Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Philosophy Wire: Neanderthals, big eyes, stupid brain...?!

51039CC8B115FC7D73D6D5139EE1A8C2Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-03-13]:

A study of Neanderthal skulls suggests that they became extinct because they had larger eyes than our species. As a result, more of their brains were devoted to seeing in the long, dark nights in Europe, at the expense of high-level processing. [source: BBC News]

If you ask me, this is an over-simplyfied analysis. Bigger eyes => more processing of visual images => less processing power left for other thinking? Wow! Who 5-year-old kindergardeen student came up with this "high level thinking" argument? Simplification, serial way of thinking, analogies: the guarranteed way for failure in science.


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