Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Some People More Than Others

The end of evolution? Scientists say human brain may have reached full capacity
We've invented penicillin, space shuttles, computers and even artificial hearts, among many other wonders. So where will human intelligence go from here? The answer, if certain scientists are correct, is nowhere.

Mankind’s brain power has reached its peak and it is physically impossible for us to become any smarter, they say.They claim that in order to become any more intelligent the human brain would need vast amounts of extra energy and oxygen – and we simply cannot provide it.
Sounds like crap to me.  The brain consumes a significant fraction of our daily energy, but I can't see why there would be any physical limit to evolution evolving more efficient means to feed it.  Certainly obtaining sufficient calories and proteins is not a barrier.  Lots of people manage to eat way more calories than they require.  It's possible that through biomedical intervention in the future we could even produce such changes.

On the other hand, I don't see humans evolving toward greater intelligence in the immediate future.  At least in our culture, high intelligence appears to be associated with a lower than average reproduction rate, so we might, in fact, expect humans to evolve towards less intelligence.

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