Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucsd!hub!silber
From: silber@voodoo.ucsb.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: evolution of intelligence
Message-ID: <2153@hub.UUCP>
Date: 1 Aug 89 16:10:24 GMT
Sender: news@hub.UUCP
Organization: UC, Santa Barbara. Physics Computer Services
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-Message-Text-Follows-

part of
chris malcolm's rejection of ramesh sitaraman's observation (re: the
differential rates of evolution of different subsystems) was:

>>Note that the largest and most rapid recent evolutionary change which   
>>the human race has suffered is a very considerable change in brian size;
>>this is usually presumed to be correlated with becoming cleverer. If we

What do you mean by 'rapid', what do you mean by 'human species'? even the
proto-humans of three-million years ago didn't have pea-brains.  The evolution
of 'the brain' (the evolution of intelligence) is really a trans-species
phenomenon several hundred millions years in duration.  Brain size, as
i recall, is not that strongly correlated with intelligence; it is rather
the specialization of certain subsystems etc.  

Intelligence did not emerge in one rapid burst of evolutionary ingenuity,
but rather very slowly as vraious 'onion skin layers' were added to the
vertebrate control apparatus.