Re: Why large brains
Lorenzo Love (lllove@snowcrest.net)
15 Nov 1995 18:52:46 GMT
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n8010095@cc.wwu.edu (Phillip Bigelow) wrote:
>
>>hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey) wrote:
>
>>>Sooner or later there'd be large brain animals.
>
>Lorenzo Love <lllove@snowcrest.net> responded:
>
>>WHY?
>
>
> Because Hubey is falsely assuming that large braininess (e.g. "smartness",
>with it's resultant technology) is a character trait of "high evolutionary
>'grade'" (to use his rhetoric). Compared to Aves, humans are primitive in
>every other way except for intelligence.
> Aves is presently the furthestly-derived of the vertebrates...in the
>history of the world. Most cladists would rank humans as primitive to
>intermediate in evolutionary characteristics.
> Hubey is also making the claim based on knowledge after-the-fact. Since
>we know that large brained animals exist, then, by Hubey's logic, it was in
>the cards (or in the stars, to be more mystical) that they would evolve. By
>Hubey's reasoning, evolution is somehow "driven" toward something.
> Frankly, I think he is delving more into the field of religion than into
>science.
> <pb>
>
Exactly my point in asking why. Intelligence is no more preordained
then any other characteristic. Indeed Fermi's Paradox may show just how
unlikely it is.
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Lorenzo Love
lllove@snowcrest.net
"The Earth is the cradle of mankind but one
cannot remain in the cradle forever."
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
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