Global warming was: The Nine-spotted

[P. J. Alling]

No you've not paid attention to the literature.  A larger brain is 
helpful up to the point where it stops helping with basic survival.  
This happens quite a bit smaller than ours.  In fact at the size of homo 
habilis, after that, until the advent of true tool making and real 
cooperation beyond a hunt it's just dead weight.  The brain is ghastly 
expensive in energy resources for the human body and incremental changes 
in size from that point don't add to capabilities enough to make up for 
the costs.  The development of a larger than needed brain was not pure 
chance, it was incremental, but with no practical survival value.

graywolf wrote:
> No, you are missing a point there, Peter. Non-survival traits do away with a line. Survival traits give it a boost. But traits that do not affect survival are a dice roll, which is the point you are missing. Pure chance, in other words.
>
>   


-- 
All dogs have four legs; my cat has four legs. Therefore, my cat is a dog.