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Highbrow Highjinks Come to an End
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.'"
So, does that mean our limbic system is similar to our animal friends?
No wonder...
Dirk
The key to consciousness is in the ORGANIZATION of the neurons in the "proportionally sized" area of interest. When they show us micrographs that indicate the wiring is identical between men and other apes, then maybe I'll change my mind, but not before. You have some people (hulking linebackers) with big heads and brains (literally) and others (petite cheerleaders) with small heads and brains - but they both are equally intelligent humans (sort of...)
I would like to bring something else to everyones attention that seems relevant; a study done in England. During the 1960s doctors gave shunts to some patients with "water on the brain." These poor people didn't have much hope for a quality life as others do. When researchers went back to see how these children were doing in the 1980s, they found, astonishingly, that they had IQ's of around 120 and were all able to finish university. After further investigation it was found that only a very small portion of their brains were functioning (a small bit in the cerebellum I believe). I am sorry to say I don't remember who did this study, but I hope someone who reads this will and post more details. I am sure I have gotten some details wrong, so please don't flame me. I just remember this as very interesting since it seemed to be a radicaly change from the way we see the brain.
hey who stole my nic?!?
Dirk
Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and many other prominent(white, of course) scientists were not accepted at first. Petty, ignorant people such as yourself stand in the way of science. Phrenology has been scientifically proven. Slubberdegullion(anonymous to protect my karma from ignoramuses and negroids)
I've heard it suggested that what makes us different is the use of language. I think the theory goes that our species existed for a long time with little sign of intelligence. Then language was developed, and everything changed almost overnight. Key factors include not just the brain capacity for language, but the vocal capacity for language. Or so goes the theory.
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.
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)
Cool, but useless.
Here's more than you ever want to know about spina bifida / hydrocephalus and how it generally affects those who have it - one of whom talks about it here. One study on IQ follow-up is here but it only says the expected problems result. My wife is a labor / delivery nurse and sees this pretty frequently, it's not pretty and just about always causes neurological damage....
what kind of cortex development, caused this typo.
YO YO YO BIZNATCH! I IZ GONNA HAV TA ROLL UP IN DIS PEICE WIT MAH HOMIES AN BUS' A CAP IN YO WHITE ASS! W3RD!!1 YO LILLY WHITE AZZ CHEEKZ IS GONNA HAVE DIS NICKA'S SIZE 12 KICKS UP INIT!! I'MA RAPE YO MOMMA ADN SHOOT YO DOG, HONKEY!
Man, that's vicious of you
I was just trying to find this paper in Nature Neuroscience (as referenced in the article) and all that's returned is...
No documents matched the query.
Search query:Author: Semendeferi
Your search yielded no results. You may refine this query or perform a new query
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?
--everytime you learn something a piece of your brain is replaced by something that someone else said
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.
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
I don't know if "water in the brain" is Hydrocephaly -- Hydro==water ; cephalein(?sp)==head.
I recall, if it's the case, that Egyptian pharaohs had this.
About the original posting: "Si non è vero, è benne trovato!" (If not true, it is well discovered")
I've been hearing for many years that women have not evolved well to match our skull increase in size. Is this wrong?
Regarding the pen, I sure wouldn't not phrase things like the poster did -- no denying that written things are our long-term common memory, though. Think about what happened when Alexandria's library was burnt.
We can have advanced cultures without writing, but again this is also not just about technology. I think the original poster exaggerated in his words, but writing really makes a world of difference.
Next, don't know about "adam" (hebraic is out of reach for me), but didn't it mean "first"?
"Atom", though, is not small. "A" means not, "tomos" means "divisible", or "divided". So "atom" is indivisible (?sp). Of the same origin is "tome", a division or part of an encyclopedia, for instance.
Of course, the words have different origins. If HighTeckRedNeck implied same roots, well, you're right, that's first-order BS. But maybe he was just using some kind of figurative language, so as to convey an argument. In this case, I would only find this use kind of pitoresque, funny, not wrong.
I disagree with your last point: IMO we can call any means of communication language. But the point is not this. We're looking for intelligence. Bees, for instance, are dumb but have a very sophisticated language, it seems.
On higher animals, however, I've read things that often amaze me. Don't take my word on this, do some search on, e.g., Google and see what you find.
But, of course, we are light-years ahead of them.
Now, you may not know, but I'm a Christian. Catholic to be more precise, not a Muslim, but the guy won't get me converted, because, for starters, I'm a very lousy at being Catholic.
But I like to see one expose such beautiful views about his religion. In fact, I would like a Buddhist, Brahmanist or whatever talk in that way. And even atheists can say good things, too.
Let's be scientific, ok, but also let's appreciate the different views of this world, which we must share, shall we?
Let us proactively seek mutual understanding.
I don't know if negroids should be "released in the jungle" as someone proposed.
What I know is that, every day, every hour, every minute life gets more difficult for you all who separate human beings into classes.
This is because we, the majority, don't tolerate this point of view.
Think you have the right to say that others are inferior to you? I advise you to think otherwise. Start now as it may take time to change your mind.
Have a nice day!
So are whites... what's the big deal?
;-)
I don't get it... You are a primate, my friend, get used to this idea! Negros are apes, yellows, too and whites are no different.
Instead of fighting this, learn how make it an advantage. You'll do better in life and look more intelligent, too.
What this all shows us is that though we arrogantly think we know everything there is to know about the origin of our species ... like many other sciences, we're just BEGINNING realizing how ignorant we are.
Hopefully, with better technology, we'll be able to test of these theories (those that even qualify as such), and finally know what is actual science, and what is mere faith.
BTW, this includes both sides of the origins argument.