Are we becoming more stupid? Human brain has been 'shrinking for the last 20,000 years'

[Demeter]

It's not something we'd like to admit, but it seems the human race may actually be becoming increasingly dumb. Man's brain has been gradually shrinking over the last 20,000 years, according to a new report. This decrease in size follows two million years during which the human cranium steadily grew in size, and it's happened all over the world, to both sexes and every race.

'Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimetres to 1,350 cubic centimetres, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball,' Kathleen McAuliffe writes in Discover magazine. 'The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion.'
She was reporting on comments made by Dr John Hawks, an anthropologist from the University of Wisconsin, who argues that the fact the size of the human brain is decreasing doesn't necessarily mean our intelligence is in decline as well.

Some paleontologists agree with this diagnosis, that our brains may have become smaller in size, but increasingly efficient.

But others believe that man has indeed become steadily more stupid as he has evolved.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1343093/Human-brain-shrinking-20-000-years.html#ixzz19oITuqM9

[mrcheerful]

1. They must have gotten all conservatives for their study, that would explain the

shrinkage in brain size. After all when the word stupid comes into play it is always linked to conservatives and besides we all know conservatives didn't evolve.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. Size doesn't matter; it's what ya do with it!

Einstein’s brain weight was not different from that of
controls, clearly indicating that a large (heavy) brain is
not a necessary condition for exceptional intellect.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/psychology/courses/1010/mangels/Einstein.pdf

In-depth discussion about Einstein's hemispherical width at the link as well. Width apparently matters.

[Demeter]

4. I Read that Einstein's Brain Was Kept

by a specialist, and was reputedly much more convoluted than usual...the folds and ridges create more surface area--more sites for brain activity.

[LiberalEsto]

3. Just look at Sarah Palin for proof

Need I say more?

[bemildred]

5. Surface area is what matters, not volume.

This could very well indicate an acceleration in intelligence. Classic cube/square issue. The brain is biologically very expensive, so it makes sense that there would be pressure to improve it's efficiency.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. Take a look at an engine Honda puts out for the Gran Prix races

and be amazed, and know that a V-6 today stock from the factory puts out more HP than a V-8 of the seventies and eighties. It's the amount of connections in the grey matter more than the size or at least that is how it appears.

[DavidDvorkin]

7. The article doesn't tell us which parts of the brain have shrunk

Have all the parts of the brain decreased in size, or only those parts dedicated to functions that are less important? For example, because we have poorer senses of smell and touch, say, than our distant ancestors.

[valerief]

8. I think the amygdalas of conservative brains have expanded. nt

[customerserviceguy]

9. If people 20,000 years ago

were living better than most people do today, that might have something to it.

I'd hazard a guess that a preference for slimmer females has influenced cranial size, and thus brain size. It's harder to give birth to a large-brained infant if a female's pelvic size is constricted.

Why that would occur is beyond me, but it's as good an explanation as any I can think of for the shrinkage in brain size, if actually true. Maybe we've only found specimens of humans from 20,000 years ago that were larger than normal for that time.

[Ozymanithrax]

10. Since the Venus of Wallendorf was the ideal of beauty 22,000 years ago.

You could be right.

[customerserviceguy]

12. Hey, I admit

I pulled that theory out of my ass, but a lot of scientific reporting does exactly that.

How do we even know that brains were larger 20,000 years ago?

[Ozymanithrax]

14. By measuring the cranial size of Cro Magnon remains...

from the period.

Neanderthals had bigger brains, but the portion of the brain that handles speech was much smaller. Also, from what I've read of the project to sequence their DNA, the mutation that lead to human speech is not present.

It may be that size doesn't matter as much as organization and the way a tool us used.

[customerserviceguy]

15. My point is

we don't know if the remains we have found are typical or not. If only the remains of NFL players were what future archeologists from another planet found of our era, it would lead them to believe that we were much bigger than the average human of today. Perhaps those were the remains of hunters, who might have had greater thinking abilities than the average Cro-Magnon.

But I do agree, brain size alone is meaningless. Just look at the various dog breeds, the Great Danes are not that much different from the Chihuahuas.

[ZombieHorde]

11. Neanderthals had bigger brains than us, but that does not mean they were smarter.

The way a brain is structured is more important than its size.

[awoke_in_2003]

13. Self-delete. nt

[fatbuckel]

16. I will second that.