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Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence
In this groundbreaking look at the evolution of our brains, eminent neuroscientists Gary Lynch and Richard Granger uncover the mysteries of the outsize intelligence of our ancestors, who had bigger brains than humans living today. Weaving together history, science, and the latest theories of artificial intelligence, Lynch and Granger demystify the complexities of our brains, and show us how our memory, cognition, and intelligence actually function, as well as what mechanisms in the brain can potentially be enhanced, improving on the current design. Author of The Emotional Brain , Joseph LeDoux praised it as "provocative and fascinating," and, writing in the New Scientist, Willian Calvin called it "a popular account of how brains enlarge, in both evolutionary and developmental terms" and "a much needed book."
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
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355 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
January 21, 2013
3.5 star rating. Overall, this book provided a thought provoking look at evolutionary neurobiology. The authors proposed different theories along with supporting scientific evidence for the development of human intelligence and abnormally large brain size relative to other mammals, including primates while being careful to avoid biased reasoning and faulty logic. Speculation about how individual brains can vary based on different cell types, synaptic connectivity, environmental pressures was interesting and well discussed. However, I felt that too much space was devoted to the Boskops and whether their even larger brains would have yielded an intelligence superior to that of modern day humans. While it was an interesting thought exercise, I would have preferred the authors spent more time on why machines are unable to reproduce the same mental faculties as humans or on how different environments affect cognitive development and subsequent mental abilities. Explanations of neural circuitry are very well done, but discussion of evolutionary biology is not nearly as well executed.
May 29, 2022
Ενδιαφέρουσα προσέγγιση. Αν και τα στοιχεία που υπάρχουν για τον άνθρωπο του Μπόσκοπ θεωρούνται από πολλούς παλαιοντολόγους λίγα για τα τόσο σίγουρα συμπεράσματα των δυο συγγραφέων.
January 6, 2013
Not what I thought it would be at all. Mostly a book about brain anatomy/biology that most anyone familiar with psych will know. There was a lot of good info starting maybe 2/3rds of the way through though, describing a probably evolutionary path for why we have large brains.
Basically, once we descended from the trees, it became advantageous to be on 2 legs to traverse the grassy savannahs. Walking upright then enabled larger babies, since there is more room to gestate. Larger babies are essential for having larger brains, thus once we began walking upright, there was a large jump in brain:body size ratio. There was then another jump (after Homo Erectus) to get very close to our modern-sized brains. The book doesn't discuss this, but based on other interviews with evolutionary/brain scientists that I can recall, this jump was most likely due to cooking our food, and the massive increase in calories available to us.
It's interesting that this chain of events is not typically what we think of as evolutionary "survival of the fittest". Instead, it is adaptation, followed by unintended consequences that then create additional selection factors.
The other interesting topic the book covered was a human-like species, named the 'Boskops', who had an even higher brain:body size ratio. Their brains were so large that an adult boskop would look like an adult with a childs face. Yet, no known Boskops survive today, and no one knows why. Maybe their intelligence was overcome by our violence, maybe such large heads lead to too many complications during childbirth and they were not able to flourish. It could very well be that homo sapiens' brain is 'optimal' for our current bodies, and without additional changes it would not be possible to have a brain any larger.
Basically, once we descended from the trees, it became advantageous to be on 2 legs to traverse the grassy savannahs. Walking upright then enabled larger babies, since there is more room to gestate. Larger babies are essential for having larger brains, thus once we began walking upright, there was a large jump in brain:body size ratio. There was then another jump (after Homo Erectus) to get very close to our modern-sized brains. The book doesn't discuss this, but based on other interviews with evolutionary/brain scientists that I can recall, this jump was most likely due to cooking our food, and the massive increase in calories available to us.
It's interesting that this chain of events is not typically what we think of as evolutionary "survival of the fittest". Instead, it is adaptation, followed by unintended consequences that then create additional selection factors.
The other interesting topic the book covered was a human-like species, named the 'Boskops', who had an even higher brain:body size ratio. Their brains were so large that an adult boskop would look like an adult with a childs face. Yet, no known Boskops survive today, and no one knows why. Maybe their intelligence was overcome by our violence, maybe such large heads lead to too many complications during childbirth and they were not able to flourish. It could very well be that homo sapiens' brain is 'optimal' for our current bodies, and without additional changes it would not be possible to have a brain any larger.
February 8, 2013
"Big Brain" by Gary Lynch and Richard Granger is controversial. What makes it so is the premise that a race of super-sized brained people existed called Boskops. Supposedly they had brains significantly bigger than current humans. I think controversy in science is a good thing. It gets smart people thinking and debating. It stimulates interest and frees up research dollars. The "dinosaur extinction controversy" is an example of what can happen if scientists get fired up.
I googled "Boskops", and aside from some musical group, only found material on them in response to this book. One critic doubted if they were a race and probably were just outsized individuals.
If the authors or others happen to read my critique here, I wondered about a couple of things. Maybe you can advise me.
1) With current humans, if you plotted their IQ versus their brain size, would you find a direct proportional
relationship? I don't see evidence that all the giant people are smarter than the smallest people.
2) I thought human babies were at the max brain size already. Women's hips cannot get any wider or they won't be able to walk. Human babies are helpless for many months while their brains continue to grow. How could 40% bigger brains be possible?
Maybe someone can start a chat room on this big brain controversy. I would enjoy that.
Ralph Hermansen 4/23/09
I googled "Boskops", and aside from some musical group, only found material on them in response to this book. One critic doubted if they were a race and probably were just outsized individuals.
If the authors or others happen to read my critique here, I wondered about a couple of things. Maybe you can advise me.
1) With current humans, if you plotted their IQ versus their brain size, would you find a direct proportional
relationship? I don't see evidence that all the giant people are smarter than the smallest people.
2) I thought human babies were at the max brain size already. Women's hips cannot get any wider or they won't be able to walk. Human babies are helpless for many months while their brains continue to grow. How could 40% bigger brains be possible?
Maybe someone can start a chat room on this big brain controversy. I would enjoy that.
Ralph Hermansen 4/23/09
February 4, 2012
A good overview of current thinking on the brain and its evolution. Less thorough and insightful than Pinker's How the Mind Works but a good deal more readable.
I found it fascinating to read about the Boskop's in Southern Africa, a homo sapien forerunner (most likely not in our direct evolutionary line - i.e. a human-like ancestral cousin that went extinct) that had a brain 20-40% bigger than ours. The interesting part is the speculation by the authors (trained neuro-scientists) that greater brain size would have almost definately confered increased intelligence and possibly high-order mental abilities not known to modern humans. So why don't Boskop's rule the planet? Most likely high infant mortality rates made them vulnerable to external population shocks: modern humans with our sizable (but not Boskop-sized) skulls and narrow hips suitable for upright walking already have much higher infant mortality than most mammals.
I enjoyed the comparisons of human thinking to our primate cousins - leading to some interesting insights on how our different mental modules (e.g. language, tools, social interaction, etc) developed gradually as our brains increased in size. Clearly the human mind is an artifact of evolution and not some unexplainable enigma.
I found it fascinating to read about the Boskop's in Southern Africa, a homo sapien forerunner (most likely not in our direct evolutionary line - i.e. a human-like ancestral cousin that went extinct) that had a brain 20-40% bigger than ours. The interesting part is the speculation by the authors (trained neuro-scientists) that greater brain size would have almost definately confered increased intelligence and possibly high-order mental abilities not known to modern humans. So why don't Boskop's rule the planet? Most likely high infant mortality rates made them vulnerable to external population shocks: modern humans with our sizable (but not Boskop-sized) skulls and narrow hips suitable for upright walking already have much higher infant mortality than most mammals.
I enjoyed the comparisons of human thinking to our primate cousins - leading to some interesting insights on how our different mental modules (e.g. language, tools, social interaction, etc) developed gradually as our brains increased in size. Clearly the human mind is an artifact of evolution and not some unexplainable enigma.
October 18, 2008
This book was just fantastic. It was exactly the right amount of detail and complexity to be a step forward from the last few things I'd read without being confusing. My only lament was that it wasn't just one chapter longer...the last paragraph was a killer cliff-hanger ending.
October 5, 2014
Weird little book. Half about the development and functioning of the brain, half about a (supposed) prehistoric super-intelligent hominid. That second part is fringe science and wildly speculative at best and undermines the credibility of the first half.
March 4, 2018
English / Español
In this book, the authors try to explain current knowledge on human intelligence evolution. They start explaining how our brains are wired, how those connections are translated into stimuli processing and then what makes us different from other mammals and our ancestors. They also add some of their own theories to the mix.
They also use as a starting point the example of the Boskops, a supposedly "human-like" creatures, that had bigger brains than us.
An interesting book, specially for its focus on evolutionary perspectives on brain development and cognition.
____________________________
Español
En este libro, los autores tratan de exponer lo que se sabe actualmente sobre la evolución de la inteligencia humana. Comienzan explicando las conexiones cerebrales, cómo esas conexiones procesan diferentes estímulos, y por último qué nos hace diferentes de otros mamíferos y de nuestros ancestros. Aparte, agregan algunas de sus propias teorías.
También utilizan como punto de inicio a los Boskops, unos supuestos humanoides con cerebros más grandes que nosotros.
En fin, es un libro interesante, especialmente por su postura evolutiva con respecto al desarrollo de nuestros cerebros y procesos cognitivos
In this book, the authors try to explain current knowledge on human intelligence evolution. They start explaining how our brains are wired, how those connections are translated into stimuli processing and then what makes us different from other mammals and our ancestors. They also add some of their own theories to the mix.
They also use as a starting point the example of the Boskops, a supposedly "human-like" creatures, that had bigger brains than us.
An interesting book, specially for its focus on evolutionary perspectives on brain development and cognition.
____________________________
Español
En este libro, los autores tratan de exponer lo que se sabe actualmente sobre la evolución de la inteligencia humana. Comienzan explicando las conexiones cerebrales, cómo esas conexiones procesan diferentes estímulos, y por último qué nos hace diferentes de otros mamíferos y de nuestros ancestros. Aparte, agregan algunas de sus propias teorías.
También utilizan como punto de inicio a los Boskops, unos supuestos humanoides con cerebros más grandes que nosotros.
En fin, es un libro interesante, especialmente por su postura evolutiva con respecto al desarrollo de nuestros cerebros y procesos cognitivos
July 26, 2020
This book, and only one other (Godhead: The Brain's Big Bang : The explosive origin of creativity, mysticism and mental illness ), are the only two I've ever encountered that grasped the significance of a human brain change in the spurt of human consciousness about 20,000 years ago that led to the emergence of large scale human civilization about 10,000 years ago. This was a primary driver for the A3 brain concept described in my book Collapse 2020, that provides the foundation for the explosive technical breakthroughs that followed. The main author of Godhead was Dr. Ivan Tyrrell. I lost touch with him after he had significant medical problems in January 2014. Joe Griffin, who led the publishing effort, did not feel knowledgeable enough about the science to continue Ivan's work. These books are important to my effort because they provide validation for my discoveries.
Want to read
April 10, 2012Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence
•26 juillet 2010 • Laisser un commentaire
J’ai hésité avant de parler de Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence ici, parce qu’il s’agit en quelque sorte de deux livres en un:
* Une présentation de l’état actuel des connaissances en matière d’anatomie et de physiologie du cerveau.
* Et une histoire de l’évolution du cerveau chez les mammifères, y compris chez l’homme… Et chez “l’homme de Boskop”, une espèce qui aurait disparu il y a quelque 10 000 ans et qui aurait disposé d’un cerveau beaucoup plus volumineux que le nôtre, ce qui en aurait peut-être fait un être plus intelligent que nous.
Si le premier aspect, qui occupe environ les deux tiers des pages du livre, semble tout à fait solide, le second a causé une controverse assez violente dans certains milieux scientifiques en raison d’extrapolations discutables.
LE BON GRAIN…
Big Brain présente efficacement les différentes structures que l’on retrouve dans le cerveau (hippocampe, thalamus, etc.), leurs rôles et leur fonctionnement, ainsi que l’évolution du cerveau depuis les premiers mammifères jusqu’à aujourd’hui. La transmission d’information entre les neurones, la construction du cerveau, et la façon dont les comportements en émergent sont présentées de manière élégante et détaillée.
Les auteurs, Gary Lynch et Richard Granger, sont respectivement professeurs de psychiatrie et d’informatique, psychologie et “sciences du cerveau”. Il n’est donc pas surprenant que leur analyse du fonctionnement du cerveau soit exhaustive… Mais aussi qu’elle se frotte assez régulièrement à la limite supérieure de la complexité souhaitable dans un ouvrage de vulgarisation. Le lecteur verra parfois sa tolérance au jargon mise à rude épreuve: même le chapitre sur les réseaux neuronaux m’a parfois semblé inutilement aride… Et j’ai une maîtrise en intelligence artificielle!
Ceci dit, chaque fois ou presque que la migraine se pointe, les auteurs ravivent l’intérêt en révélant un fait aussi étonnant qu’intrigant. Par exemple, on répète souvent que le génome de l’être humain et celui du chimpanzé ne diffère que de 3%, mais rares sont les ouvrages qui mentionnent que la variation génétique entre les êtres humains, elle, atteint 12%. Il ne s’agit pas que de changer quelques gènes pour transformer une espèce; il faut que ce soient les bons gènes!
… ET L’IVRAIE?
Certaines théories présentées par les auteurs pour expliquer l’origine du cerveau humain actuel, bien que plausibles et peut-être prouvées scientifiquement ailleurs, sont mal étayées dans le livre. Par exemple, ils supposent que le cerveau anormalement volumineux de l’être humain actuel (beaucoup plus gros, en proportion, que chez les autres animaux) est d’abord et avant tout une sorte d’accident qui résulte d’un changement dans la physiologie des femmes, qui leur a permis de mettre au monde de plus gros bébés, plutôt que d’une quelconque “pression” évolutive vers l’intelligence. Compte tenu du coût élevé associé à ce gros cerveau (accouchements difficiles, mortalité à la naissance, énormes besoins énergétiques pour nourrir les neurones supplémentaires, etc.), l’évolution aurait plutôt tendance à vouloir s’en passer, alors on serait tenté de croire que le sens de la chaîne de causalité est inverse: la physionomie des femmes aurait changé pour accommoder des bébés plus gros parce qu’un gros cerveau à la naissance offre une meilleure chance de survie. La thèse des auteurs est peut-être vraie, mais leur démonstration n’est pas convaincante.
Et là où l’on soupçonne que le livre dérape, c’est quand les auteurs présentent les fossiles de “l’homme de Boskop” et concluent qu’il s’agit d’une espèce disparue qui était probablement plus intelligente que nous. Découvert en 1906, le premier fossile de Boskop démontrait une capacité crânienne quelque 30% supérieure à la moyenne actuelle; les auteurs calculent que cela signifie que les Boskops auraient eu un QI moyen d’environ 149 (on se qualifie pour MENSA à moins que ça!) et que 15% à 20% d’entre eux auraient eu des QI d’au moins 180. Or, il n’est pas du tout évident que la taille du cerveau puisse prédire le QI, encore moins l’intelligence: l’homme de Néanderthal, même s’il était loin d’être la brute épaisse que la culture populaire dépeint, n’était certainement pas un génie – et pourtant, lui aussi avait un cerveau plus gros que le nôtre. En fait, l’existence même de l’homme de Boskop en tant qu’espèce séparée est loin de faire l’unanimité chez les anthropologues, dont certains pensent plutôt qu’il s’agit de fossiles d’homo sapiens quelque peu hors norme – et l’explication des auteurs, i.e., que l’existence d’une espèce plus intelligente que nous aurait été étouffée pour cause d’orgueil racial déplacé, semble un peu courte, d’autant plus qu’ils ne sont pas anthropologues, eux!
CONCLUSION?
Bref, je ne sais pas trop si je devrais recommander Big Brain. Ceux qui cherchent un survol assez détaillé de l’état de la science en matière de compréhension du cerveau seront servis, mais l’extrapolation au sujet des Boskops semble aller trop loin et jeter un doute sur la valeur du reste du livre. À approcher avec prudence.
– François Dominic Laramée
•26 juillet 2010 • Laisser un commentaire
J’ai hésité avant de parler de Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence ici, parce qu’il s’agit en quelque sorte de deux livres en un:
* Une présentation de l’état actuel des connaissances en matière d’anatomie et de physiologie du cerveau.
* Et une histoire de l’évolution du cerveau chez les mammifères, y compris chez l’homme… Et chez “l’homme de Boskop”, une espèce qui aurait disparu il y a quelque 10 000 ans et qui aurait disposé d’un cerveau beaucoup plus volumineux que le nôtre, ce qui en aurait peut-être fait un être plus intelligent que nous.
Si le premier aspect, qui occupe environ les deux tiers des pages du livre, semble tout à fait solide, le second a causé une controverse assez violente dans certains milieux scientifiques en raison d’extrapolations discutables.
LE BON GRAIN…
Big Brain présente efficacement les différentes structures que l’on retrouve dans le cerveau (hippocampe, thalamus, etc.), leurs rôles et leur fonctionnement, ainsi que l’évolution du cerveau depuis les premiers mammifères jusqu’à aujourd’hui. La transmission d’information entre les neurones, la construction du cerveau, et la façon dont les comportements en émergent sont présentées de manière élégante et détaillée.
Les auteurs, Gary Lynch et Richard Granger, sont respectivement professeurs de psychiatrie et d’informatique, psychologie et “sciences du cerveau”. Il n’est donc pas surprenant que leur analyse du fonctionnement du cerveau soit exhaustive… Mais aussi qu’elle se frotte assez régulièrement à la limite supérieure de la complexité souhaitable dans un ouvrage de vulgarisation. Le lecteur verra parfois sa tolérance au jargon mise à rude épreuve: même le chapitre sur les réseaux neuronaux m’a parfois semblé inutilement aride… Et j’ai une maîtrise en intelligence artificielle!
Ceci dit, chaque fois ou presque que la migraine se pointe, les auteurs ravivent l’intérêt en révélant un fait aussi étonnant qu’intrigant. Par exemple, on répète souvent que le génome de l’être humain et celui du chimpanzé ne diffère que de 3%, mais rares sont les ouvrages qui mentionnent que la variation génétique entre les êtres humains, elle, atteint 12%. Il ne s’agit pas que de changer quelques gènes pour transformer une espèce; il faut que ce soient les bons gènes!
… ET L’IVRAIE?
Certaines théories présentées par les auteurs pour expliquer l’origine du cerveau humain actuel, bien que plausibles et peut-être prouvées scientifiquement ailleurs, sont mal étayées dans le livre. Par exemple, ils supposent que le cerveau anormalement volumineux de l’être humain actuel (beaucoup plus gros, en proportion, que chez les autres animaux) est d’abord et avant tout une sorte d’accident qui résulte d’un changement dans la physiologie des femmes, qui leur a permis de mettre au monde de plus gros bébés, plutôt que d’une quelconque “pression” évolutive vers l’intelligence. Compte tenu du coût élevé associé à ce gros cerveau (accouchements difficiles, mortalité à la naissance, énormes besoins énergétiques pour nourrir les neurones supplémentaires, etc.), l’évolution aurait plutôt tendance à vouloir s’en passer, alors on serait tenté de croire que le sens de la chaîne de causalité est inverse: la physionomie des femmes aurait changé pour accommoder des bébés plus gros parce qu’un gros cerveau à la naissance offre une meilleure chance de survie. La thèse des auteurs est peut-être vraie, mais leur démonstration n’est pas convaincante.
Et là où l’on soupçonne que le livre dérape, c’est quand les auteurs présentent les fossiles de “l’homme de Boskop” et concluent qu’il s’agit d’une espèce disparue qui était probablement plus intelligente que nous. Découvert en 1906, le premier fossile de Boskop démontrait une capacité crânienne quelque 30% supérieure à la moyenne actuelle; les auteurs calculent que cela signifie que les Boskops auraient eu un QI moyen d’environ 149 (on se qualifie pour MENSA à moins que ça!) et que 15% à 20% d’entre eux auraient eu des QI d’au moins 180. Or, il n’est pas du tout évident que la taille du cerveau puisse prédire le QI, encore moins l’intelligence: l’homme de Néanderthal, même s’il était loin d’être la brute épaisse que la culture populaire dépeint, n’était certainement pas un génie – et pourtant, lui aussi avait un cerveau plus gros que le nôtre. En fait, l’existence même de l’homme de Boskop en tant qu’espèce séparée est loin de faire l’unanimité chez les anthropologues, dont certains pensent plutôt qu’il s’agit de fossiles d’homo sapiens quelque peu hors norme – et l’explication des auteurs, i.e., que l’existence d’une espèce plus intelligente que nous aurait été étouffée pour cause d’orgueil racial déplacé, semble un peu courte, d’autant plus qu’ils ne sont pas anthropologues, eux!
CONCLUSION?
Bref, je ne sais pas trop si je devrais recommander Big Brain. Ceux qui cherchent un survol assez détaillé de l’état de la science en matière de compréhension du cerveau seront servis, mais l’extrapolation au sujet des Boskops semble aller trop loin et jeter un doute sur la valeur du reste du livre. À approcher avec prudence.
– François Dominic Laramée
March 16, 2008
There are some interesting facts and hypotheses raised in this book, but you have to be prepared to go through a lot of in depth/difficult writing about how the brain works to get to them. It is worth pushing through the slower sections if you are willing to think about all that is said.
The book starts by comparing just what makes a brain special, specifically when compared to a computer or machine. The authors go on to discuss ideas about how the brain is built and how all the facets of the brain evolved. Much of the information presented is done with the disclaimer that much is still unknown about how the brain works and how it reached the point it is at now. The only thing that concerns me (which is the case for every non-fiction book I read) is how well accepted are these ideas, are they generally accepted?
Evolution is treated very well in this book (similar in treatment to Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body; there is constant reinforcement that humans did not evolve because we are the best design, we evolved by blind luck. It took until chapters 11 and 12 to reach the real reason I chose to read this book, the discussion of how large brains evolved, and could bigger brains have been better? The discussion is somewhat sobering when taking the authors' point of view: our brains evolved by chance because other adaptations made them possible.
At the end of the book it seems to me that the authors are supporting the ideas that a larger brained species or set of humans would be a great thing for society and we should all welcome the day when that happens. The tone of the conclusion seemed to me to condone just about anything short of eugenics (gene therapy, pharmaceuticals) to reach that end.
The book starts by comparing just what makes a brain special, specifically when compared to a computer or machine. The authors go on to discuss ideas about how the brain is built and how all the facets of the brain evolved. Much of the information presented is done with the disclaimer that much is still unknown about how the brain works and how it reached the point it is at now. The only thing that concerns me (which is the case for every non-fiction book I read) is how well accepted are these ideas, are they generally accepted?
Evolution is treated very well in this book (similar in treatment to Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body; there is constant reinforcement that humans did not evolve because we are the best design, we evolved by blind luck. It took until chapters 11 and 12 to reach the real reason I chose to read this book, the discussion of how large brains evolved, and could bigger brains have been better? The discussion is somewhat sobering when taking the authors' point of view: our brains evolved by chance because other adaptations made them possible.
At the end of the book it seems to me that the authors are supporting the ideas that a larger brained species or set of humans would be a great thing for society and we should all welcome the day when that happens. The tone of the conclusion seemed to me to condone just about anything short of eugenics (gene therapy, pharmaceuticals) to reach that end.
December 2, 2013
Recently I remembered that this book caused me to make a fool of myself. I was reading it in undergraduate, and, all excited by the scifi ideas presented in it, ended up telling several people about the "Boskops", a made-up race of humanoids that are not considered to have existed by those who actually study human evolution. But in this book they feature heavily.
According to the authors, the Boskops were real humanoids who, as revealed by "an IQ fossil estimate" (there's no such thing btw) had IQs that far surpassed modern humans. The authors even wildly speculate that the Boskops were worshipped as gods by the other humanoids, and that they died out because they were so smart they saw through the illusion of free will...
While other parts of the book were good, it is entirely built around the "Boskops" - making this about equivalent to the Ancient Aliens episodes on the History Channel.
For more information to support the criticisms herein, see the links on the wikipedia page on the Boskop Man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boskop_M...
According to the authors, the Boskops were real humanoids who, as revealed by "an IQ fossil estimate" (there's no such thing btw) had IQs that far surpassed modern humans. The authors even wildly speculate that the Boskops were worshipped as gods by the other humanoids, and that they died out because they were so smart they saw through the illusion of free will...
While other parts of the book were good, it is entirely built around the "Boskops" - making this about equivalent to the Ancient Aliens episodes on the History Channel.
For more information to support the criticisms herein, see the links on the wikipedia page on the Boskop Man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boskop_M...
January 13, 2016
Excellent! Possibly Best Treatment of the Boskops in Print.
The lost Boskop, let's call them a hyper-brain race of maybe 200-level IQ once resided in South Africa. There is some question about their numbers. They seem to have exhibited a great deal of neoteny or slow development.
This book describes their possible personality traits. I learned a great deal about the structure of our thought patterns. In mammals it is mediated through smell-signals, or visual-signals in birds.
May read again!
Charles Kos, author of "In Search of the Origin of Pyramids and the Lost Gods of Giza."
The lost Boskop, let's call them a hyper-brain race of maybe 200-level IQ once resided in South Africa. There is some question about their numbers. They seem to have exhibited a great deal of neoteny or slow development.
This book describes their possible personality traits. I learned a great deal about the structure of our thought patterns. In mammals it is mediated through smell-signals, or visual-signals in birds.
May read again!
Charles Kos, author of "In Search of the Origin of Pyramids and the Lost Gods of Giza."
June 13, 2010
were did we all come from? this question has been the topic of debate for hundreds of years. some say religion and others say evolution.what happens when we find fossils fossiles of ansestors that had bigger brains then us. this starts to raise more questions like does brain size have anything to do with intelegence. this book covers everything from past human intelegence to current and then to potential intelegence. its amazing to learn of the potential your own brain.
May 24, 2008
Examines evolution of the human brain; presents novel theory that the olfactory sense is the evolutionary basis for conceptual thinking.
June 12, 2008
Unevenly written, the authors seem uncertain as to whether their audience is completely new to the subject, or have a fairly solid grounding. And then there are the Boskops.
October 29, 2010
interesting people know about neurology, it's about time i did too
July 14, 2016
READ with great enthusiasm and interest; a whole different kind of reading for me.
May 9, 2017
This book brought to light some neuroscience and evolution concepts that I had not considered before. It provided excellent, detailed research and solid speculation into why brains evolved the way that they did (and did not).
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews