Comments on: Did The Human Brain Get Bigger Through Evolution Or By Accident?

By: Harry

Harry — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:10:22 +0000

It is far from obvious that natural selection would favour a mutation with a bigger brain. Bigger brains need more energy, which could have been a serious disadvantage. Without the the ability to cook, to enable more energy to be extracted from food, a larger brain might not have been an evolutionary advantage.

By: roz

roz — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:58:38 +0000

according to this, shouldnt woody allen’s favorite organ be bigger than his brain? (in size, that is…clearly its influence is bigger!)

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:26:02 +0000

I was wondering why my head was so big, now i know, thanks!

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:57:00 +0000

@John: Evolution is the accumulation of ‘accidental’ (random) mutations through a very non-random selection process. The mutation speculated in the article wouldn’t be any different, it would have still been random and would have still stuck around because of non-random selection. The contrast is between brain size evolving in one big accident or a series of smaller accidents and the article is either worded clumsily or the author is trying to raise controversy that doesn’t exist.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:30:51 +0000

Intellectual status. I see upon humans a bit different most of the time. We are being trapped in this complex world of ourselves .. need to see to so much more than other living creatures just to do the same thing. That’s what humans like to call intelligent (or scientists in this area then I guess).

Instead of using body for primitive interactions we seem to use our mind for that quite a lot (well, not all, but at times .. if you observe some things around .). So not big claws .. but words with claws .. we hunt while we speak .. The jungle is more oral nowadays ..
Size might not really matter in the real jungle .. life is a bit more fast there .. speedy interactions .. sensing without interference of complex thoughts work better.

Yeah, humans ..Who’s observing us though ..(Booh!)

By: Wonky79

Wonky79 — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:58:22 +0000

Lucky that single human being 200,000 years ago wasn’t infertile

By: JibJib

JibJib — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:55:50 +0000

the universe itself is a happy accident

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:13:37 +0000

“Most scientists believe we achieved our intellectual status through gradual evolution”

This suggests to me that ‘most scientists’ haven’t even given On the Origin of Species a cursory glance.

Nobody who has completed GCSE Biology in the past 15 years has an excuse for not understanding this.

By: John

John — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:05:12 +0000

Ok I may be about to show my stupidity here but I thought evolution was a series of mutations, so evolution is always an accident? It can only have been through a mutation that the brain increased in size as evolution does not have an ‘end game’ in sight – it does not work towards a purpose and therefore doesn’t think ‘oh, the brain needs to be bigger so in the next generation of humans I will give them gradually bigger brains’. A mutation would happen, good or bad, with those better able to adapt surviving and those not dying out. So it had to be accident and evolution as they are the same?

By: Charlie Wheeler-Jones

Charlie Wheeler-Jones — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:59:31 +0000

Darren I think that the Human Brain got bigger due to evelution as quite clearly we evolved from Apes so the brain would have to get bigger, doesnt it?