Talk:Neuroscience and intelligence

The validity of supposed "racist pseudoscience"

Studies have found that on average, blacks have smaller brains (especially frontal lobes) relative to body size AND shorter childhoods than East Asians or Caucasians. In fact, their frontal bones can often be found with frontal eminences in adulthood--a childhood trait. Their cranial bones are very thick (right behind Australoids; an even more robust and small-brained group), yet their craniums usually appear much smaller than other groups, relative to size.

Other studies have shown that while short childhoods have a fast rate of development of the brain, ultimately the person with a longer childhood develops a more complex brain. Theory is a primitive African society with inadequate protection from wildlife and heat made short childhoods advantageous. 

Other supporting evidence is the fact ancient Subsaharan populations interbred with hominids a lot less related to us than Neanderthals or Denisovans. A study has found that up to 20% of subsaharan DNA is derived from this distant human relative.

One explanation for a larger brain is colder climates simply require better planning and creativity to survive, hence the large brain and long childhood of most of the non-Subsaharan populations. Agriculture provided the reliable, abundant supply of food for a growing brain.

Before their arrival to their recent homelands, I'm sure Caucasians and Asians looked very much like modern blacks and by that I don't mean in the superficial ways like color or hair but a robust build, which compensates for a smaller brain that impedes sophisticated technology, cooking, and agriculture. Basically on a lower rung on the human evolutionary ladder.

The brain is incredibly draining on essential resources of the body. Such a size increase must have been such a huge advantage to offset this disadvantage or else natural selection would have bred it out very quickly. My point is large brains have a huge tradeoff. If the trait is common in some groups, it served an important purpose. Undoubtedly, it's related to intelligence as all throughout human evolution, larger brains for intelligence has been the general trend. It's our defining characteristic and the only justicification for a brain size increase. Also proven by Caucasians' and Asians' history of building sophisticated societies.

If brain size size is indeed responsible for intelligence in part, what will become of society when it is universally accepted some races have adapted to be generally intellectually superior? I'm aware I'm venturing into taboo territory here so sorry if my inquiry is offensive.

Please read it and create an audio file

If you are a native speaker please read it and create an audio file. Thanks! :-)

Cortical convolution

Might is written correctly in the text. Mora data-citations needed.

Sloppy extraction from cite?

Presently in article:

Although it is hard to pin intelligence on age based on cortical thickness due to different socioeconomic circumstances and education levels, older subjects (17 - 24) tended to have less variances in terms of intelligence than when compared to younger subjects (19 - 17).[34]

Found in cite:

Younger participants (9 to 16 years old) demonstrated robust associations between cortical thickness and g scores while older participants (16 to 24 years old) did not.

Apart from numeric inconsistency, I'm not keen on translating this as "when compared to". A significant result on A, followed by different significant result on B, is not the same as a significant result on A-B.

I didn't look long and what I found might not be the passage excerpted, but surely the 19–17 is at least a typo. — MaxEnt 18:55, 3 May 2018 (UTC)