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I've always found it strange how the study of human evolution focuses on the brain size as a proxy for the capacity for intelligence. Yet we have mammals walkin
by perrygeo 1y ago
I've always found it strange how the study of human evolution focuses on the brain size as a proxy for the capacity for intelligence. Yet we have mammals walking and swimming around us with larger brains than us. Shouldn't the default assumption be that they too are highly intelligent, sentient beings? Human exceptionalism is a hell of a bias.
- swores 1y agoIsn't the idea of brain size being a useful proxy for intelligence quite outdated? Partly because there are animals with larger brains which we now know are not very intelligent, with no assumptions needed, and partly because some of the most intelligent non-primate animals that we know of actually have very small brains - like crows and other birds in the corvid family.
- xeonmc 1y agoIt's as they say -- Don't judge a chip by its die size.
- adrian_b 1y agoWhile brain size is not a certain sign of intelligence, it is correlated with intelligence, especially when the comparison is done between more closely related animals, which have similar brain structures. The largest brains belong to elephants and cetaceans, and both are among the most intelligent animals. However comparing their brain size to that of primates would not provide useful information, because for both elephants and cetaceans large parts of their brains are dedicated to the control of various functions of their large bodies that we do not consider as relevant for "intelligence", including things like trunk control and echolocation.