There is an article in the September 2010 issue of Discover Magazine that points out that the average size of the human brain is shrinking. In the last 20,000 years human brains have shrunk 150 cubic centimeters, from 1500 to 1350 ccs. That's about the size of a tennis ball.
Why? I'd provide you with a link to the article, but as I write this no link appears to exist, or my little brain can't find it. If you can, I'd suggest you try to find your way to a news stand to find a copy.
Before you start blaming television, this is a worldwide phenomenon. The Cro-Magnons who carried spears and wore furs and huddled around fires in caves had lots more gray matter than even your college professors.
There is the possibility that the human race is an evolutionary dead end. HG Wells postulated this when he wrote of Eloi and Morlocks.
Problem 1: We walk upright. Which means narrow hips. Which means there is a limit to how big a baby's head can be. Bigger head = more death in childbirth. We already maxed out that size by going vertical, rotating the baby in the womb, making a human infant's head so large that the human infant will break its neck if left to its own power, and a human child is 'premature' compared to say, a calf that is walking in minutes. The brain can't grow any more in the womb that it already has.
Problem 2: We make it easier to survive, which means evolution no longer culls the herd.
Problem 3: See the movie Idiocracy.
Posted by: Falstoffe | August 28, 2010 at 10:00 AM