tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10407988.post117010262649304874..comments2023-08-05T21:48:58.831-04:00Comments on Philochristos: The evolution of intelligenceSam Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15884738370893218595noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10407988.post-1170370542574552072007-02-01T17:55:00.000-05:002007-02-01T17:55:00.000-05:00You've captured the essence of one of my indirect ...You've captured the essence of one of my indirect challenges to evolution! I haven't actually seen anyone else formally explore this issue. I don't think it is a logical defeater to evolution, but it is a real puzzler. <BR/><BR/>We seem to have had the equipment for some really heavy mental lifting (and delicate skills) long before those jobs ever came available. It's kind of like an herbivore evolving into an awesome killing machine in an environment without prey, and then at some later point it gets turned loose among the teeming herds of the plains. Massive brainpower is not biologically cheap. A big head is hard to birth, and a large brain is a real energy and heat sink. There's no selective advantage unless this thing is paying big dividends.<BR/><BR/>What gets me is that we seemed to have had a brain fully equipped to compose symphonies, build marvels, and understand the most abstract concepts of mathematics and physics long before such things were feasible to realize. You could take a time machine and grab an ancient African, bring him up in a modern education and he would probably be no different than any other human today. And it doesn't even seem that there is a limit to our ability to achieve through our present minds.<BR/><BR/>And besides just being <I>able</I> to do all this complex intellectual stuff, we seem to have been invested with the driving <I>passion</I> to do it. I can, evolutionarily, understand our desire for sex and community, but literature, art, music, theater, math, etc.? That's pretty abstract and nonessential stuff! If you've got competing tribes who prefer to steal your women and have a passion for banging heads with stones, then sitting around banging drums and painting buffalo becomes kind of superfluous.<BR/><BR/>Oh, and by the way, I think you may have over-estimated the timeframe for advanced society in China. I don't think there's evidence for much of anything anywhere advanced prior to about 4000 BC. Things started really hopping around the world at that time. My theory is that things spread from Sumeria, both east and west.Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11853366401521123552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10407988.post-1170128848040516462007-01-29T22:47:00.000-05:002007-01-29T22:47:00.000-05:00I have read this post and sketched in my head the ...<I>I have read this post and sketched in my head the outlines of answers, each of which, when I think about it, would run to several thousand words in order to begin to explain adequately.</I><BR/><BR/>I appreciate you sparing me. I don't think I could handle a post that long.<BR/><BR/>I have read some stuff on evolution, and all it has done is let me know how much there is that I don't know. It seemed so overwhelming to me that I just gave up on it. We can't be masters at everything, so I'm probably just going to let this one go. Not that I won't ever read anything on the subject again. I'm sure I will. I just don't have any plans to really study it. I must choose my battles.Sam Harperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15884738370893218595noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10407988.post-1170119902284201192007-01-29T20:18:00.000-05:002007-01-29T20:18:00.000-05:00ephphatha,I commend your humility. I have read thi...ephphatha,<BR/><BR/>I commend your humility. I have read this post and sketched in my head the outlines of answers, each of which, when I think about it, would run to several thousand words in order to begin to explain adequately.<BR/>I am no expert on evolution of course, although I have read a lot of books on the subject. Nothing that you have raised in this post poses a serious problem for evolution theory as it is presently understood in my view. I agree that the physiological capacity for intelligence is unlikely to have changed much over the last 10000 years or so. We stand on the shoulders of giants.<BR/>I urge you to read some good books on the subject, I think it would be an enriching experience.Psiomniachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01102719882200943549noreply@blogger.com