Re: Scientists Find Prehistoric Dwarf Skeleton
From: Market Theory (markettheory_at_my-deja.com)
Date: 10/31/04
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Date: 30 Oct 2004 21:21:41 -0700
unrestrained_hand@hotmail.com (Kermit) wrote in message
> > 2) About the tiny brain size. Isn't this rather a blow to the bigger
> > brains for greater intelligence idea? Henry Gee seems to agree. "The
> > whole idea that you need a particular brain size to do anything
> > intelligent is completely blown away by this find."
>
> It only blows away the idea that brain size is the whole story. Total
> body size determines brain size to a significant degree. Women have
> smaller braqins than men, but they have smaller bodies, too. The
> proportion of cerebral cortex to total size may have more to do with
> it than size alone.
That doesn't make a great deal of sense. If I started eating more I
could easily increase my total weight by 10% -- would that decrease my
intelligence by 10% also?
You may not have noticed that women's contributions to science have
only been a small fraction of men's. Perhaps there's still something
to be said for larger brains.
> Also, some animals, such as the parrots and crows,
> may have a stronger selective pressure to minimize size of brain, even
> while they are getting smarter for other reasons. A 70 kg hominid
> doesn't care much about a few extra grams of mass, but a flying
> animal would.
Doesn't the brain of the average 70kg hominid consume quite a large
proportion of its energy budget? You'd think an animal that regularly
had to cope with food shortages would be under some selective pressure
not to have a brain that was gratuitously large and wasteful.
>
> How big were hobbit brains proportionally?
>
> >
> > 3) If anecdotal stories about these 'Ebu Gogo' (the local name for
> > these little people) in legends from Flores people can be linked to
> > this species, H. foresiensis were hairy. This is certainly a new twist
> > in the thinking on the evolution of nakedness in H. sapiens.
> >
> > Algis Kuliukas
>
> I suspect we lost our fur in order to cool off while traveling on foot
> for long distances, especially at high speeds. These little guys, in
> the jungle on an island, would not be marathoners, and either never
> lost their fur or could quickly grow it back (evolve it again) if it
> had a slight advantage for nonrunners. I assume it does, for every
> mammalian species seems to have fur unless it has a clear need to be
> nekkid (e.g. whales, humans, naked mole rats).
The report I read said they were naked.
--mt.
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