Big Brains Are Pricey, Guppy Study Shows
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130103131110.htm
Kind of amazing to me that there is a survival element in having smaller brains, but the results of the experiment mentioned in the above article appear to have some pretty solid conclusions. I got a copy of the primary research paper and it seems clear: the bigger the brain the smarter the guppy, but the smaller the gut and the fewer the offspring. It seems to me that when there is no evolutionary pressure for bigger brains (such as rapidly shifting environment, scarce or highly variable food sources, etc.) then there is evolutionary pressure _against_ bigger brains that can rapidly (in evolutionary terms) take over the population. If the ‘dumber’ ones breed more often than the ‘smarter’ ones (man, does that sound so damn familiar with us humans!) then the population gets increasingly dumber (man this keeps sounding so apropos!). Brains are expensive things and it appears that evolution (a bit of anthropomorphizing here) doesn’t ‘like’ to waste energy on them. The authors of the literature indicated that in just two generations of selection (they were the ones doing the selection, so the big brained boys were put with the big brained girls and vice versa, some thing that might happen extremely rarely in nature) they had populations with statistically different brain sizes. It seems to me that in certain parts of our world there has been selection for a lot longer than two generations (imagine, if you will, some banjo music playing in the background ;-)), so I wonder if anyone has information to show if that is currently happening to humans (be careful doing the measurements, though; bears have smaller brains than we do and they routinely kill people!).
I have always equated the ‘meek’ who shall ‘inherit the Earth’ as being the best breeders, this article says they get a ‘bonus’ with their best breeder award as well.
This is one of my arguments against GGGN. We’re selecting for quantity, not quality. I can’t show it, but it seems clear to me that that’s ultimately bad for the race.
“Survival of the fittest” as an evolutionary concept only applies in a competitive environment. Further, competition does not necessarily revolve around survival skills; nor does it take geological ages for selection to show results.
Yep, now your argument against GGGN does make sense. How to select for quality, though, when quantity is uncontrolled?