Study shows that social brain theory is nonsense

[TylerDurden]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3415820/Animals-a.html

The study is interesting in that it proves what has already been shown elsewhere, that forming larger social groups does not enhance the individual intelligence of a member of any particular species. Indeed other theories show that enhanced social-cooperation since the Neolithic era has directly led to decreased average human intelligence and decreased average human brain-size.

[cherimoya_kid]

And? More is still accomplished scientifically with more people.

[RogueFarmer]

I'm not sure I really agree that this "scientific" experiment can safely conclude definitively the intelligence level of any of those animals. What about monkeys and dolphins? Or wolves. To come to this conclusion one would be more apt to do scientific experiments comparing individuals within species not by comparing the species to each other. Even the information prevented in this article is convoluted. And duh wtf didn't we figure out half of this shit already anyways?

[sabertooth]

"Social intelligence" and "individual intelligent" are different animals....and there are forces at work which shape these phenomenon in ways science has yet to explain.

Impersonal, Universal, and Sublime forces all work upon the individual minds of social creatures.... On both an individual intellectual level and as part of a collective intelligence, the invisible hand of creative evolution works out the balance between.

These manifestations of a dynamic between "social" and "individual" intelligence are interconnected with the demands that the necessity of life, of individuals and societies, to evolve within an ever changing environment. What would be intelligent behavior for an individual member of a small tribe, that would help to ensure survival in one circumstance; would become suicidal (and possibly genocidal) if expressed by individuals living in larger, more highly socially structured communities.

The Human animal has worked out a dynamic of maintaining both highly evolved individual mental faculties, as well as the capacity for submitting to a collective social structure that operates under a different kind of intelligence.

There must be a higher power at work which acts as a moderator between the divergence of individual and social intelligence...some field of influence that operates as a happy median which enables intelligent individuals to subjectify themselves to and merge with the entity of social intelligence.

This higher intelligence is something many people and societies have felt the presence of in some way or another since the beginning.....but understanding exactly how it is connected with us individually, or how it works to interconnect us with each other socially, or how it connects us with the entire cosmos universally...... is still a mystery.

Still in this mystery there are many clues to be found... They can be found in the patterns which repeat themselves thorough the naturally observable world...these observations can be the basis for logical discussions and analysis that have been used to shape both social and individual intellect...

Applied understanding can reveal the underlying nature behind the phenomenon of many relevant issues...such as the explanation for disturbing trends like.... the decreasing brain sizes, loss of physical and sexual prowess, lowering of certain cognitive ability in the individual, how easily manipulated the masses are by miss-truth, overt lies and propaganda....etc

The problem may be in how we view things as "problems" to be be solved, instead of natural consequences of phenomenon which need to be understood more deeply first, before any attempts of interventive transcendence can be effectively initiated. With greater understanding it may become apparent that there are indeed very good explanations for why things are they way they are, and that action taken without this understanding may not have the desired effects.

Part of the human individual had to be culled in order for the construct of higher levels of social intelligence, The savage of the brave new world would never be able to adapt to or cope with a society where everybody belonged to everybody else. Imagine attempting to integrate a Cro-Magnon, with their larger brains, bodies, and strong primal drives; into a white collar world....the kind of world we live in no longer favors such traits, and the ideal paleolithic specimen would not be able to flourish in the present day modern world, nor would the type of archaic intuitive nature based intelligence possessed by such a being, be very appreciated by the contemporaries of the ivory tower intellectual scene.

Then imagine if the world was made up of 7 billion humans all as individualistic, and primally driven as our tribal ancestors....perhaps there are impersonal and universal forces acting to suppress and subjugate individual human intelligence and power to a social order, in order to prevent the human race from going apeshit crazy and destroying the world... In order to build a higher order of social intelligence the capacity for the expression of individual intelligence had to be suppressed and subverted, and the incorporated. 

How these forces act to cull and harness the individual may be very disturbing to people with a more romantic version of human reality.... the eb and flow, point counter point; between the individual desire and the common good, has been played out in the lifetimes of countless human beings. Our stories are full of the interactions between the good ,bad ,and ugly side of our nature..... Misanthropic, Machiavellian and Malthusian methods which have been employed through much of our fall into history, have been very brutal and painful, but perhaps in the grand scheme of things where all necessary to bring balance and harmony to all the races of man kind, and prepare us all for the next stage of the evolution in consciousness...... the end result of which is a world of billions of people whom may not be on an individual level any more intelligent than they had been in the past, but collectively are a force beyond comprehension.

[TylerDurden]

And? More is still accomplished scientifically with more people.

Only to a very limited point. Most past scientific breakthroughs came about because of lone individuals coming up with new ideas that groups of people often  tried to suppress.

[TylerDurden]

I'm not sure I really agree that this "scientific" experiment can safely conclude definitively the intelligence level of any of those animals. What about monkeys and dolphins? Or wolves. To come to this conclusion one would be more apt to do scientific experiments comparing individuals within species not by comparing the species to each other. Even the information prevented in this article is convoluted. And duh wtf didn't we figure out half of this shit already anyways?

Actually studies have already been done on wolves and monkeys as well as comparisons between closely-related species. For example the wolf studies showed that they were far more intelligent than dogs. Dogs were shown to be more trainable and more able to take commands from a human due to enhanced social cooperation.Dogs are, of course,  closely related to wolves and not a separate species (or even subspecies?).

The point is, basically, that the brain-size to body ratio is mostly accepted to be a good standard

[cherimoya_kid]

Only to a very limited point. Most past scientific breakthroughs came about because of lone individuals coming up with new ideas that groups of people often  tried to suppress.

I don't know of ANY major discoveries that weren't the result of thousands of years of scientific advancement. There is no Einstein without Newton. No Higgs boson without Niels Bohr. No SSC without the work of hundreds of physicists. No Charles Darwin without Erasmus Darwin (for two reasons lol).

This list goes on forever, on every planet with advanced civilization. You literally could not BE more wrong, Geoff.

[TylerDurden]

I don't know of ANY major discoveries that weren't the result of thousands of years of scientific advancement. There is no Einstein without Newton. No Higgs boson without Niels Bohr. No SSC without the work of hundreds of physicists. No Charles Darwin without Erasmus Darwin (for two reasons lol).

This list goes on forever, on every planet with advanced civilization. You literally could not BE more wrong, Geoff.

Again, you miss the point entirely. The POINT is that most new inventions/ideas were derived from single individuals. The fact that a myriad previous individuals(or even, very occasionally,  groups) invented previous scientific notions is entirely meaningless.

[cherimoya_kid]

Again, you miss the point entirely. The POINT is that most new inventions/ideas were derived from single individuals. The fact that a myriad previous individuals(or even, very occasionally,  groups) invented previous scientific notions is entirely meaningless.

Dude, do you just want us all to commit suicide so you can have the planet to yourself?

[TylerDurden]

Dude, do you just want us all to commit suicide so you can have the planet to yourself?

Err, the planet earth is made up of billions of wonderful, independent indvidivuals. I am certainly no brillaint genius thereof. However, the fact remains that past scientific  inventions/ideas have almost wholly been derived from a multitude of  specific individuals.

[cherimoya_kid]

Err, the planet earth is made up of billions of wonderful, independent indvidivuals. I am cerainly no brillaint genius thereof. However, the fact remains that past scientific  inventions/ideas have almost wholly been derived from a multitude of  specific individuals.

Just because you are awkward with other humans doesn't mean we are worthless. LOL

[sabertooth]

What TD calls the accomplishments made by a multitude of specific individuals; is what others call evidence of collective social intelligence... each view is a corresponding part of the kinds of false dichotomy that the Taoist grappled with ages ago.

It is an interesting point regarding wolves, how through domestication their brain size and overall intelligence shrank but their ability to be trained to preform task and preform tricks increased dramatically...

The same phenomenon has on one level occurred in human beings, but the dynamics are of a much more profound magnitude. Human beings have domesticated themselves, and have become both master and student....we can train each other to do tricks and perform task that it would be absolutely impossible to accomplish without a high level of both individual and social intelligence.

Our minds run simulations, and in those simulations the individual can put themselves into the situation of others they have witnessed, and from a third party perspective are able to envision with clarity and work out with great insight solutions to problems, such as how to get food out of a puzzle box.

Two heads are better than one, and certain task cannot be completed without cooperation and collaboration of individuals through social interaction. There is a false dichotomy where one view claims that great achievements come from individual accomplishments, while another points to the interconnections which have enabled the breakthrough.

We learn from dialog, interaction, our DNA is a double helix, there are two sexes, there is matter and anti matter, dark matter and the visible world....everything evolves in dynamic relationships between opposites....The human mind in its relation to other human minds is the embodiment of this universal dynamic.

There are elements of the individual in the collective; and aspects of the collective in the individual.... be it the myriad of cells that make up the individual, or the myriad of individuals that make a world...

This world view can be carried out onto the universal scale, (to infinity and beyond) Just imagine our universe comprised of a universal self composed of many smaller selves, each one evolving each other.... spiraling forever in both directions in a glorious fractal energy field.

[TylerDurden]

Just because you are awkward with other humans doesn't mean we are worthless. LOL

I was not even suggesting that, I was talking in general terms. It is just that, currently. there has been some scientific waffle about how humans are supposedly uniquely different from other animals in terms of increased social cooperation and that that was supposedly  why humans were more intelligent. The trouble is that there are plenty of animal species with very complex social systems who are none too bright and attempts to increase their social ability, such as in  the domestication of dogs, have led to lower intelligence. Of course, scientists have been trying to make all sorts of  bogus claims for human superiority in the past, such as the absurd notion that animals cannot understand laughter etc.

[TylerDurden]

Here is the standard wikipedia list of theories as regards the evolution of human intelligence:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_human_intelligence

The current claim re nutrition is that (raw) meat-consumption led to the first big growth in hominid brain-size, and that the last big spurt occurred between 400,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago, and they link that to consumption of cooked foods, which they claim are more digestible than raw foods. The trouble is that cooked foods contain toxins in them, making them LESS digestible, not more digestible, and cooking mostly lowers nutrient-levels except in the case of non-palaeo foods like grains where cooking destroys the antinutrients. Oh, and of course raw vegetables also have their antinutrients lowered, but  then there is the issue of heat-created toxins created by cooking.

All the above does seem to indicate that growth in hominid brain-size probably had nothing to do with nutrition, so a RPD diet might not necessarily lead to bigger brains/higher intelligence in the next generation.

[sabertooth]

To devil the advocate, I ponder the possibility that cooked foods must of had some kind of effects upon the evolving mind of humankind, be it positive or negative depends upon the perspective of the judgement.

Think of the opiate compounds in cooked foods, the carcinogens, the effects that cooked starches, yeast breads, ect...could have had on the human mind...it may not of had a positive effect from the standpoint of the Wolf vs Dog mindset....but on another level the kind of closeness, social habituation, the sharing of additive behaviors, the hangovers and imbalances...may have brought about a change in consciousness that sparked the radical explosion in advanced mental abilities which would not be possible for populations of well nourished and content strictly Raw populations......Food for thought?

[TylerDurden]

I see what you mean. Take dogs and wolves for example. Technically, wolves are far more intelligent than dogs BUT dogs have become better at social cooperation, and have become more docile so are better at obeying orders etc. and maybe better at social communication, overall. Dogs are also in a state of neoteny(in terms of reportedly having the same level of maturity as wolf pups) which presumably would make them better at learning new things(?) - well, the last claim is a long shot, but, after all, humans seem to learn much faster as children  than as adults.

I suppose one could also argue, for example,  that consumption of unhealthy cooked foods might have led to a whole series of unhealthy (epigenetic etc.) mutations, one of which might indirectly have led to an increase in hominid brain-size. However, the first major increase in average hominid brain-size happened well before cooking, so it does seem unlikely. More to the point, once the Neolithic era got started, the proportion of cooked foods in the diet increased considerably along with a major decrease in average hominid brain-size.

[sabertooth]

More to the point, once the Neolithic era got started, the proportion of cooked foods in the diet increased considerably along with a major decrease in average hominid brain-size.

Cooked foods may have more to do with the evolution in quality of the mind than in brain size....Paleo people were content to subsistence living of hunting a foraging, their minds were not under the influence of cooked foods, so they had no real motivation to develop the kind of obsessive behavior patterns necessary for the advancement of more scientifically methodical ways of thinking.....The neolithic mind on the other hand may have been influenced by a number of factors which caused the kind of malcontent consciousnesses which motivated the development of drastically different ways of thinking. Intelligence is just as much as a quality judgment as a quantifiable measurement.

Think of the early grain addict, facing times of drought with stores growing low, the mind withdrawing and desperate for a fix to the problem....hopelessly addicted to staple crops they are unwilling to forage for other foodstuffs, so they become the inventors of methods of procuring what they crave...toiling day and night to dig irrigation canals, till plots of land, reap and sow....they end up creating a lifestyle so fraught with mental stress and tedious labor that no traditional Raw Paleo person would even consider undergoing such insane efforts...yet as the saying goes fools who persist in their folly grow wise. Though it wasn't without negative consequences, some how some way, neolithic man was to some extent able to develop a will-power that enabled them to overcome the negative effects well enough to survive. This will power is not dependent upon brain size and helped neo-man evolve the qualities of mind which from a Paleo minds eye perspective would be absurd or alien.... but never the less... from the post-cook-ed minds, powerfully prevailing thought patterns emerged and combined with the multitude of other lessons learned by the more Raw-Ones...the amalgamation of all these past practices, be it Cooked-ed, Raw, and everything in between, have in some way shaped the intelligence of modern man.

[cherimoya_kid]

Interesting points, Saber. I will consider them carefully.

[TylerDurden]

I don't see cooking as being a useful influence on human evolution. It seems likely that famine-conditions encouraged people in Mesopotamia and elsewhere to first  start  agricultural revolutions (as the latter provide regular food-surpluses)and then these settled societies  simply won out versus hunter-gatherer societies purely  because agriculture allowed them to support much larger families by contrast, albeit with poorer health due to having deficient diets.

[sabertooth]

Cooking was not useful in a direct effect in and of itself, but as you have stated it allowed for larger communities to sustain themselves in a way that wouldn't have been possible for hunter gatherers. These larger neolithic communities which were never entirely devoid of some high quality animal foods, provided the environment by which higher levels of social intelligence could flourish and expand to compensate for deminishment of the individual, due to the down sides of cooking.... 

From this view we should consider the relevant information for what it is and take the next logical step forward....lets suggest that it would be possible for many individuals to return back to more evolutionary nutritional and lifestyle choices, while still apart of this ever growing inter-entangled human matrix....In doing so they would have access to the best of both worlds.... body and mind being nourished and primed toward its genetic potential; while at the same time the spirit being stretched and stimulated to reach the outer limits of human understanding, by merging with the collective soul. This Neo Paleo hominid hybrid  will emerge as the supreme being...the crowing achievement of evolutionary life on this planet.

[TylerDurden]

Actually, very few of the Neolithic societies ever had more than a small amount of (cooked) animal-foods in their diet, usually only the aristocrats(often too highly inbred at that).

[sabertooth]

Actually, very few of the Neolithic societies ever had more than a small amount of (cooked) animal-foods in their diet, usually only the aristocrats(often too highly inbred at that).

I will disagree.

There have been subjugated, depraved and enslaved people whom lived under neolithic tyranny and had their access to animal foods limited, but this was not universal, and many cultures were indeed hybridized crosses, eating varied diets containing both neolithic and wild foods.

My own grandmother told me about growing up in a small town, back in the hollow....Granddaddy raised two hogs every year which was smoke cured and over 100 chicken. Her grandfather went out and shot a couple of squirrel for breakfast every morning..the brains were his favorite ...they set out rabbit traps, hunted deer. The town they lived in was named Salt Lick after the salt blocks hunters left out to lure in Deer. Drinking raw eggs was a tradition in my family, many of the men would drink a couple every morning...my great grandmother would make home made eggnog with raw eggs and raw milk....they also ate a lot of neolithic foods such as locally grown Gram flour bread, beans, oats, cooked vegetables...ect.

My point is, One can easily imagine many other groups of people long after the neolithic revolution living in dynamic half Paleo, half neolithic ways. Be it in the American frontiers people, or in the Forrest Gnomes of dark-age Europe, middle eastern shepherds, Japaneses fish eaters, the Mongolian hoards....if available and the culture was relatively free, people would of consumed large quantities of high quality animal foods....If they had not been able too, I seriously doubt we would be having this conversation, because the brain power needed to create this technology would not have been able to sustain itself in a human world fed entirely on cooked neolithic foods.

[TylerDurden]

All spurious nonsense since the Ancient Egyptians, as a typical example,   suffered awful health-problems like other Neolithic-era societies from eating Neolithic-era foods, yet were able to build marvels like the pyramids etc. Meat was only available to the upper-classes in any quantity for most Neolithic societies until recently.

[sabertooth]

Spurious nonsense, C'mon Really?


The early Egyptian and Mideastern slave master cultures in which the lower cast ate grains and were worked until death at age 30 was not typical of the rest of the world....the real world is much more complex. The evidence from the ashes of Pompeii showed that slaves and masters ate the same foods and shared living quarters, their diets were rich and varied consisting of cultivated foods and large quantities of meat and fish. The children of Abraham where Shepards and ate copious amounts of Mutton, and from their ritual sacrifice on could speculate that they could of been were blood drinkers. The slaves of the American plantation where not given the most choice cuts, but were fed the awful, rib meat, and other scraps...which makes since, because malnourished slaves are not nearly as productive.

[TylerDurden]

Romans of all classes did not have access to the best meats:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Roman_cuisine


As regards the Ancient Egyptians and many other Middle-Eastern Civilisations, the very fact that they achieved such great feats while still on on very unhealthy cooked diets, means that diet never played a part in human evolution/civilisation.