Link Between Sociality And Brain Increase In Carnivores Questioned By Evolutionary Biologists

[Nicholas]

ScienceDaily (May 26, 2009) — Packs of hunting dogs, troops of baboons, herds of antelope: when people observe social animals, they are often struck by how intelligent they seem, and recent studies suggest that sociality has played a key role in the evolution of larger brain size among several orders of mammals. But new research from two evolutionary biologists, John Finarelli of the University of Michigan and John Flynn of the American Museum of Natural History, calls this hypothesis into question—at least for the Carnivora. After a sweeping analysis of many living and fossil carnivore species that places relative increases in brain size in an evolutionary context, Finarelli and Flynn found that increased brain size is not routinely associated with sociality.

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to me, the basic concept seems inane, and a classic example of humans oversimplifying concepts to make them easier to grasp. the brain is a tremendously complex grouping of different functions, and the number of interconnections between cells seems at least as significant as the total number of cells. and the total "size" of the brain seems very unlikely to be a good predictor of an increase in any specific talent or trait, in that the whole brain doesn't seem to be involved in any one behavioral manifestation.

reminds me of when i was a teen and everybody asked me if i played basketball because i was tall.