Highbrow Highjinks Come to an End 31
nickynicky9doors writes "The Sidney Morning Herald has an article debunking the long standing theory of our specie's dominance based on a proportionally greater development of the frontal lobe.
MRI scanning suggest... 'proportionately, there is no major difference in the relative size of the frontal cortex among humans and their closest relatives.'"
Re:Phrenology (Score:1)
Dirk
hooray (Score:1)
So, does that mean our limbic system is similar to our animal friends?
No wonder...
Dirk
Quality, Not Quantity (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Quality, Not Quantity (Score:1)
Having a larger brain means more stuff to make connections out of, that doesn't necessarily mean we have to make those connections.
does someone remember this? (Score:2)
Spina Bifida / Hydrocephalus Info (Score:4, Insightful)
Language (Score:3, Interesting)
I've heard of them teaching other primates to use sign language, and the results are fascinating.
So perhaps we aren't that much smarter than other primates, and hence, people studying brain mechanisms won't find the differences they're looking for.
Re:Language (Score:2, Funny)
does this show that he was right?
Re:Language (Score:1)
Re:Language (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Language (Score:1)
All animals have language(we are just to stupid to accept that it may be nonverbal, read the book the horse whisperer), though not so developed, many animals use tools (most grow them themselves, long tongues, claws ...) but few have directed development and the pen. The pen allows our knowledge to be passed on in time and space. Civilization as we know it would have been greatly limited without the pen. Any given person would be little more than an animal without the benefits from them. Religious development and the pen are necessary conditions for the development of society past a certain point.
Most people misunderstand the stories. The atomic(indivisible matter) theory came from Democratus but his teachings on the four phases of matter got dummied down to earth(solid), water(liquid), air(gas) and fire(plasma) (most common examples). You can only imagine what happened to the teachings of (indivisible man) "adam" when it got dummied down to the concepts available then. Note the similarity to "atom" and "adam" in spelling. When man gets divided from God he becomes animal. Religion (re- again, ligio- to bind) is about making man whole again by binding himself back to God (willfully). Like an atom, a human is not stable until its parts (spin, charge ...) are balanced and functioning as willed by God. And society will be just as unstable when unbalanced and not functioning as willed by God.
That's the difference between fully developed humans and animals. We are (at our best) wisdom(light e=mc^2) made clay (a mix of solid, liquid, gas and ions) and the pen allows us to do the same, metaphorically speaking.
So many inaccuracies.... (Score:1)
First, the size of a baby's head has little to do with how uncomfortable labor is--other parts of the body do that just fine. The skull, in fact, is not fully fused, so a baby's head is noticeably distorted for 24-48 hours after going through what I like to call the "Play-doh fun factory of life." You can spot Caesarean babies precisely because their heads are bulbous and not funny mush-shapes. Also, many other animals (especially mammals) evince what appears to be extreme discomfort during labor; it's not limited to humans.
Second, many societies are advanced, in the sense that they form stable social units with laws and traditions, without the aid of writing. True, technological society as we know it wouldn't exist, but to say that people are "little more than animals" without the benefits of writing is ignorant and absurd.
Third, "atom" and "adam" come from different languages. Atomos means "small" in Greek; adam means "person" in Hebrew. The similarity in English transliteration means nothing. It certainly doesn't mean that we have a "spin" and a "charge" in any meaningful, macro-level sense, that has to be aligned or balanced as willed by anyone.
Finally, you shouldn't call just any means of communication "language." Even chimps who have been taught sign language lack the ability to put together elaborate sentences, and just because horses respond well to soothing whispers doesn't mean their comprehension of "language" meets even the bottom rung of sophistication for human speech.
I don't quite know if you're trying to sway people to your religious beliefs with this post, but if you are, you need to present them with a little more clarity of mind.
Oh for Cliff's Sake! (Score:1)
Secondly, the so-called 'dominance' of our species is really self-evident in the way it's just our species that rapes the planet.
Dominance shouldn't be about the size of anything. It's what you do with it that counts. E.g. Look at what the dolphins are doing with their brains. Nothing much really. Just living and getting by.
Who's the more intelligent?
merkac - (side references to Doug Adams)
Re:Oh for Cliff's Sake! (Score:3, Insightful)
Elephants and goats can do a great job of destroying an ecosystem.
Sidney ? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Sidney ? (Score:1)
"...what kind of cortex development, caused this typo."
Geographical I guess.
Is this for real? (Score:2, Informative)
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It's not in Nature either. The newest paper I can find is: Am J Phys Anthropol 2001 Mar;114(3):224-41 which is only area 10 and is hardly new enough to be "news for nerds". Anybody have the correct cite?
Re:we know nothing ... yet (Score:2)
While findings could be used by "either side of the origins debate", as you so interestingly put it, it does support your claim that we're merely at the end of the beginning of scientific discovery.
A prospect that both thrills me and frightens me all at once.