Re: Brain size, IQ

Len Piotrowski (lpiotrow@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
Wed, 4 Sep 1996 13:47:47 GMT

In article <50i6jq$kvu@news.sdd.hp.com> geroldf@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) writes:

>[snip]

>I used that data because I happened to have it on hand.

>[snipped stuff repeated from previous off topic post]

>You're awfully quick to dispute things, lenny, even when you know
>nothing about the subject. This isn't tangential to the discussion,
>since cranial capacity clearly *is* a heritable trait, and furthermore
>it is also clearly correlated with the long-term increase in hominid
>intelligence.

Duh, Firl, we're talking about modern humans!

>You wrote:

>|> >|>[snip]

>|> Double boggle!

>You sure boggle a lot.

I believe the implication was directed at another source, Firl.

>|> >Biological evolution moves much more gradually than
>|> >that. On a geological time scale, species can appear very suddenly,

>|> No felt contradiction in this statement, Firl?

>None whatsoever, lenny. If the fossil record provides samples at
>million-year intervals, then it will appear that new species develop
>very suddenly.

Well, duh-h ...

>You need to understand the difference in scale between a
>20 year generation time and the million year speciation time constant.

da, duh-h ...

>(hominid species seem to show an approximate million year time
>constant, going from australopithicus to habilus to erectus to sapiens)

duh-h, *duh-h-h* ...

>Nothing much happens in a single generation, but over the course of a
>large number of generations (a few thousand?) a new species can appear.

.. and thus spake Firlmeister.

>Getting back to your claim that cranial capacity is not a hereditable
>trait, and all boggles aside, there is no anomaly: human intelligence
>is adaptive, and natural selection has produced successivly more
>intelligent humans. It has also produced larger brains.

Mind posting your cranial capacity, Firl! Entertain us with that anomaly!

Cheers,

--Lenny__

"If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem."
- perlstyle