In the beginning, we were smarter.
This science article I read the other day (in Discover Magazine) struck my limited mind as modestly interesting. It suggests the human brain has actually been shrinking over the eons and, if one wants to see when homo sapiens sapiens were at their smartest, one would be looking at prehistory and the infamous Cro-Magnon — the first modern humans.
Apparently, the shrinking human brain has been a topic of much discussion in certain scientific circles. For almost as long as our species has been progressing since the last ice age, our brains have been decreasing in size.
While changing diet and other possible factors likely play a role in this phenomenon, the more interesting suggestion (from the science article) is the notion the larger brains of yesteryear were accompanied with greater survival skills, aggression, self-motivation and other traits necessary for an individual against the world to thrive to a point where he or she can reproduce.
When we turned from primitive animals to a collective species — surviving together in communities — we had to breed out those larger brained survivalists in order to keep the peace and ensure wellbeing of the greater many.
I guess it makes sense. Some overly aggressive, cantankerous and totally self-interested genius’s singular ambition would lead him to exploit and steal and do whatever natural selection (up to that point) had favoured for his species’ survival.
However, this unfortunate beast among men would not thrive past the Hobbesian hellhole of pure nature. In those early years of sprouting civilization (as it is now), co-operation was key.
The need for individual wits and aggression was replaced more and more by otherwise unnatural traits such as kindness and passivity (at least when not warring against neighbouring tribes).
No, the hulky smart man of 30,000 BCE just had no place in the world of community and progress. Therefore, he (and she no doubt) was executed, evicted from human society and generally denied the rights of reproduction.
And so it was and is. We have domesticated ourselves. Centuries of this self-animal husbandry has left a creature with less cunning, size and physical strength than our wild ancestors, but nonetheless greater ability to survive and thrive in the hive.
I certainly don’t mean to suggest we should all be suspect of those we consider smarter than ourselves. Certainly the type of genius Cro-Magnon possessed served a different purpose and in a different world than the smarts gifted people have today, evolved for the benefits of modern necessity.
However, the notion we turned ourselves from wolves into Yorkshire terriers is quite a concept to contemplate.
Clearly, I am reminded of the augments from Star Trek. With great strength, intelligence and ability came great ambition. The genetically perfected super humans of the Star Trek universe almost destroyed the Earth under such charismatic leadership as Khan Noonien Singh.
I guess the moral of Star Trek and modern human evolution is that we are exactly the way we are supposed to be in order to survive together, given current conditions required for survival.
In a contemporary context, any significantly greater individual skill might not be so much beneficial as it would be dangerous. I suppose if we ever again need bigger brains, we’ll evolve them. However, for now we’re just as smart individually as we need to be.
Perhaps one can have too much of a good thing.
Carter Haydu can be reached at 691-1265.
