Evolution of Intelligence More Complex Than Once Thought

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 ...'"

Comments

Re:Wow, evolution

[Anton Styles]

Don't feed the trolls :P
I'm a Christian and believe in creation; moreover I believe that no scientific experiment will prove once-and-for-all either the existence of God or the non-existence of God, because there will always be men who take the results of experiments and adapt them to fit their preconceptions, according to cognitive dissonance. Sadly there are many wierd types that stand up and denounce scientific results as being incorrect without first checking the evidence... But I must assert that mankind will never achieve Godhead, contrary to what Oprah Winfrey and other nutty new-age types would have you think.
I'm obviously no scientist, but given your references to quantum physics and subatomic particles I'll wager that you are a great deal more familiar with the cold hard facts than I am, so I'll ask you a question: Can you give an example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome?