by brain capacity? At some points in your post you seem to be referring to cranial capacity, i.e. physical size of the brain ("Capacity at 500 cc and climbing") but as you also correctly recognize, brain size is at best a very rough measure of the capacity for complex or abstract reasoning. Otherwise male Homo sapiens sapiens would on the average be measurably more intelligent than female. (No, I certainly won't go there.) You apparently accept neo-Darwinist theory. If so, you must also accept that there is no inevitability in the evolution toward larger brain size. Large brains are extraordinarily "expensive" in terms of energy consumption. A Darwinist would say that natural selection would favor larger brained BFs only to the extent that larger brains produce an offsetting survival advantage. It is anything but clear that such an advantage would exist for BF, which seems to be doing just fine with its current brain size.
Nor do I see any reason to believe that the brain of the future BF will necessarily become more "efficient" (as the human brain apparently has for the last 30,000 to 50,000 years) without increasing in physical size. IMVHO the complexity of human society and relationships has been the environmental pressure that has driven the increase in the neural connections that favor abstract and complex thought. There is no reason to believe that BF faces similar pressures.
Posted on Jul 26, 2002, 7:51 AM from IP address 64.6.105.6