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From: cjh@petsd.UUCP (Chris Henrich)
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: Re: darwinism
Message-ID: <542@petsd.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Jun-85 13:05:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: petsd.542
Posted: Thu Jun 13 13:05:27 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Jun-85 04:48:42 EDT
References: <783@oddjob.UUCP>
Reply-To: cjh@petsd.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE)
Distribution: net
Organization: Perkin-Elmer DSG, Tinton Falls, N.J.
Lines: 33
Summary: Is there evidence for this?

[]
	For years, I have wondered (intermittently and
tepidly) about a commonly expressed opinion.  It just came
around again:
in article <783@oddjob.UUCP> sandip@oddjob.UUCP (Sandip Chakra) writes:
>For some days the following question is bothering me. If the evolution
>theory is right, then why the human brain evolved to about six times
>as that of an orung-otung and yet human uses only about 5 percent of the
>brain cells? 

	Is there any current data or informed opinion to
support the statement that we use only X% of our brains?  In
recent books, for the general reader, on brain function, I
have never seen it asserted or supported.
	I conjecture that it is a new kind of folklore:
scientific folklore.  (Actually, mathematicians think that
physicists believe in a lot of "folk theorems" but these are
probably an artifact of different emphases in the two
subjects.)  Perhaps, decades ago, when investigators were
beginning to discover the detailed functions of different
parts of the brain, they were able to assign roles to only X%
of it, and said so, and the popular mind got the message
wrong.  Can this conjecture be supported?  Are there other
folk theorems that you have noticed?

Regards,
Chris

--
Full-Name:  Christopher J. Henrich
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