all 23 comments

[–]GConly 9 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 2 fun -  (20 children)

Absolute size is not everything.

The relationship that really matters is brain size relative to body mass, called the encephalisation quotient. Intelligence has a better relationship to EQ than brain size.

Men have bigger brains because they have bigger bodies. Once you correct for body mass, specifically minus body fat, there's no difference in EQ between the sexes.

Pre modern humans were also a lot heavier set than current humans are. We are more gracile. Overall modern human EQ is higher than Neanderthals, particularly when the size of their visual processing is taken into account. And no they didn't have larger brains.

https://humanorigins.si.edu/research/whats-hot-human-origins/neanderthals-larger-eyes-and-smaller-brains

Calculating brain size in fossil humans with this information, the remaining brain area in Neanderthals was about 15% smaller than in fossil modern humans.

It's also a fact that the brains of people in Eurasia have been showing positive selection for higher IQ since the paleolithic and before

Enrichment of genetic markers of recent human evolution in educational and cognitive traits

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6105609/

Evidence for Recent Polygenic Selection on Educational Attainment and Intelligence Inferred from Gwas Hits: A Replication of Previous Findings Using Recent Data

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332076417_Evidence_for_Recent_Polygenic_Selection_on_Educational_Attainment_and_Intelligence_Inferred_from_Gwas_Hits_A_Replication_of_Previous_Findings_Using_Recent_Data

Microcephalin, a Gene Regulating Brain Size, Continues to Evolve Adaptively in Humans

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/309/5741/1717.abstract

We show that one genetic variant of Microcephalin in modern humans, which arose ∼37,000 years ago, increased in frequency too rapidly to be compatible with neutral drift. This indicates that it has spread under strong positive selection

Everything you posted was wrong.

The lesson here is don't trust Wikipedia as a source.

[–]suckitreddit 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

Also, don't forget how the brain is folded. If you're a species that has a large smooth brain, then you're a dumbass.

[–]Dragonerne 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You're refuting something about intelligence that I didn't write.

Neanderthals did have bigger brains. In fact almost 1700 cc compared to modern females of 1200 cc. But more importantly even our homo sapiens ancestors had bigger brains than we do now.

[–]Comatoast 8 insightful - 5 fun8 insightful - 4 fun9 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

When your brain is larger, but you're effectively retarded what good does your brain size do?

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (15 children)

Neanderthals are being compared to “fossil modern humans”.

The selection of fossils may be biased.

Ancient European Hunter Gatherers, for example, had far larger brains than the modern average.

That doesn’t mean as Dragonerne implies that brain capacity necessarily diminished through in-population selection as there are no modern human populations fully descended from those ancient Europeans.

EQ is a rule of thumb at best in any case as it fails to account for differences in neuron function and brain anatomy(although the study you cite did try to control for the latter).

Birds have notoriously small brains but many species have shown cognitive abilities in the same range as primates if not higher

[–]Comatoast 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Corvids. They're insanely intelligent and adorable to boot.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

No objection.

[–]GConly 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Birds have notoriously small brains but many species have shown cognitive abilities in the same range as primates

Birds have been under much harsher selective pressure to reduce brain mass because excess weight impedes flying ability.

There's an issue that isn't really looked at with interspecies EQ calculations. Human brains have a certain amount if duplication of function on both sides of the brain, you can carry out a hemispherectomy (removing half of the brain) in a kid and still have a relatively normal functioning adult. An animal where weight/size absolutely has to be kept to a bare minimum is going going to lose that feature.

Humans have probably had a fairly strong selective pressure to minimize brain size, because we need to keep it down because of our bipedalism making our pelvic area narrow. What you'd see is improved neuron density to its theoretical maximum before any increase in brain size began. It's probably why the increase in brain size from australopithecus to AMH had a fairly flat curve for a very long time. We maximized packing density, and then brain size happened later.

As land mammals with a long life span, we need to keep the redundancy 'back up' function because we get banged on the head when hunting and fighting, and we reproduce slowly (unlike birds).

Ancient European Hunter Gatherers, for example, had far larger brains than the modern average.

They were also a lot heavier. About 60-70% of brain mass in humans deals with the body, not problem solving.

There's also been recent genetic selection that increases intelligence. Although that's been going the other way at since the fifties. Systemic welfare states. See the Icelandic study for that.

[–]Dragonerne 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

What's your honest opinion. Is it good that women have had their brain size shrinking so much compared to men?

[–]GConly 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There's no difference in brain size between the sexes now, all factors considered.

I doubt there ever was a difference. I doubt that there's been a decrease in EQ in either.

[–]Dragonerne 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

I didn't limit my post to in-population selection. Mixing with others is still natural selection. Those you mix with are selected or those they mix with.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

You are blaming the agricultural elite. That implies agency, but they weren’t dumber(at least by non-verbal metrics) by choice or through social engineering but rather dumber was the baseline and they bred like rabbits so the average European brain case got smaller.

Breeding like rabbits and eating like shit puts some pressure on larger brains but farming peoples are still generally above non-farming warm climate hunter-gatherers.

[–]Dragonerne 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (7 children)

We used to have bigger brains. Our women used to have huge brains. Now because of the agricultural patriarchal system women have had their brain size reduced by a lot! This is horrible..

[–]Comatoast 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

You are a shitpost master, and I don't know whether to praise you for it or what.

[–]Dragonerne 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

To be honest, it's a mix of shitposting but also a mix of genuine thought. When I read that factoid about female brains shrinking that much, then I really thought it was horrible. That is real systemic and generational sexism.

[–]Comatoast 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Sexism won't matter when the Corvid masterrace absolves us of the painful duties of being human.

[–]Dragonerne 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Corvid masterrace versus Cornschilds

[–]Comatoast 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

The Cornschilds will only be able to rely on their strawmans for so long.

[–]Dragonerne 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00044/full

The reigning hypothesis of the past century was that smarter people have bigger brains. With the advances in neuroimaging techniques this hypothesis was put to test in many studies. Indeed, a meta-analysis of 37 studies with over 1,500 individuals of the relationship between in vivo brain volume and intelligence found a moderate, yet significant positive correlation of 0.33 (McDaniel, 2005). A more recent meta-study of 88 studies with over 8,000 individuals again reported a significant, positive, slightly smaller correlation coefficient of 0.24. One of the conclusions of this study was that the strength of the association of brain volume and IQ seems to be overestimated in the literature but remains robust after accounting for publication bias (Pietschnig et al., 2015). Thus, overall bigger brain volume, when analyzed across multiple studies, is associated with higher intelligence.

[–]Rah 5 insightful - 7 fun5 insightful - 6 fun6 insightful - 7 fun -  (0 children)

The agricultural elite is composed of very poweful families, such as the Cornschilds and the Cottonfellers.

[–]filbs111 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

It's not about how big it is. It's what you do with it that counts!