Bigger Brains Make for Smarter people

[Celebration]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8292859/

"For all age and sex groups, it is now very clear that brain volume and intelligence are related," McDaniel said.

In the old days, measuring brain size involved either the imprecise method of putting a tape around a person's skull or waiting until they died to examine their noggins. Over the past five years or so, various research groups have studied brain size using new imaging techniques that provide a more accurate gauge.

..................snip.......................

Still controversial is whether the standard intelligence tests used to measure smarts in the studies are valid. Do IQ tests really reveal intelligence? And how relevant are they to the real world?

"When intelligence is correlated with a biological reality such as brain volume, it becomes harder to argue that human intelligence can't be measured or that the scores do not reflect something meaningful," McDaniel said.

[Maple]

1. So elephants are

smarter than people.

Figures

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. sure !!

[lenidog]

5. I think this guy is about to bury the needle on your BS meter

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Reminds me of

that idiot scientist back in the 70s who claimed whites were smarter than blacks because their brains were larger.

[lenidog]

7. It also reminds me of the old photos and film footage of the

Nazi doctors measuring the skulls of those they felt who were subhuman to prove that they were and had lower intelligence.

[brainshrub]

3. Suggested read:

The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould.

From Wikipedia:

The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould (ISBN 0393039722) is a controversial book critiquing what he saw as "scientific racism," starting with ideas such as craniometry and the eugenics movement and concluding with more recent developments in the study of race and intelligence.

The book, originally written in 1981, describes Gould's objections to:

"<...> the abstraction of intelligence as a single entity, its location within the brain, its quantification as one number for each individual, and the use of these numbers to rank people in a single series of worthiness, invariably to find that oppressed and disadvantaged groups—races, classes, or sexes—are innately inferior and deserve their status" (pp. 24-25).

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

[Maple]

4. Thank you

for this!

[smirkymonkey]

8. This is the biggest crock of sexist BS I have seen in a long time

WTF is going on in this country? It seems the reactionaries in the government are getting their wish - we are actually going BACK in time.

Up next, Eugenics For Fun And Profit.

Jeeezus, I know plenty of people with huge crainiums that are as dumb as a box of rocks.

[Igel]

9. On the other hand, there was a recent

article that claimed not quite the same thing, based on the examination of a 100 brains or so. Instead of volume, it looked at neuron density. It didn't rely on imaging, but on samping brain tissue and counting neurons.

The conclusion was similar, but more nuanced: the greater the number of neurons committed to a certain kind of task, regardless of the volume they take up, the greater the ability of the brain to perform that task. Einstein's brain was slightly smaller than average, but was much more densely packed, with some quirky features.

The woman conducting the long-term study also found numerous structural differences between different groups--right/left handed people, men/women, old/young. Some differences were surprising, some not so surprising. Some dealt with the composition and properties of different cortical layers, some with alledgedly secondary structures (such as the corpus callosum).

But above all, we must remember there can be no differences. It's our belief and a strongly held value, and we must shut down research that might yield results that don't agree with our beliefs and values. And deny any results to date. It's not that the results be *used* for evil, it's that they *are* evil.

Excuse me, I seem to be confused. What website am I at again?