It is now widely accepted that human intelligence evolved, at least in part, to deal with the cognitive demands of managing more complex societies. Evidence comes from the archaeological record, which shows that our skull size did indeed grow as our ancestors started to live in bigger groups.61 We need brainpower to keep track of others’ feelings, to know who you can trust, who will take advantage and who you need to keep sweet. And once language evolved, we needed to be eloquent, to be able to build support within the group and bring others to our way of thinking. Those arguments didn’t need
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