Evolution of intelligence?

Question

I am doing and assignment and need some articles or websites that deal with the evolution of intellect

Answer 1

books of jiddu krishnamurti could help you out

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiddu_Krish...

here you will find out about his person, but it's more worth it to read his books

good luck!

Answer 2

Good luck because from all evidence it hasn't happened yet.

Answer 3

all i can think of is pickles

Answer 4

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=na...

Just google it.. Try this link...

Answer 5

Gotmy makes a common mistake by confusing education with intelligence. While the 2 are related due to the fact that being able to be educated is a factor of intelligence, they are not the same.  Until mammals appeared intelligence was on the back burner of evolution & although dinosars had evolved for more than 100 million years, the most intelligent of them had the mental abilities of a chicken.

The mammal, due to a longer period of gestation in the protection of the womb & some degree of protection shortly after birth, had the chance for intelligence & enhanced learning abilities to develop & become a survival factor. Predators were more driven by intelligence than were the herbavoirs because they were more likely to survive if they could learn to outwit the prey. Forward facing eyes were necessary to judge distance in both predators & tree dwelling animals (leaping from limb to limb or grabing prey .)

For some reason (open to debate) some of the tree dwellers had to begin to leave the trees & look for food.  Eventually some began in desperation to scavenge meat left over by predators (bipedalism had developed by this time) & leading to more protien to produce & support a larger brain.

Meat eating appears to have been the driving factor in the larger brain of the homonoid line. Eventually this larger brain allowed the homo line to consider ways to kill their own food & to think abstractly & deductively... an IF ___ THEN ____ ELSE ____ method of reasoning.

I can elaborate and clarify this if you wish?

Certainly the ability to pass on experiences to others had a great impact on prehistory development & we still debate the abilities of forerunner hominids to communicate indepth thoughts to  their peers.

Answer 6

As you can see, intelligence does not evolve.  It is accumulated and recorded.  That saves the next generation from having to do the experiment over again.   And some people never learn.

Answer 7

Actually you might explore the assumed difference between us, modern man or Homo Sapiens Sapiens and the species who was already in Europoe when our ancestors arrived from the East, Homo Sapien Neanderthalensis.

It appears that we, modern man, were differentiated from our predecessors in a major way involving intelligence or more correctly, the manner in which we process information. This almost certainly involves the neo cortex which may be the primary reason that we, unintentionally, extincted them.

Jim D

Answer 8

When I watch the movie Idiocracy it seems possible that people are loosing intelligence because the morons are reproducing.  

However, Michael Shermer recently said in the TED conference that Skeptic magazine had a recent article on it.  Turns out people are getting smarter 3 IQ points ever 10 years.  

Watch the linked video for more info.

Answer 9

Nitzsche wrote one, The Geneology of morals. He touches on the history of morality and human conscience.

Answer 10

Try looking for Carl Sagan's The Dragons of Eden.  The look for reviews of it, for summaries.  The book is specifically about the evolution of intelligence, some speculative.

Answer 11

Scientific American, Mind

Answer 12

gotmy... is correct.

Because of language, humans are able to accumulate knowledge that they can pass on in greater amounts from one generation to another. We probably have the same intelligence potential as the earliest h. sapiens sapiens, but we know more than they do about a lot of things because our knowledge has accumulated for centuries, due to language, and now due to written records. Language is a huge factor in intelligence.

Answer 13

This may sound self serving on my part but any assignment on the evolution of intellect or intelligence, I hope you would also consider Autism and Aspergers Autism.  

Why do I say that?  Because I have Aspergers Autism and seem to have a left side focused brain.  I am very good with analyzing and memorizing but very poor with spontaneity and other right-brained social cues.  

Many people who have Autism are very impaired to the point that they cannot function, however there is a growing sect of us who are apt, analytical wise but are not overly emotional.  We may be a blip on human development or a trend that will surely last, seeing that now 1 out of 166 children born today has some sort of Autism.  

It should be said that I am not celebrating that statistic but only acknowledging the reality because it is something that Humankind will have to deal with.