human brain evolution

[mrhnau]

The following articles are related, but I thought rather interesting

http://www.accuracyingenesis.com/adam.html#genes
This seems to try and prove some form of Genesis from the Bible.

The human brain may still be evolving. So suggests new research that tracked changes in two genes thought to help regulate brain growth, changes that appeared well after the rise of modern humans 200,000 years ago.


That the defining feature of humans — our large brains — continued to evolve as recently as 5,800 years ago, and may be doing so today, promises to surprise the average person, if not biologists.

....

Scientists attempt to date genetic changes by tracing back to such spread, using a statistical model that assumes genes have a certain mutation rate over time.
For the microcephalin gene, the variation arose about 37,000 years ago, about the time period when art, music and tool-making were emerging, Lahn said. For ASPM, the variation arose about 5,800 years ago, roughly correlating with the development of written language, spread of agriculture and development of cities, he said.


"The genetic evolution of humans in the very recent past might in some ways be linked to the cultural evolution," he said.


Other scientists urge great caution in interpreting the research.


That the genetic changes have anything to do with brain size or intelligence "is totally unproven and potentially dangerous territory to get into with such sketchy data," stressed Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute.

http://www.physorg.com/news97825267.html
This one a bit more scientific in nature...

The human and chimpanzee genomes vary by just 1.2 percent, yet there is a considerable difference in the mental and linguistic capabilities between the two species. A new study showed that a certain form of neuropsin, a protein that plays a role in learning and memory, is expressed only in the central nervous systems of humans and that it originated less than 5 million years ago. The study, which also demonstrated the molecular mechanism that creates this novel protein, will be published online in Human Mutation, the official journal of the Human Genome Variation Society.

 

[exile]

This is great stuff, mrhnau, and the part the I find really suggestive was in the physorg article:

The results also showed a weakening effect of a different, type I-specific splicing site and a significant reduction in type I neuropsin expression in human and chimpanzee when compared with the rhesus macaque, an Old World monkey. This pattern suggests that before the emergence of the type II splice form in human, the weakening of the type I splicing site already existed in the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, implying a multi-step process that led to the dramatic change of splicing pattern in humans, the authors note. They identified a region of the chimpanzee sequence that has a weakening effect on the splicing site that also probably applies to humans. "It is likely that both the creation of novel splice form and the weakening of the constitutive splicing contribute to the splicing pattern changes during primate evolution, suggesting a multi-step process eventually leading to the origin of the type II form in human," the authors state.

There are two very important pieces of information here. One is the bit I've bolded: you have to look for major qualitative differences in cognition and other `higher order' adaptive characteristics in terms of a slow accumulation of finer-grained, quantitative differences that accumulate steadily until some kind of tipping point is reached, and you get a radical upscaling in whole-system performance. I think there are many good things to be said for the punctuated equilibrium model that Steven Jay Gould and other `turbo-Darwinists' introduced, but it's too easy to fall into the trap of misapplying that model (which was intended to explain sudden vast changes in gene frequencies leading to rapid speciation) to the cellular mechanisms themselves (kind of a biological analogue of the famous `[here a miracle occurs]' cartoon with the two physicists we were talking about recently in some thread or other...). Cumulative change leading up to major system enhancement is almost certainly what one should be looking for. It's up to the mathematicians to tell us how those changes lead to the changes in functionality that express the new power of the system. The second point is that sulci-counting using the insides of ancient hominid skulls is probalby not gonna tell you all that much about cognitive evolution. Depth and number of ridges and so on are probably blind alleys in that quest. The real answers are much more likely to be the subtle but crucial biochemical differences at the molecular level that these people have been studying. And that means that to really read the story of what happened, we're going to need advances in paleogenetic interpretation technology that it's hard to imagine at this point (but that will probably be completely commonplace in half a decade or so, lol )

Great find—thanks for the links!

 

[MA-Caver]

That we're continually evolving and growing as a species shouldn't be surprising. IMO intelligent (divine) design made it that way. We were not destined to be dumb brutes forever. Oh sure, we still get our share of Darwin Award recipients but as the website says it helps eliminate those from our gene pool.
But seriously looking at the advance of technology over the last millennia it clearly shows the growth of the human intelligence. Advances in engineering, science(s), communications, travel tech, exploration, medical tech, and yes, (sadly) weaponry have clearly shown a growth curve in our overall intelligence.
It would be safe to say I think that in another millennia we should be far past what we are today.

Problem is our warring nature. If we don't learn to control/curb that inner nature to physically vent out our frustrations upon one another we may (and probably already have) lose valuable genetics that could help our species grow even faster. I'm talking about in the long run of course. Those who died during the World Wars (BOTH of them :wink1: ) and in conflicts since then... who knows what the children of the time could've been in our day now?

As far as the splicing and dicing and all that... that's all greek to me. But I get the general idear.

 

[Steel Tiger]

Problem is our warring nature. If we don't learn to control/curb that inner nature to physically vent out our frustrations upon one another we may (and probably already have) lose valuable genetics that could help our species grow even faster. I'm talking about in the long run of course. Those who died during the World Wars (BOTH of them :wink1: ) and in conflicts since then... who knows what the children of the time could've been in our day now?

Unfortunately, I fear that it is the very aggressiveness of our nature that brings on the numerous 'sparks' that ignite the evolutionary process. Our pugnacity combined with our curiosity is what has led to our technological leaps and developments. If we eliminate the aggressive part of our nature we may win in the short term (less wars etc) but it may cost us long term.

 

[exile]

Unfortunately, I fear that it is the very aggressiveness of our nature that brings on the numerous 'sparks' that ignite the evolutionary process. Our pugnacity combined with our curiosity is what has led to our technological leaps and developments. If we eliminate the aggressive part of our nature we may win in the short term (less wars etc) but it may cost us long term.

What we need, in short, is an avenue for that aggressiveness that maximizes our chances of surviving our own species-adolescence and doesn't stifle our creative energies. Carl Sagan and others have seen space exploration as providing that outlet. Plenty of opportunities for combat out there—the vast cold hostilely indifferent universe against us and our R-brains—talk about a perfect match-up...!

 

[Steel Tiger]

What we need, in short, is an avenue for that aggressiveness that maximizes our chances of surviving our own species-adolescence and doesn't stifle our creative energies. Carl Sagan and others have seen space exploration as providing that outlet. Plenty of opportunities for combat out there—the vast cold hostilely indifferent universe against us and our R-brains—talk about a perfect match-up...!

Oh Yeah! Here come the humans. We've broken the one-planet shackles and are heading out with our mutated brains and violent tendencies. Look out galaxy!!

 

[exile]

Oh Yeah! Here come the humans. We've broken the one-planet shackles and are heading out with our mutated brains and violent tendencies. Look out galaxy!!

Be afraid, hostile universe. Be very afraid. :EG:

(Can't you picture all those armed-to-the-teeth spaceships with bumper stickers or spaceport decals on them that say, `Fear this' ?? :lol

 

[Steel Tiger]

Be afraid, hostile universe. Be very afraid. :EG:

(Can't you picture all those armed-to-the-teeth spaceships with bumper stickers or spaceport decals on them that say, `Fear this' ?? :lol

I just got a bizarre image of a beat up spaceship with some large alien thing strapped across the front and a trail of beer cans floating behind it.

 

[exile]

I just got a bizarre image of a beat up spaceship with some large alien thing strapped across the front and a trail of beer cans floating behind it.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

:gaspsforair: Too funny... I need air! Laughing too hard... Air!!

 

[Steel Tiger]

But seriously. This must be a very significant step forward in understanding the processes by which the brain constructs and interprets both spoken and written language. Not really my field, but I have studied some archeao-linguistics and found it quite riveting.

 

[exile]

But seriously. This must be a very significant step forward in understanding the processes by which the brain constructs and interprets both spoken and written language. Not really my field, but I have studied some archeao-linguistics and found it quite riveting.

I would think so. Because the adaptive boost that the addition of a capacity for language gave our ancestors appears to have been the decisive factor in establishing not just their viability as a species but as the knockout punch to other competing hominid species. There's some reason to believe that Neanderthals and other sidelines (still a controversial position but increasingly the consensus amongst the physical anthropologists) lost out in the hominid sweepstakes because they just didn't have the same linguistic capacity as Homer Saps. But it's quite likely that they shared some of that cognitive capacity with other members of genus homo. So one place to look for the roots of language is in these changes, the progressive weakening of the splice sites described in the article and the activation of other such sites. Somehow, that change had to have implicated the most crucial biological difference between the homonid lineages and the other pongids, the installation of the capacity for recursive construction of complex signs from simpler ones, with corresponding meaning-interpretations, that is the heart of human linguistics capabilities.

If only we knew better how to connect these structural differences at the biochemical level to functional payoffs in cognitive capacity....

 

[Steel Tiger]

I keep thinking about these developments in a cause and effect knid of way. This leads me to ask questions like; was the development of written language the reason for a gene mutation in the brain, or did the mutation result in the development of writing systems?

It is interesting that a number of social developments accompanied the ASPM variation. But when one looks at them they seem to be related to structure. Written language is a very structured concept, agriculture is all about structure and repetition, urbanisation is about structure. The latest variation seems to be related to the imposition or understanding of structures and repetition within those structures.

The earlier development would appear to be related to a more inventive position, a more complex imagination. I can easily see the development of art and complex tool-making, but it may be that at that time there was a development of the first truly complex languages. With this variation i can see an understanding of complexity.

I, for one, am firmly in the camp that suggests that Neanderthals and other variants were ecologically-shaped sidelines. Neanderthals were perfectly adapted to the conditions of glaciation, they were not capable of adapting to changing conditions, and lost the battle.

 

[MA-Caver]

Oh Yeah! Here come the humans. We've broken the one-planet shackles and are heading out with our mutated brains and violent tendencies. Look out galaxy!!

Ya'll need to read: Alan Dean Foster's "Commonwealth" series. One of them:"Nor Crystal Tears" is a great one describing how peaceful humans are turned into savage warriors when the need calls for it.

I doubt very seriously that we'll ever lose our warring/warrior instincts. Several thousand years of warfare has ingrained it too deeply in our psyche to have it totally removed. But we CAN control it... at least among ourselves. Gene Roddenberry had a vision that we could and woe to the race that tries to take advantage of our "seemingly peaceful nature".