Homo Erectus Babies Had Bigger Brains Than Homo Sapien Babies!

Are we de-evolving? Or did primative man need a superior intellect to survive primative conditions? Does a bigger brain even mean superior intelligence? Your thoughts would be appreciated.

news.bbc.co.uk...

bigger brains doesnt mean smarter. Look at dolphins who have bigger brains than humans and Elephants who have HUGE brains.

It's all about the proportion to the body ratio

I think of it as compared to computer's nowadays, tenyears ago pc's were bigger than the one's today, but they were FAR from superior, the computers of today are stronger, better and smaller. Seems to me like we as a species are just using up less space to do the required functions and still evolving

reply to post by MsSmartypants


Human Erectis are ling dead. We are still here.

'nuff said.

I don't think its so much about the dimensions of the brain, but the amount of synapses, connections, and general gray matter, that determines intelligence.

reply to post by dominicus



I dont get your point - elephants and dolphins are both smart creatues.



[edit on 15-11-2008 by MCoG1980]

Originally posted by screamo
I think of it as compared to computer's nowadays, tenyears ago pc's were bigger than the one's today, but they were FAR from superior, the computers of today are stronger, better and smaller. Seems to me like we as a species are just using up less space to do the required functions and still evolving

So you're saying their brains were bigger because they were less efficient? They had fewer and less complicated neuron connections which would somehow necessitate them having a larger brain? I don;t get it.

reply to post by MsSmartypants


No I'm not saying their brains were bigger because they were less efficient, I'm saying their brains were bigger AND less efficient. Our brains are designed for intense usage (though most of us barely grasp intense thinking) whereas their brains didn't need to handle so much.

reply to post by MsSmartypants


i would not think that H.erectus brain size has much to do with it, it is brain organization and usage which we clearly trump the other species in
if it was based on size alone, elephants and such would rule the planet...

reply to post by prototism


I would add that what the brain is hard wired for will play a large role too. I would think that our brains are unique because they are hardwired for complex social structures. As far as animal intelligence goes, there are few if any that are smarter than the Crow. They can find themselves in a situation that they have not experienced before that requires an unknown solution. Amazingly they can think up a solution without trial and error. And that's not common. They also have VERY complex social structures, like ours.

Social = intelligent.


The sperm whale has the heaviest brain: about 17.2 pounds (7.82 kilograms). Elephants do pretty well too: about 16.5 pounds for an African elephant. A human, on the average, has a measly 3.3-pound brain

[edit on 16/11/2008 by Good Wolf]

Does a bigger brain even mean superior intelligence? Your thoughts would be appreciated. news.bbc.co.uk...

Ms SmartyPants~Good post
Its interesting that anthropologists speculate our brain is actualy three times larger than it should theoretically be (if you factor in body/weight ratio)-what caused this is still undecided but our brains are made up of one third of long chain fatty acids known as ethyl-eicosapentaenoate.

Theres a good link here about comparitive brain size and use of intelligence:

When biologists started measuring non-human brains in an effort to categorize levels of intelligence among birds and beasts, they discovered that some creatures had brains that were noticeably larger than the largest human brain on record.

www.newhorizons.org...

Also an interesting account of how the brain works and what happened when they looked at Einstein's brain :

The idea that smart people must have more brain cells (a.k.a. "gray matter") persisted until Albert Einstein's brain was made available for study by a select group of neuroscientists. More than 25 years after Einstein's death in 1955, microscopic examination revealed that his brain wasn't composed of more gray matter but more "white matter." White matter refers to myelin, a protein substance that forms around the thread-like projections that connect neurons to each other. Myelin serves as an insulation that allows electrical impulses to flow faster between brain cells. Einstein's neurons had more and stronger connections with each other. There were also more glial cells, that support and facilitate neural connections, in specific areas of his brain. This revelation led to a new understanding of how brains function.

[edit on 02/10/08 by karl 12]

Also, women on average have somewhat smaller brains than men yet there is no evidence at all that men are smarter than women.

[edit on 16/11/2008 by Good Wolf]

reply to post by Good Wolf


Significantly smaller?

Isn't it like a 100gram difference?

reply to post by karl 12


Thought provoking. Thanks. It would be interesting if one had examined Einstein's relative's brains to see if they exhibited this same phenomenom, but to a lesser degree, perhaps. Or did this increase in white matter present it self only in Einstein's brain? In other words, was his genius an unexplainable 'gift from God' or a result of a gradual procession of increasing white matter throughout the generations?

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy


ehhh. It's not really that simple. Maybe I shouldn't have said significantly smaller but anyway - i'll change it for you. The human brain differs drastically from person to person, up to a kilogram in some cases, but it still doesn't seem to have an impact on intelligence, cept from Einstein who grew more brain to do math with.

[edit on 16/11/2008 by Good Wolf]

Originally posted by Good Wolf
reply to post by Lucid Lunacy

 

ehhh. It's not really that simple. Maybe I shouldn't have said significantly smaller but anyway - i'll change it for you. The human brain differs drastically from person to person, up to a kilogram in some cases, but it still doesn't seem to have an impact on intelligence, cept from Einstein who grew more brain to do math with.

[edit on 16/11/2008 by Good Wolf]

Do you feel it was a onetime genetic mutation that occurred within Einstein's genetic lineage, only in Einstein,producing an over abundance of those 'math-doing cells'?
And WAS it just a fluke of nature that gave him more than his fair share of brain power?
Or was it something more sinister? (this is a conspiracy theory forum, after all)


[edit on 11/16/2008 by MsSmartypants]

reply to post by Good Wolf


If I remember correctly Einstein had an abnormal brain formation. Triple the amount of Glial Cells or so, and an enlarged math lobe. But he was missing something entirely... just can't remember the anatomical name.. Einstein brain mass overall I don't think was abnormal. Maybe even smaller?

reply to post by MsSmartypants


At least this fly in the face of people thinking that human being has only been on Earth since 6000 years (most ridiculous idea ever promoted).

reply to post by MsSmartypants


Genetic component to Einstein's brain? Possibly.

Proper stimulation? Certainly.


(Going with what I can remember of his life) As a child Einstein was no Einstein. He developed late with talking and reading (much like myself), he was a difficult child to handle. He hated being told how to do things as it prevented him working it out for himself and one of his teachers said that he would never amount to anything (much like me again ).

When he was 8 he got sick and his father gave him some magnets to play with while he was at home. He grew a fascination with the mystery force which governed the behaviour of the magnets.

Einstein himself said that he was just emphatically curious, and people suspect that that was the key to his genius. We do know that stimulus makes the difference between good children and great children.

Perhaps there were emphatically curious Erectus's in the past that we should thank for our intelligence.

[edit on 16/11/2008 by Good Wolf]

I heard on a show dealing with human-like apes (real-life Hobbits, to be exact) that the shape and complexity of the brain is far more important to intelligence than the size.