite a claim and I certainly wouldn't assume it!
barnabyjones 2y ago