Demigawd

The Walking with Cavemen documentary attributes our "higher intelligence" to increased meat consumption. How solid is that assertion?

Doubting Didymus

I'm not sure it attributed brain size to meat consumption, it just made the point that the larger energy rescource allowed the evolution of larger brains. If meat consumption alone were enough of a pressure to evolve intelligence, then we'd have to be looking over our shoulders at our domestic dogs.

Celsus

You don't?

RufusAtticus

Tha Basque are remnants of a people that inhabited Europe before the Indo-Europeans invaded ~6,000 (?) years ago. Most of those early inhabitants lost out and were either wiped out or assimilated into the Indo-European peoples. The Basque are the only one of these European peoples to maintain their identity. (Although genetic evidence suggests that the Welsh also predate Indo-Europeans althought they latter acquired a Celtic language.)

Peez

Oops, I missed this earlier. "Cro Magnon" refers to certain fossils of Homo sapiens sapiens found in Europe. From Talk.Origins:Thus, all Europeans (and a lot of others) likely have "quite a bit of Cro Magnon in them."

Peez

paul30

Any species that has George W. Bush as the Emperor of the World has nothing to boast about.

And probably not much of a future.

ps418

And lions and tigers.

It is true of course that our brains are metabolically expensive, and meat might make it easier to meet (meat?) that expense.

But don't underestimate the dogs. After all, we have a habit of wiping out and displacing large vertebrates, yet we allow dogs into our homes, feed them, often give them medical care, and so on. I dunno. . .

Patrick

EDIT: Adding this article, that demonstrates the superior cognitive abilities of dogs. When it comes to reading human cues, dogs are much better even than chimps.

The Domestication of Social Cognition in Dogs. Science 298,1634-1636, 2002 Free PDF file

Oolon Colluphid

There may be a movie in that idea... Planet of the Canines, anyone?

That's curious. I'm not surprised they're good at it. After all, they're pack critters, where body language communication is important. And I'll speculate that, given how incredibly sensitive their noses are, they might be able to smell changes in our moods -- mightn't adrenalin, for instance, affect our odour? But being better than chimps at it?

Could it be (sez he, not having checked your link yet ) that dogs are simply more attentive to their pack leader -- ie their human master -- than chimps are, kind of doting on our every movement?

Plus, they're umpteen-generations raised alongside humans, whereas chimps in general aren't, so they are better attuned to what we're on about.

And /or, maybe we've been incidentally selectively breeding for 'intuitive understanding'.

And, there's my odour possibility.

Hmmm, better go read your link...

Cheers, Oolon

ps418

Yes, that's kinda what the article is about. There has evidently been selection in dogs for 'social cogitive' ability, particularly the ability to percieve and appropriately respond to human cues. The superior abilities of dogs are evident even at a very early stage, with essentially no human contact or training.


Patrick

Doubting Didymus

Wow, thats great! The first question that occurred to me was 'do wolves show the same abilities when raised by humans'.

On reading the article, I find thats the first thing they address, and it's a "no". That's brilliant.

I'm sure Oolon's read it by now, but for those interested:
In some cases at least, these dogs are showing a genuine response to human social clues, not influenced by their superior sense of smell. It's apparently not socialisation with humans during the animals lifespan, either, as young puppies with sod all human contact can do the same things. These results shouldn't be all that suprising I suppose, because the ability to respond to human cues has been a major factor in our artificial selection, especially in working breeds. The only startling thing is that it's happened so fast.