Wikibooks: Cognitive Science: An Introduction/Explanations For How Humans Got So Smart
Human beings are enormously successful on Earth biologically speaking. Other creatures are also successful but they do this primarily through speciation a new species will evolve to occupy a different environment. Ants for example are all over the planet but to do this they evolved into more than 14...
| Format: | Book |
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| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cognitive_Science:_An_Introduction/Explanations_For_How_Humans_Got_So_Smart |
| Summary: | Human beings are enormously successful on Earth biologically speaking. Other creatures are also successful but they do this primarily through speciation a new species will evolve to occupy a different environment. Ants for example are all over the planet but to do this they evolved into more than 14 000 different species. Human beings on the other hand can live in many environments that differ enormously from the Arctic to the desert to the rain forest without a great amount of genetic evolution. Henrich J. (2017). The Secret of Our Success How Culture is Driving Human Evolution Domesticating our Species and Making Us Smarter. Princeton NJ Princeton University Press. Page 10. Generally the accepted reason why humans are so successful is that we are more intelligent than any other species. But what exactly this means and especially how we got like this remains an area of significant scientific controversy. If we look at our ancestors we can measure their brain size by looking at fossil skulls. Homo erectus had a cranial capacity of 930 cubic centimeters. Our species Homo sapiens has an average of 1 330 cubic centimeters. In particular our frontal areas changed consistent with the view that our old brain stayed relatively the same while the new brain areas changed rapidly. Human brains consume an enormous amount of energy about 20 25% of the energy we take in goes to running the brain. This is really high compared to other animals such as other primates (8 10%) or other mammals (3 5%). Henrich J. (2017). The Secret of Our Success How Culture is Driving Human Evolution Domesticating our Species and Making Us Smarter. Princeton NJ Princeton University Press. Page 70. How did human brains get so big? It s easy to think of evolution being purely a genetic thing that s completely separate from culture. But cultural change can affect genetic change and vice versa. It s possible that our ancestors engaged in what is called cultural ratcheting the culture changes which changes our genetic makeup which changes our culture ... |
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