Absolute brain size isn’t what makes us smart, neither is surface area, EQ, or neuron density. Humans don’t stand out that much in general, except when it comes to intelligence.
The rhesus monkey should be smarter than a gorilla if we were to believe their EQ, which isn’t the case. Sounds great for us, but the measure failed a bit for other animals. It’s a whole formula, but it gave us what we needed for our ego, we were on top! Based on our size we have a brain that is 7 times larger than it should be.
A new measure was developed called the ‘encephalisation quotient’ (EQ), which takes into account that the relationship between brain and body size isn’t linear.
We get a bit closer if we take body size into account, but we’d lose from a marmoset (a sort of small monkey which honestly isn’t all that bright). Nor do we have the brain with the biggest surface area dolphins beat us there with their amazingly complex brain folds. Like mentioned above, we don’t have the biggest brain with the most neurons. To put it bluntly, humans aren’t all that special. Like a late night news-report, the reason might surprise you. That begs the question, if humans are outranked by animals such as elephants, why are we the self-proclaimed smartest creature on earth? How is it that an elephant with almost 3 times the number of neurons isn’t laughing at our struggle with quantum mechanics? Humans rank in between, with a 1.4kg (3lbs) brain and give or take 86 billion neurons. Some brains stay tiny, like that of roundworms which comes in at only a fraction of a gram with about 300 neurons in total. Some of those brains grow to be massive organs, like that of the African Elephant with a 5kg brain (11lbs) and 257 billion neurons. I’m of course talking about brains, what else? Nature has an astounding diversity of life, each with a unique brain. We often hear 'bigger is better' which might be true for pay-checks but not for other things.
0 kommentar(er)
