Talk:Hominid intelligence
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[edit] References
The books listed under Further Reading were my principal sources (other than my own general knowledge) for this article. Adam 00:44, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
- Ok. I changed Further Reading to References. I don't know the books, but if you think the books cover most of the material in the article, it is probably safe to remove the {{unreferenced}} . Ben T/C 10:36, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Suggested changes
There should be more info on the minds of other great apes. Also, I was under the impression that the first state was in Sumer, about 1000 years before Egypt.
The "Human Evolution" area should be divided into two sub-areas: brain evolution, and physical evolution. Of course the brain is a physical orgajn too, but I mean "everything else" when I say "physical evolution." E.g., bipedalism, lack of fur, etc.
The title for this article should be "Human Brain Evolution," not "Hominid Intelligence." "Hominid" is more correct, as the article discusses our pre-human ancestors, but "human" isn't incorrect, and is more clear to a general audience. The article is about brain evolution, not about intelligence evolution. The two are close but not the same. And "evolution" may be implied by being in the "Human Evolution" area but we can make this more clear.
The first paragraph says, more or less, that humans are distinct from other animals because we have "the ability to reason, plan, solve..." etc. It would be better to start by saying that we have huge brains, four times bigger than our closest relatives, far bigger than we need to survive, and our huge brains should make us less able to survive. In other words, start off with a mystery: how did an anatomical feature that should have made us less successful turn out to make us so successful?
The 3rd paragraph erroneously states that Darwin believed that human evolved by natural selection. In his "Descent of Man," Darwin wrote that man evolved via sexual selection, not natural selection.
The Savannah theory for bipedal evolution is presented without mentioning alternative hypotheses, such as the aquatic ape hypothesis.
The hypothesis that hands caused our ancestors' brains to develop makes no sense, given that chimpanzees, gorillas, etc. also have hands.
The hypothesis that tool-use caused our ancestors' brains to develop is also easily discredited. The huge human brain evolved before anything but primitive tools were used.
Rather than rewrite this article, I'll write another article, entitled "Human Brain Evolution." Then let's discuss who to combine the two articles, along with other articles in this wiki-area.
I can't find this article - did you write it? LookingGlass 18:05, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
We need a more conprehensive discussion of the extreme controversy in the scientific community surrounding the reasons humans became sedentary and developed agriculture. Simply saying that they needed food is an amazing oversimplification, and, if I remember my college archaeology class, there is ample evidence to suggest (from studies of nutrient content of bones) that the pre-sedentary hunter/gatherers thrived with much better diets. Maybe this needs its own page...
--unsigned comment by 67.176.41.167 Ben T/C 10:36, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Other species
Someone should probably explain why the phenomoen of intelligence is not as prevalent in other species, despite the advantages that it gives humans. Why don't other species have anywhere near our ability to manipulate the environment? There's a book somewhere that explains that the natural selection for intelligence is not all that great, at least when compared to teeth and muscles, and that in order for intelligence to develop, one needs to not only take into account the social aspect of natural selection, but also the (apparently) precarious survival of the "species" at the "starting stages" of inteligence development. If I could only remember what it was called, and if I only kner the theory had any merit. . . . Anyway, regardless of any teleological concerns, something had to cause it. there are five types of hominid, Austraithecus afarensis, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens Neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens sapiens.
68.6.85.167 05:20, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Justifying this article's existence
This article needs to have a reason to exist apart from the intelligence and animal cognition articles. If the article is correct in stating that non-human hominids (wouldn't a better term be "primates"?) were not significantly more intelligent/self-aware than other animals, then the information here should be compared and merged with the animal cognition article. Thus, I put a tag requesting a citation on that fact.
There is definitely room for an article about how the development of the human difference, whatever that might be, came about, and I think that's what the editors of this article have been shooting for - thus, my request for citations on the opening sentence's claims; but a better title might be Evolutionary development of human intelligence (or cognition - some consistency in our usage of terms would be nice). GreetingsEarthling 04:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Hominid or Hominan?
This article seems to be about Hominan intelligence rather than Hominid intelligence. If this article needs to exist at all (and I am very sceptical that it serves any purpose) then it should be about the intelligence of the great apes if it is about Hominid intelligence, but there is no mention of the intelligence of chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas or orangutangs, all of which are Hominids. If it is supposed to be about the intelligence of modern humans and their extinct close relatives, then it should be called Hominan intelligence surely? Alun 10:54, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
- I think an explanation could be provided in italics at the beginning of the article instead of renaming the article. --Jagz (talk) 15:29, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Evolution of intelligence
Maybe some of this information can be used in the article:
J. Philippe Rushton, a professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario and the current head of the Pioneer fund, has written a controversial book called Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective. Rushton claims in the book that race is a valid biological concept and that racial differences frequently arrange in a continuum of Mongoloids (Orientals, East Asians) at one extreme, Negroids (blacks, Africans) at the opposite extreme, and Caucasoids (whites, Europeans) in the middle.[1] Rushton also claims that the survival challenges of making warm clothes, building durable shelter, preserving food, and strategically hunting large animals, all selected genes for greater intelligence and social organization among the populations that migrated to cold climates.
In his 2007 book, "Avoid Boring People: Lessons From a Life in Science", James D. Watson writes, "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically." "Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."[2]
Here is a section, "The evolutionary History of IQ", that no longer appears in the "Race and intelligence" article: [1] --Jagz (talk) 18:28, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
