Evolution of Intelligence More Complex Than Once Thought 453
palegray.net writes "According to a new article published in Scientific American, the nature of and evolutionary development of animal intelligence is significantly more complicated than many have assumed. In opposition to the widely held view that intelligence is largely linear in nature, in many cases intelligent traits have developed along independent paths. From the article: 'Over the past 30 years, however, research in comparative neuroanatomy clearly has shown that complex brains — and sophisticated cognition — have evolved from simpler brains multiple times independently in separate lineages ...'"
Re:Linearity in Complexity???!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:More complex? I'd have thought less complex if. (Score:5, Informative)
this means the nascent potential evolutionary building blocks for intelligence are widely distributed in species in nature and given a chance will give riser to a smarter brain.
It takes more than a chance - it takes evolutionary pressure. If something's already perfectly adapted to its environment without a brain, then it's unlikely to evolve one. A brain might even reduce the fitness of an organism (by diverting energy that could be better used for other survival/reproduction mechanisms).
O RLY? Convergent evolution? Is that news? (Score:5, Informative)
As I've wrote before (f*cking IEEE paywall [ieee.org]):
"Convergent evolution is one of the most impressive concepts of Darwinian thought. As stated in the literature, "It is all the more striking a testimony to the power of natural selection that numerous examples can be found in real nature, in which independent lines of evolution appear to have converged, from very different starting points, on what looks very like the same endpoint" [Dawkins's Blind Watchmaker, p. 94]. Eyesight is a good example of a remarkable biological tool that has appeared independently many times. For instance, the octopus' eye has evolved from a line independent of our lineage, and there are records of some 40 such "parallel" lines of evolution leading to the development of eyes [L. F. Land, "Optics and vision in invertebrates," in Handbook of Sensory Physiology, Vol. VII, H. Autrum, Ed. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1980, pp. 471-592]."
Re:Wow, evolution (Score:5, Informative)
There is not one single science paper stating that this happens. Nobody says "Fish become horses". This is a typical creationist (read: Christian) misstatement and misunderstanding. It shows you really don't know what evolution means or says.
Please don't pidgeonhole all Christians under the Creationist camp. There are many Christians that are not diametrically opposed to evolutionary theory. Rather, we see the creation story in Genesis to be allegorical and poetic, instead of trying to place it under textbook scrutiny.
Re:evolution and racism? (Score:3, Informative)
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life
I don't think that word means what you think it means. (Or rather what the word "races" meant at the time.)
Here [rationalrevolution.net] is a rebuttal against accusations of Darwin being a racist.
Actually I don't know what he believed about non-white humans, but none of it would make him wrong about evolution.