Thin Bone Vault, The: The Origin Of Human Intelligence

by Fredric M Menger

Overview

This book delves into one of the greatest riddles perplexing modern science: “Why are humans so smart?” In a format understandable even by the non-expert, the author investigates the origins of human intelligence, starting with classical Darwinian concepts. Thus, the strengths and beauty of natural selection are presented with many examples taken from natural history. Common criticisms of Darwin, from scientists and non-scientists alike, are confronted and shown to be either inconclusive or outright false.The author then launches into a discussion of human intelligence, the most important feature of human evolution, and how it cannot be fully explained by mutational selection. Modern humans are smarter than what is demanded by our evolutionary experience as hunter-gatherers. The difficulty lies in the inability of natural selection to answer the following question: how can a complex set of genes, controlling expensive traits with little immediate benefit, come into permanent existence within a short time period in every member of a small population (which was dispersed and geographically isolated over a huge planet) which had a low reproductive output and a low mutation rate? The book concludes with a speculative epigenetic theory of intelligence that does not require DNA mutations as a source of evolution. Although the book is comprehensible by anyone with a college education, this last section in particular should intrigue both layman and expert alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781848163362
Publisher:	Imperial College Press
Publication date:	02/13/2009
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgment ix

Section 1 Evolution 1

Chapter 1 Introductory Remarks 3

Chapter 2 Darwin and Natural Selection 11

Chapter 3 Darwin Analyzed 31

Part 1 The Evolutionary "Story" 31

Part 2 Darwin as a Scientific Theory 43

Part 3 Reductionism 49

Part 4 The Wonder of It All 52

Part 5 Entropy 63

Part 6 The Gap Problem 65

Part 7 Complexity 82

Part 8 Molecular Evolution 97

Chapter 4 Lamarck 107

Section 2 The Thin Bone Vault 129

Chapter 5 Introduction 131

Chapter 6 Definition of Intelligence 137

Part 1 A Multifaceted Trait 137

Part 2 Linguistic Intelligence 138

Part 3 Musical Intelligence 153

Part 4 Mathematical Intelligence 164

Chapter 7 A Brief History of the Mind 181

Chapter 8 Population 191

Chapter 9 Culture 201

Chapter 10 Animal Intelligence 211

Section 3 Evolutionary Potential 221

Chapter 11 Introduction 223

Chapter 12 Elementary Genetics 225

Chapter 13 Gene Variability, Examples 237

Part 1 Snapdragons 237

Part 2 Sleeping Sickness 238

Part 3 Immune Diversity 240

Part 4 Globins 244

Part 5 Heat Stress 245

Chapter 14 Directed Mutations 249

Chapter 15 Genetics and Intelligence 253

Section 4 Evolution of Intelligence, an Epigenetic Model 257

Chapter 16 Introduction 259

Chapter 17 Epigenetics 263

Chapter 18 The Cranial Feedback Mechanism 271

Section 5 Bibliography 291

Index 299