Comments on: The Domesticated Brain https://habitablezone.com/2014/05/23/the-domesticated-brain/ Thu, 09 Apr 2026 15:15:13 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: bowser https://habitablezone.com/2014/05/23/the-domesticated-brain/#comment-30750 bowser Fri, 23 May 2014 17:49:47 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.net/?p=45122#comment-30750 I know dogs have 5 innate traits. They can find game,track it, kill it, drag it home and will operate in a pack, accepting directions from an alpha dog. Those traits are selectively rewarded by Man, resulting in bloodhounds, retrievers, and so on. It sounds very similar for Man. Quite plausible. And ominous. I know dogs have 5 innate traits. They can find game,track it, kill it, drag it home and will operate in a pack, accepting directions from an alpha dog.

Those traits are selectively rewarded by Man, resulting in bloodhounds, retrievers, and so on.

It sounds very similar for Man. Quite plausible. And ominous.

]]> By: ER https://habitablezone.com/2014/05/23/the-domesticated-brain/#comment-30749 ER Fri, 23 May 2014 16:04:37 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.net/?p=45122#comment-30749 We are apes. Over millions of years, human beings evolved a social structure mostly suitable for small bands, kinship groups with possibly a few retainers and hangers-on. This is to be expected. The land simply could not support a group of foragers and hunter-gatherers any larger than a dozen or two. All species, both social and solitary, evolve a population density related to both the carrying capacity and productivity of their range and the individual or collective ability of the life-form to exploit it. This history certainly selected for cleverness, and in the hominid case, social cohesion. The development of even the most primitive technologies, such as the domestication of dogs, fire, stone tools, and basket making (for carrying around stuff) would have allowed larger groups to be able to survive in the same landscape or niche. By the time agriculture came along, Man's ability to organize and cooperate in groups, what we call culture, became more important relative to innate intelligence. But this technological phase of our history as a species is relatively recent. We still carry a lot of that simian band heritage with us in our genes. I don't doubt a bit that we are dumber than our Paleolithic ancestors, and to a certain extent selected for ability to get along in large groups. It doesn't mean they were all individualistic geniuses, or we are all docile and cooperative dullards, but statistically, there is probably some truth to that assessment. Unfortunately, some aspects of collective behavior, like hostility to an out-group, became exaggerated. When two bands of apes fought over some scarce resource, like a waterhole or a grove of fruit trees, the combat was mostly ritual, with few casualties, and the loser was forced to withdraw, but still relatively intact. This was not to be the case when two walled towns tried to occupy the same fertile valley lying between them. War, like prejudice, specialization, forced labor, bias and hierarchical organization is, at least partially, part of the price we pay for civilization. perhaps this is the racial memory preserved in the myth of the Garden of Eden. It recalls a time when a family group lived in relative peace and freedom, off the land, with little effort or dangerous conflict. It was a world starting to vanish when the first agricultural communities became dominant and started growing, but which was still dimly remembered: a time of fortified villages jealously guarding their grain stores from roving bands of hungry, but free and rootless wanderers. We are apes. Over millions of years, human beings evolved a social structure mostly suitable for small bands, kinship groups with possibly a few retainers and hangers-on. This is to be expected. The land simply could not support a group of foragers and hunter-gatherers any larger than a dozen or two. All species, both social and solitary, evolve a population density related to both the carrying capacity and productivity of their range and the individual or collective ability of the life-form to exploit it. This history certainly selected for cleverness, and in the hominid case, social cohesion.

The development of even the most primitive technologies, such as the domestication of dogs, fire, stone tools, and basket making (for carrying around stuff) would have allowed larger groups to be able to survive in the same landscape or niche. By the time agriculture came along, Man’s ability to organize and cooperate in groups, what we call culture, became more important relative to innate intelligence. But this technological phase of our history as a species is relatively recent. We still carry a lot of that simian band heritage with us in our genes.

I don’t doubt a bit that we are dumber than our Paleolithic ancestors, and to a certain extent selected for ability to get along in large groups. It doesn’t mean they were all individualistic geniuses, or we are all docile and cooperative dullards, but statistically, there is probably some truth to that assessment.

Unfortunately, some aspects of collective behavior, like hostility to an out-group, became exaggerated. When two bands of apes fought over some scarce resource, like a waterhole or a grove of fruit trees, the combat was mostly ritual, with few casualties, and the loser was forced to withdraw, but still relatively intact. This was not to be the case when two walled towns tried to occupy the same fertile valley lying between them.

War, like prejudice, specialization, forced labor, bias and hierarchical organization is, at least partially, part of the price we pay for civilization. perhaps this is the racial memory preserved in the myth of the Garden of Eden. It recalls a time when a family group lived in relative peace and freedom, off the land, with little effort or dangerous conflict. It was a world starting to vanish when the first agricultural communities became dominant and started growing, but which was still dimly remembered: a time of fortified villages jealously guarding their grain stores from roving bands of hungry, but free and rootless wanderers.

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