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Science

Why size mattered for Einstein 195

Posted by CmdrTaco from the your-brain-is-so...-big dept.
Stephen Williams writes "Have a look at this BBC story. Examination of Albert Einstein's brain has revealed that a section of it is larger than average. " Kinda a fluff piece, but it is friday and this is kinda interesting. And I think its the first time that we've used Einstein's mugshot there on a story about him. The section in question is the parital lobes, behind the ears. Apparently they were larger then normal from a young age on. As well, his brain was about 15% wider across then average.
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Why size mattered for Einstein More

Why size mattered for Einstein

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  • Isn't one of the main factors in determining intelligence the
    number of connections between neurons, not the number of neurons (or
    brain size). This has the nice side effect of explaining why big
    brained species (see elephant below) do poorly on standardized tests.
    I believe it has also been shown that individuals who excel in one particular
    area or another have more connections in related parts of the brain.
  • As a final caveat, we've all heard that humans only use 5% of their putative mental capacity

    The rest is overhead for the operating system.

    --
    Fourth law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi

  • Right, but the idea was that since the skull contains the brain, the bumps on the skull would indicate more gray matter on the inside, and depressions would indicate less gray matter. It was considered an indication of cranial capacity.

    To me, it seems like measuring how much leftover meatloaf you have by seeing how big your tupperware container is, but maybe it's more like wrapping it in aluminum foil, what do I know. Anyhow, it sounded like a good idea 100 years ago, but now we can actually get inside and look at the brain.
  • The Jesuit priest who prepared Napolean's body for burial chopped off his peter, which was rather small. It was sold in the 70's (I believe) for $40,000 at auction at Christie's. Can't find my sources for this, though.....

  • "For anyone to think that these differences are of no import is inane. "

    Why?

    What reason do *you* have to believe they are significant?

    "You can't say 'blacks are the same as whites' and then support affirmative action."

    The hell I can't! You think racism doesn't exist in this society? You think we're each born with the same oppurunities? Affirmative action has *nothing* to do with helping out people whose inborn talents are sub-par. It has everything to do with giving people who are vastly overrepresented in the poor sections of our population a chance out of their situation. I don't always agree with Affirmative action, I don't think it's a miracle tonic for society's ills, but you seem to have a terrible misunderstanding of its purpose.
  • Napolean had help -- he had only one testicle.

  • So much for Einstein's "feelings" -- or yours or mine, for that matter. Everybody's a fool outside his own field, and Eintstein was not a biologist. As demonstrated by my subject line, Einstein was even capable of developing blind spots within his field, on occasion.

    Einstein's theories aren't credible because "Einstein was a genius"; we consider him a genius because his theories are credible on their own merits. If theories A through G (relativity, etc.) are credible on their own merits, it does not necessarily follow that theory Y must be credible, nor does it imply any justification for blowing off proving that one just because we liked the others so much.


    "Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
  • >Let's sum this up then.

    Sure.

    >You respect some one like Bill Gates as >intelligent. Why? Because he's rich and takes >advantage of people.

    Right and wrong, ethics and morality have nothing to do with intelligence. Accomplishments do. BG has accomplished what he has by being smart enough to figure out how. In that respect he shows more originality of thought than most. I could make the same arguement about Michael Dell, J.P. Morgan, and many other people.

    >You don't respect someone with an advanced >degree despite the work and intelligence that it >obviously takes to get one.

    It is NOT obvious that it takes intelligence to get one. I've worked in a Molecular Biology research lab. I've seen the people that get these degrees. Not every school has Harvard standards for the work they do or the people they allow through the system. Schools are out to make money and justify their position in life the same as any business. They do this by promoting the fallacy that a degree makes you something more than you are. That they exist to promote an exaulted ideal is secondary.

    >You make sweeping general statements about huge >groups of people you've rarely encountered.

    I was in a Bio lab for 4 years at Texas A&M. There were 50 faculty and >120 graduate students there. Add the people from the Biochem and Genetics depts. and I figure I know enough of them. Did I say ALL? No, go back and read. I do know enough people with PhDs to say that _just_ having a degree != higher intelligence. In fact, quite many of the profs their would say the same thing. Therefore, I reserve my impression of their intelligence for what they say and do, not just a piece of paper.

    >Hey, I'm glad I'm not smart like you because you >are obviously a brick short.

    I'm glad I have the ability to back my opinion up and the courage to put my name to it. So far the only thing to back your opinion is a girlfriend whom you claim to be smarter than you. If she is really so smart, why is she dumb enough to hang around with you?

  • The newspaper article I read said that the they found that his inferior parietal area was 15% wider than normal. But they also stated that the same area was missing a sulcus. A missing sulcus would normally mean less overall surface area, and might possibly negate the extra 15% in width. Anyone with access to the Lancet article know if they measured total surface area of this region?

    Anyway, I think it's probably safe to say that Einstein was more than 15% smarter than the average person, even though he admitted to great difficulties with mathematics (probably becauase he was working with diffucult math). I think Einstein's gift was not necessarily mathematics, but rather insight and intuition.

  • I myself am not so sure that the size of a brain would make it more sufficient or smarter. For instance, look at some old XT hard drive, its substantially larger than my quantum 8.5GB im using now, and store and speed are horrible in contrast. Plus, a friend of mine has a HUGE head, and a large brain. Good 'ol BigHead just never learns though, and is a pain in the ass, and not the smartiest kid ( although he acts like he is ).
  • I'm surprised no one has harped on this a bit more, but brain size doesn't necessarily mean greater intelegence. Neanderthals had brain cases that were roughly 1400-1700cc, which on the average is a bit larger than human brains. As someone else mentioned, whales also have bigger brains than we do. Whales though, have very large bodies, and a large amount of sensory input to monitor and process. What might be a somewhat better, if not totally accurate measurement would be brainsize in relation to body size, also taking into account the amount of processing the brain has to do for other tasks. It reminds me of how well the amiga (2000) could do with a 7mhz 68000. It wasn't a fast chip by 386 standards, but the system could run just about as fast, because it had optimized code, and other processors helping it along.

    Nite_Hawk
  • whereas I have one of those 'computer-science-understanding / physics-hating brains' that I would assume are somewhat more common here... :)

    I don't know about that. I am comp sci geek, but a physics groupie. Aall that sexy math... just gets me all... quivery. ;-) I have several friends who work down at Argonne National Labs. Visiting the lab has always been a fun time. Makes me wish I had my own research reactor to play with.

    Thad

  • Kennedy? As in Jack Kennedy? Not sure weighing it would do any good... it was kinda spread all over the car.

    --Rae
    It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. set my mind in motion.
    It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed.
  • Interesting... I usually read his biology more for entertainment, not being a biologist, I would not know the difference between logical and well stated biological fiction and logical and well stated biological facts.

    His statistics are more interesting to me, not so much that he proposes anything radical, but in that he takes into account human paradigms as a continual source of bias in interpretation of statistics (for example the age old view of evolution as a ladder leading to humans, when it is at best a bush).

    If you don't believe that human perceptions cloud our view of statistics, go find out how much the average casino pulls in a month...

    Likewise, I can't tell you how many times I have been CONVINCED that the solitare game on my Palm Pilot has something personal against me!

    We are pretty far off topic, so maybe we should take it to email, but I am curious... what is the accepted engine for punctuated equilibrium if not the radical global changes described by Gould?

    Also, I really enjoy the "pop" biology and natural history (something I can read, not something I have to study). Are there any other authors you can recommend that are accepted as more accurate?

    Bill "Waaaayyyyyyy off topic... somebody moderate me down" Kilgallon
  • Neanderthals also had much thicker skulls.

    Maybe I misunderstood, but I'm not so sure that the ratio of body size:brain size matters all too much, at least with intra-species relations. I can see it having something to do with inter-species, though. We can't really hope to start measuring the intelligence of other species before we have an accurate and consistent test for our own race...
  • Ok, the AC stuff can cause confusion with which AC said what. I take back the names and give you the benefit of the doubt on the 'brick' thing.
  • I heard this on my way to work on NPR. The reporter also said that Einstein would have preferred not to be remembered for his body.

    Of course, I can see it now. No more need for IQ tests. Just measure parts of a person's brain. Of course, they'll have to remove it first, but anything for progress!
    --
  • Weird, I just read the exact same story in my local paper two seconds ago. I remember reading a story a few years back about the one of the men involved in the study. For a while there wasn't really much interest in researching Einstein's brain, so the man kept the pieces in his apartment. I guess Einstein's family didn't really like the idea, so they moved it to the University. Eh.

  • Ottawa Citizen article (Score:4)

    by Tekmage ( 17375 ) on Friday June 18, 1999 @04:08AM (#1844763) Homepage
    This [ottawacitizen.com] is in today's paper.

    Goes into a bit more detail and background than this thread's linked article.
  • Well, Neanderthals had a very thick area of bone in the top of the skulls, though I don't really see how the thickness of the bone would change the fact that the brain cavity is still larger. (IE you could make the bone 6 feet thick, and if it still had a capacity of 1400-1700cc, it would still have a larger brain than a human assuming the brain completely filled it.) As to the size ratio question, I'm simply saying that it would be a better method to use than just trying to directly compare brain size. Larger humans (if I remember correctly) tend to have larger brains than smaller humnans, simply because larger organisms tend to have larger brains. That would probably make a lot of people on here angry, that the 7' 300lb football player could be considered by some to be smarter because he might happen to have a larger brain (cranial capacity). Personally I don't think either method is terribly accurate, but using ratios seems like it would atleast be somewhat better, if not always right.
  • read this: [ottawacitizen.com]

    Einstein's thought process described by himself:

    "Words do not seem to play any role," he said, but there was "an associative play of more or less clear images of a visual and muscular type."

    Now add to this words the fact that the parts of his brain that handle visual thinking was larger than average. Then read the books "Mind's Eye" and "The Gift of Dyslexia".
  • The researchers hope that the study will encourage the donation of brain specimens from other gifted individuals.

    it'd be somewhat ironic if einstein's brain just turned out to be a fluke. what would they do if feynman or hawking turned out to have 'average' brains?
  • Wow. More hideous reasoning. (1) Correlations alone tell you nothing about causation. Indeed, most of the correlations that you can find in the world are spurious. (2) The sample that your correlation was drawn from, I'm sure, was all male. Pick some female Nobel Laureates in the various sciences and talk to me about their testosterone levels. (3) Even if you want to talk only about lusty males, only someone with a pretty blighted worldview would think that the only source of drive and energy in males that could be scultped to a "higher pursuit" is freaking glandular.

    What I've learned from this thread? That way too many slashdot posters are scrambling for any feeble justification for their mysogyny.
  • Most of the current scientific thinking about brain area correlation is completely unsupported; the rest comes from non-repeatable testing on partially anesthetized surgery subjects.

    The idea that Einstein's cranial differences are somehow responsible for his genius diminishes what he accomplished and how he accomplished it---he worked hard and devoted a level of attention to physics that most of us are unwilling to devote to anything but television.

    As a final caveat, we've all heard that humans only use 5% of their putative mental capacity---so why would a 15% increase in "processor capacity" make a difference? It would be like the difference between 2GB and 3GB of RAM on an Apple ][+!

    P.S. If you have a 3GB Apple ][+, let me know---I'm a buyer for sure...

  • Yep, they tried this already... (well, without removing the brain)

    It's called phrenology, and the idea was that by measuring the size that different parts of the brain took up, you could measure a person's intellect and moral character. None of this has been proven very well, of course, but it did lead to some important scientific concepts.

    If I remember correctly, Einstein's brain actually weighed less than your average brain, but I guess he had one of those special 'physics-understanding brains', whereas I have one of those 'computer-science-understanding / physics-hating brains' that I would assume are somewhat more common here... :)
  • From what I heard Einstein had to have his
    mathematian friend formulate his theoretical ideas
    into mathematical equations. Although I definitely
    believe many people are born with special
    abilities for math, science, computers, etc. this
    movement to scientific phrenology worries me.
  • 'd be neat if there was enough intact DNA to inject into a calf egg and grow an Einstein clone w/ large hat size - Then maybe he can figure out why my NT drag&drop is broken.

    Seems there was a 'Wired' cover of Richard Dawkins with the projected head size humans will have years hence.

    Chuck

    The only thing free are the commercials
  • "This is a completely bogus etymology. The word `history' derives from greek, in which it bears no relation to the greek phrase meaning `his story."

    ????

    Root derivation or etymology is not the only consideration in language analysis.

    "The coined phrase 'history' says it all really. History is a man made construction. Tales of men by men."

    I'm sorry but I did not see this cited anywhere as an etymological description. What about the equally valid forms of language analysis: lexography and linguistics? It is all semantics. Language IS a social construct. It both shapes and is shaped by political forces. There are other factors to take into account apart from the original root derivation. Because the greek derivation did not imply gender does not mean that it was not readily adopted and integrated into language and became so.

    One does not run clutching for etymons when analysing "red herring" for example.

    What is good for the gander is good for the goose. Irrelevant of size or disposition.

  • when are they finally going to clone him?
    -drew
  • Only if "supports this conjecture" means "makes vagues sense to someone who doesnt know what he or she is talking about."

    You might want to review women's contribution to science. You might also want to review the various social constraints that historically barred women from study. Or you might want to review elementary logic and see why your attempt at causal explanation fall painfully short of the mark.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Number 17 has a bigger this, 19 has a diminished that, etc.

    Just what we need.

    "Sample #17 had a larger pariatal lobe, and tasted a bit like pork. Sample #19, on the other hand, was smaller in the medulla, and had a buttery aftertaste..."
    --

  • Its just phrenology (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Phrenology is the 19th century method of character
    analysis by looking at skull bumps.
    Now with autopsies, brain injuries, and MRI/PET
    imaging we can localize some brain functions,
    but we really don't understand how it works yet.

    The danger is someone could be diagnosised "abnormal" and denied insurance or forced therapy
    if they exhibit a "wrong" pattern.
    I still advocate continued R&D for human mental
    understand and new therapies.
  • ...if people with supposed "photographic memory" or really good memory have enlarged hypothaluses or just very active ones with lots of connections.
  • Rushing to a snappy reply really makes you look dumb. The study was *not* about Einstein's overall brain size, it wasn't even just about the size of one particular area, and his was *not* the only brain studied.

    ObSheesh.
  • This is like trying to figure out why someone is a great driver by examining his car. You are what you are - the body is irrelevent.
  • Yes, referring to an old far side comic:
    So Einstein, your larger cranium may make you better at physics, but it also makes it trivially easy to subdue you with a headlock!
  • just curious... :)


    Who am I?
    Why am here?
    Where is the chocolate?
  • At the time that Einstein was doing his most important work (the papers which were recently republished) hardly anybody thought women had adequate intelligence for anything more taxing than reading a recipe book or a fashion magazine. My grandmother, roughly a contemporary of Albert's, went to university but that was highly unusual at the time. Women didn't even have the vote (in Switzerland they still don't) Without higher education, it was unlikely that any women were about to change his culturally ingrained view. Today it might be different........

    Anyway, the thing about Einstein's brain was not just the measurement of the inferior parietal lobes, but the lack of a sulcus (groove) there which probably meant that connections were made in his brain that most of us physically couldn't make. My newspaper said this was unique (but how could they know? unusual is what they meant).

    PS Anonymous Coward - in an April posting "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" Henry II, talking about Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury - interesting (in view of your dyslexia) that you remembered the meaning so clearly but not the actual words.

  • Stephen Jay Gould has a very good book on this topic called _The Mismeasure of Man_.

    One thing I remember reading in this area was that Thoreau had an abnormally small brain, but is still considered one of the great Western thinkers.

    The old adage "It isn't size, but how you use it that matters" (or something like that) seems true here.

  • Do you have anything resembling a point?

    Yes, and I made it quite clearly. If you're too stupid to grasp it, that's not my problem, but here it is again: The mere fact that Einstein said it, doesn't make it true. Einstein himself would back me up on that, by the way. He was a theoretical physisict, not a priest. He wasn't into "revealed truth". He was into proof. The argument from authority is not proof.


    it's safe to assume that Einstein knew what he was talking about when he referred to women as unsuited for theoretical physics, considering that he was in contact with all the important physicists of his time (including Marie Curie btw)

    At that time most universities would not accept women as students. So how were they to get into the field? At that time, women were considered "incapable" of doing a great number of things which they have since started doing in large numbers, and quite successfully. At that time, there were surgeons as eminent in their fields as Einstein was in his, who declared that women weren't capable of doing surgery. Well, we've since found that that was a total crock. This is also true of any other profession you can name. In the eighteenth century and earlier, women were considered incapable of producing literature. By 1875 that particular notion had been laughed off the face of the earth.

    Incidentally, are you trying to claim that Curie was incompetent? Or what?

    Basically, you're drunk either way.


    Instead of boring me to death in an effort to convince me that Einstein was an idiot,

    You have successfully convinced me that you are an idiot, and that facts and logic bore you. Read my post again. I said that Einstein rejected Heisenberg's conclusions for emotional reasons. He did. This is a fact. Nobody said that Einstein was an idiot. I said that Einstein was fallible , which is, in fact, true. To back myself up, I provided a well-known example.


    Can you point us to _any_ woman who has made a significant contribution to theoretical physics that approaches the works of Einstein, Newton, Maxwell, Heisenberg or just about everyone else whose name is still being taught at universities today?

    Can you tell me why that would be relevant? (I know you can't -- it's a joke, see? :) But seriously, how many theoretical physicists of that stature have appeared since it was legally possible (and socially acceptable) for women to go into that field? Stephen Hawking, there's one. Virginia Woolf asked rhetorically why there were no women on the Elizabethan literary scene (she missed Aphra Behn, though) -- and immediately answered her own question by participating, along with other women, in a literary movement of arguably similar stature. You've never heard of Virginia Woolf, I'm sure -- but that tells me a lot more about your inadequacies than it tells me about hers.

    In other words, anecdotal evidence isn't worth much -- but you have anecdotal evidence which is completely tangential, while I have anecdotal evidence which is very much to the point. Get it? No, you don't get it. You don't get much, do you?


    It's a commonly observed fact that people who brag about the accomplishments of "their" group never seem to have any accomplishments of their own to brag about. Gee, what an odd coincidence. If your failings in logic and reading comprehension are anything to go by, you're a perfect example.


    "Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
  • The point that several previous posts seemed to be angling towards, but not quite saying directly, is that crud like this is unscientific at best. The article claims that Einstein's brain was compared with that of 35 people of "average" intelligence. Putting aside the very basic idea that average is not definable here, this is still a pretty small case study. This just ain't front page news.

    Someone earlier mentioned Mismearure of Man, where Gould has done a rather amusing overview of the cranial capacity of some of the world's great thinkers. Very wide spread. No clear definition one way or the other. In fact some of the greatest proponents of this type of phrenology were pretty distressed to find their own capacity hitting a little below the mark...

    Silly stuff.
  • I remember watching a BBC documentary about a Japanese "researcher" who was on a quest to find out what happened with the brain of Einstein.

    The Japanese guy was a bit potty, and the only English he knew was "Am looking for Einstein brain". He kept asking that to anyone the BBC got on film. He went completely out of his mind when he finally got hold of a little bit of brain material. Apparently he was some kind of professor but I didn't really get a scientific impression of him. In fact, I thought he was a loony...

    The documentary did make clear that some *very* strange things happened with Einstein's brain, as somebody else already noted...
  • The 5% thing is rubbish. If it were true only 1 in 20 people who suffered a stroke would have any long term disabilities as a consequence.
  • Brain weight correlates with body weight.
    Does anyone believe that heavy people are
    usually more intellegent than skinny
    people?
  • If the subject is worthy, there shall be a Top X list.

    If the comments are juicy, there shall be a Top X list.

    If I have free time, there shall be a Top X list.

    If it will be funny, there shall be a Top X list.

    If people will groan, there shall be a Top X list.

    If I can think of at least X things for the topic, there shall be a Top X list.

    If you guessed "Yes", you were correct....and there shall be a Top X list.

  • I don't think that this is probably very relevant - a good number of excellent thinkers had very small brains - Leonardo, for example, had one of the smaller brains ever discovered in a fully functional human being. Also, those who have very large brains tend to be mentally retarded. Besides, if you're only using 10% of your brain anyhow, how is some more of it going to be helpful?

    -lx
  • really when discussing brainsize get the spelling rihght eh? -us foreigners might think you people mighty ehhh. ........ or something when you can't discern between "then" and "than"...

    Just my 2 cents worth of B.S.
  • Have you ever heard of Marilyn Vos Savant? She has the highest rated IQ ever measured for a man or woman. I'm not sure how big her brain is but she is a woman.

  • I somewhat agree - I have personally come across one example where Gould wasn't exactly wrong, but he certainly neatened some actual untidiness for the sake of his essay. It was on the evolution of insect wings, and Gould wholeheartedly embraced the theory of thermoregulatory benefit as if it were established and respected fact. (It is *not*. It is simply one of a number of theories on the subject, at least it was a year or two ago...certainly it was when Gould wrote the essay.)

    The other example came from another essay on the evolution of QWERTY, where Gould simply wrote up the popular myth (which has since been debunked by *gasp* real research, see a prev slashdot article on the subject).

    Yet I did very much enjoy Mismeasure of Man and thought it made some excellent points about statistical bias and keeping a proper perspective on historical scientific findings. I wouldn't have said con-man, and I wouldn't go so far as to say that he is a complete fraud as a scientist. Grain of salt...
  • "It's been proven time and again that he falsifies his results in order to get published. Just because he shouts the loudest doesn't mean he's correct," states an Anonymous Coward.

    Would you please provide evidence to back up your claim of falsifying results? Because that's one hell of an accusation. Personally I think Gould is one of the great thinkers of this century. Plus he's an outstanding writer for the intelligent layman interested in all things biological, paleontological, and geological. The only other popular science writer on the same level was Carl Sagan. And for heaven's sake, when has Stephen Jay Gould ever shouted? His writings are the touchstone of subtlety and taste. I, for one, suspect you haven't read him. Sorry, but you've stepped on the toes of one of my heroes.

  • They said they were looking for brains from other gifted individuals. :) No really though, that's an interesting peice. I wonder if the findings found are the real reason for him being so smart, or if he just was naturally smart.
  • I, for one, do. I'm heavy, and I'm a friggin' jeeniouss, so there must be a correlation.

    --Corey
  • This probably isn't worth my time to reply to, but why not.

    It's been proven time and again that he falsifies his results in order to get published.

    IANAL, but this sounds like slander to me. Proven time and time again? By whom? Where is this "proof"? Why does Gould continue to be published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals if he is in fact a "con-man"?

    On the other hand, Gould is a favored whipping-boy for proponents of Creationism, so perhaps your agenda is religious, not scientific?
  • WOW! I did not know that Gary Coleman made theories of relativity. I thought he was just an actor. But know I know the truth. "Whatcha Talking About Willis!" is actually his theory of relativity spoken backwords, right?
  • as are most (religious) human beings. He is scientific when science agrees with his beliefs. When science does not support his beliefs, he tends to ignore the science or he expects an excessive burden of proof from science.
  • (Cheap pun alert) So they're trying to RELATe the size of Einstein's brain to the intellectual actIVITY now? HAHAHAHAHA thump... (The sound of me falling of the chair to ROFLMHO...got that out of my system, I'm ready to be serious now).

    Last week I watched a video presentation of a seminar discussion -- the subject being "music" and "learning". The speaker, Dr. Michael Ballam at Utah State University [usu.edu], related that part of what solved Einstein's early learning difficulties was that his mother purchased a violin for him, and as he began to learn to play, his learning abilities improved as well. Dr. Ballam also mentioned (quoting from biographers) that later in life Einstein thought of physics in nearly "musical terms."

    Big laugh, right? Not really. According to neuroscientists, the parietal lobes of the brain seem to be the "interpreters" for sensory signals from other places in the brain: (vision, HEARING, motor, sensory and memory). [Thick quote alert... highlighting, mine] (from American neuroscientist Gerald Edelman's book Bright Air, Brilliant Fire):

    • "Whatever the skill employed in thought - that of logic, mathematics, language, spatial or musical symbols - we must not forget that it is driven by the Jamesian processes, undergoes flights and perchings, is susceptible to great variations in attention, and in general is fueled by metaphorical and metonymic processes. It is only when the results of many parallel, fluctuating, temporal processes of perception, concept formation, memory, and attentional states are "stored" in a symbolic object - a sequence of logical propositions, a book, a work of art, a musical work - that we have the impression that thought is pure."
    A final thought. Einstein was somewhat dyslexic, which is, in essence, where the brain is not correlating the senses correctly. Dr. Ballam's discussion showed how many times music is the great HARMONIZER that often makes the difference.

    (Small bio note here: I am ADD (attention deficit disorder), but survived and even did well in school, so long as I was also involved in music because my spatial awareness went way up.)

    Interesting stuff, eh?

    P.S. I'm trying to see if the text of Dr. Ballams' seminar is available online, and will post a link if I find it.)

  • > Lord save us if we ever see a squadron of flying elephants....

    Yeah, like in Niven&Pournelle's -Footfall-? Those flying elephants sure caused a lotta trouble.

  • If the scientists are looking for brain donations, I'm sure we can get a half dozen or so from the management around here. They arent using them for much anyway...
  • From a news article I read, it did not say anything about size, but they did say that it was because one of the grooves in the brain was incomplete, unlike in most humans. This incomplete groove was present on both sides of his brain. This allowed faster communication between two different regions in Einstein's cerebral cortex. Also, the large groove down the center of Einstein's brain was also incomplete, which would have directly connected both halves of Einstein's cerebral cortex.
  • Yes, Einstein did work very hard, and accomplished a great deal for physics. The TV's we have today, and mircoprocessors wouldn't be possible without Quantum theory. But we should never forget that although Einstein pioneered the quantum field, he also quickly disowned it due to religious beliefs. Not only that, but it took a Catholic priest/physicist to convince him that the universe was in fact expanding and to take that stupid constant out of his theory of general relativity. Although he was a genius, it took many more geniuses to fight him in order to prevent him from really messing up his theories.

    As for this "5%" bunk. We use more than 90%, the discussion of 5% only deals with the idea of when we are doing a certain process, ie some hard math problem. Also, that is only for guys. It is a known fact that when men concentrate on a problem small sections of the brain are used very heavily, where women use a larger percentage of the brain but less intensly.
  • Okay.

    I read through some of those comments... I've gotta back Talisman up. We might not like it, but there ARE racial/ethnic differences that show up in other aspects of people's lives.

    To give a few examples - (I just know I'm gonna get flamed) GENERALLY:

    Asians tend to be better at math/science
    Africans tend to be better at athletics... what percentage of the world's great basketball players are black? Runners?

    The list goes on, and I'm not really qualified to enumerate more. But the trend is there.

    Affirmative action is pointless. As is some types of welfare. The American assumption is that, given equal opportunity, everyone will succeed. Granted, not everyone has equal opportunity. But success isn't just about giving everyone the same starting point. Certain people excel in certain areas. Certain people don't. It is a fact that we will all eventually have to accept and appreciate instead of turning a blind eye and punishing those that excel, while spending resources trying to help those that don't. I agree that the unsuccessful should be helped to live, but definitely not at the cost of others. Why should I be discriminated AGAINST when I apply to college simply because I am Asian/White? Or, why should I be picked out simply because I am Black?

    While we shouldn't discriminate against people for race/gender/ethnicity, we must recognize that differences exist.

    Jonathan Wang
  • Despite Einstein's wishes that he be cremated in his entirety, Dr. Harvey removed the brain from his cranium, took it home and was fired from his hospital job when he refused to give it back. The whereabouts of Einstein's organ have been the subject of speculation and macabre rumours ever since his death 42 years ago at the age of 76.
  • Heh. I'm 20, and I'm still waiting. So it's not necessarily just sour grapes. :)
  • Frist off aplogys in advance if this has already been mentioned. One would think that after sitting in persirvitave for such a long time that the brain would be changed from its orignal state. The effect of perservitive on the brain isn't really knowen until we do a good study on it. Hope I made at least some sense! -Jon
  • "After reading the article, I think the thing that hit me the most was the number of brains studied. While I understand they don't have thousands of brains sitting aroung, a study that uses only 35 brains as comparison seems ludicrous. Even saying that his brain structure/size might be a factor is vastly speculative given the number they considered. There are so many possible factors here that they seem to be ignoring - it sounds like another example of researchers with their own agenda to serve."

    I too thought the amount of brains they studied was a bit low. However, the number is 91 brains not 35 brains. Using 91 brains as any type of comparsion is stupid considering there's ~6 billion people in the world? To me that's like finding an orange that tastes good, then comparing it with 91 other oranges then noticing that inside the good tasting orange the color is slightly diffrent so maybe that's why it tastes better.

    As for your "hidden agenda" I would find that hard to belive since from reading this artical it apears that the Doctor was female.

    If you read in one paragraph:

    "Dr. Witelson theorized that the partial absence of the groove in Einstein's brain may be the key"

    Then shortly under it says:

    "She said it is likely that the groove was always absent in that part of Einstein's brain, rather than shrinking away as a result of his intelligence"

    Notice the SHE, so unless the artical REALLY screwed up I would assume that the Doctor that was doing this study is female. So under that assumption I would imagin she would be as impartial as could be with no agenda saying "Men have bigger brains there for are smarter" Which your "hidden agenda" statement implied. The only possiable conclusion one could come up with for a reason why she may have contiuned on a biased study was because she was forced to or because she got money for the study thus to get this money was told to make it apear "Men have bigger brains there for are smater" If that is the case, which again you SEEMED to be implying then this woman has no credablity what so ever in my book because she continued in a biased study so how can I trust any of her findings in the first place?

    All and all this artical seems like it's a bunch of BS, someone studies 91 brains and it seems that they think they have some sort of clue of what made Einstein so smart in his feild. People need to relize that EVERYONE *IS* DIFFRENT I don't care what anyone says in this sense because everyone is. Even men and women *ARE* diffrent, it's quiet obvious that men and women ARE diffrent and it seems to be the standard thing to say that women can do everything men can do which isn't true, because it's like me saying that I can do everything Joe Blow can do of the same sex which isn't true at all. There's obviously going to be something that I can do that he can't, and something that I can do that he can't. Which is why trying to make any type of comparasion between people past what the average person SHOULD be able to do is stupid. Sorta like average people by the age of 18 SHOULD be able to add and subtract or read their high school diploma :)

    So with that all said, I really wish people would get a clue and stop this stupidty. Everyone should have at lest half of a clue to understand that we all are diffrent in some way and not two people are a like. As for using the brain size or anything like that(I'm no brain scientist here) for basing any sort of conclusion to me seems stupid because there is so much about the brain we do not understand and there could be any possable number of reasons why Einstein was the way he was. Maybe his brain was more active in the math part of the brain just because... and had no corolation with how the brain formed? Who knows... 91 dead brains isn't telling me anything what so ever. Other than Einstein's brain was diffrent than the 91 other ones. Maybe there's a lot of other people with brains like that but are utterly poor at math? Who knows, at this point in the game they just looked at 91 brains..... Big deal...

    Oh well... just seems like a poor stupid artical in my book.


    - lakdjfalkdj Because all the good nicks were taken!


  • I was arguing that Einstein was acquainted with a woman who could be considered the most talented female physisist ever, yet Einstein still maintained that women are unsuited for theoretical physics.

    If you want to evaluate Marie Curie's competence as a theoretical physicist, there is one and only one valid way to do that: Learn theoretical physics, read her papers, and base an informed opinion on the actual quality of her work. Not her chromosomes; her work. I doubt that you are capable of doing that; if you were, you wouldn't need logical fallacies to "prove" your point. You'd have the facts.

    It may well be that Einstein, like you, had an emotional problem with recognizing the value of work done by women; as I demonstrated at the beginning of this thread, even somebody as bright as Einstein is capable of having blind spots. He was a human being just like the rest of us, except for the fact that he had some very profound insights into the nature of how things work.


    You might say that he didn't argue from authority but from personal experience.

    Where did you learn to read? Did you learn to read? You are arguing from authority. Not Einstein, you. You are telling me that "Einstein said it, so it must be true". You're wrong. If Einstein said it, it might be true, or it might not; the proximity of Einstein's name does not impart a quality of "truth" to things. Had Einstein taken the trouble to try to prove this, then we could look at his proof and evaluate that. But he didn't. He just shot his mouth off.


    You asked why it would be relevant if you could point us to a woman who has made a significant contribution to theoretical physics.

    Again, your reading comprehension is shockingly poor. I said that it was irrelevant that you could not point to a woman (other than Curie, who demolishes your entire thesis) who had made a "significant contribution to theoretical physics". I provided a very close analogy: When women were rarely taught to read, they made very little contribution to literature. If you had been alive in 1800, you would be yammering with equally self-assured illogic that women were incapable of writing novels. In 1800, the evidence for "male superiority" in that field was identical to your current evidence for "male superiority" in the field of theoretical physics. You're a regular warehouse of logical fallacies: "If it didn't happen yesterday, it can't happen tomorrow". I'm sorry, but that's pure nonsense, of the "man was not meant to fly" variety.


    I never bragged about anything, least of all the accomplishments of my 'group' (assuming you're talking about males vs. females),

    Your entire thesis could be stated as follows: "Nya, nya, nya! Boys are smarter than girls". Which is just plain pathetic.


    especially considering that you seem to be part of the same group,

    I am (I'm also white, middle-class, well-educated, and from the Northeast -- the whole nine yards :). And I'm saying that my worth is determined not by that crap, but by what I do. I have no interest in trying to share credit for the accomplishments of others. I'd rather accomplish things on my own. It's a lot more fun -- at least it is if one is capable of it. I understand the position you're in, but due to your generally noxious personality I have very little sympathy.


    But since you're not a theoretical physicist (your incoherent drivel is a dead giveaway),

    You're really addicted to that fallacy, aren't you? Heh. Since you can't effectively dispute anything I've said, you're desperately trying to find cheap excuses to ignore it entirely -- based on the imaginary qualities of a "group" to which you presume I belong. This is called "grasping at straws". You do it very gracefully. You must have a lot of practice.


    . . . his conjecture seems to be safe for now.

    As I've demonstrated, his conjecture is ludicrous. Furthermore, O Man of Science, do you know what a "conjecture" is? It's not something that's considered proven, for starters. If you knew that, you wouldn't have used the word, of course; but in your ignorance and confusion you've accidentally said something rational :)


    Don't even dream that you might stand a chance of arguing me into the ground

    You seem to be deriving some kind of comfort from the fact that you're too dumb to know when you've made an ass of yourself. Well, hey, if that's all you've got, go ahead and enjoy it. God knows it's not much.


    "Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
  • f you are going to try and over-generalize I suggest considering this observation: time period of physicists most innovative and creative years are directly correlated to the time period of their highest testosterone levels.

    This is perhaps why there are more male physicists than female, aside from the fact society does a good job of keeping women down and for whatever reason (sociological, genetic, etc.) that women, on average, display less aptitude in the math/science areas.

    Further evidence for the testosterone-scientific achievement connection is supported by comments from great achievers throughout history (Napoleon, Da Vinci, Crowley) talked about one of the secrets to high productivity being the control of sexual drive. I don't think anyone is going to dispute the testosterone-sexual drive connection. The secret is to redirect that drive and energy into a 'higher' pursuit.
  • It has already been validated by the scientific team working on this project that the actual organ area was not larger than other males brains examined. It was mainly attributed to the distribution of mass. and the lack of a particular groove which is found on a 'typical' brain. Thus the total size of the brain is irrelevant.

    Your conjecture has no validity base at all in the argument regarding women. It is based on a false premise. Women are historically invisible in our society. The coined phrase 'history' says it all really. History is a man made construction. Tales of men by men.

    And for the record there has only been one male Einstein also. How do you account for the Ada Lovelaces of this world?

    The concept of measurement of intelligence is strangely askew. But then it favours men as it too was created by men. If Einstein's brilliance had been based on his lateral rather than longitudal skills, ie. language, arts, etc he would have been branded a dunce. Likewise the inverse must hold true for women. Intelligence surely is manifested in disciplines apart from the so called higher sciences per se. Deemed higher because due to a predominance of men in this area in an effort to keep it an elitist domain -- it is labelled so. It's easier to play and win the game when you make up all the rules.

    Recently a study on female anatonmy found that the clitoris was a lot larger than originally thought. In fact the internal muscle is larger and more powerful than your average penis. I can't find a related site [time-wasting wading through all that porn in AltaVista..but this was quite recent and is true.]

    In the end it is relative. Listen to the man.
  • > Whales have brains bigger than gary coleman and you don't see them making theories of relativity.

    How do you know? Talked to any whale scientists recently? It could be that, living in the ocean, they have a different perception of spatial movement than we. They might take for granted what we're only at the edges of discovering.

    > The real physical trait that matters is the surface area of the brain. Notice how our brains look like a raison? All of those convolutions increase the surface area of the brain.

    Correct, in a sense. It is the convolutions of the brain that are thought to indicate intelligence. No matter what you do, or how you wrinkle a human brain, though, there won't be as much surface area on it as on the brain of a whale. It just won't happen. It's physically not possible.

    But, all that convolutions-means-intelligence mumbo-jumbo is just that. Conjecture. No hard science to back it up.

    Dolphins have, on average, more convolutions per square inch of brain than we. Are they intelligent? Perhaps. Can we understand their intelligence? Not yet. Will we ever? Maybe.

    But if they were so darned intelligent, they'd be able to avoid those nets, wouldn't they?

    So long, and thanks for all the fish,

    --Corey
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Yeah, like the PhD means you're smart. Some of the biggest idiots I know have advanced degrees. All it meant was they were more happy to spend 80+ hours a week in a lab than at home with family or out having a life. I would also argue that Bill Gates (as much as I don't like MS) is pretty darn smart (smart enough to take advantage of most people) but dropped out of college. Basically a degree doesn't mean sh*t.

    So there goes your argument.
  • Hehe, I bet she also is MCSE (or is it MSCE) licensed?
  • PENIS ENVY [newscientist.com] may be a thing of the past. The clitoris, it turns out, is no "little hill" as its derivation from the Greek kleitoris implies. Instead, it extends deep into the body, with a total size at least twice as large as most anatomy texts show, and tens of times larger than the average person realises, according to new studies by Helen O'Connell, a urology surgeon at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Melbourne.

    Just making a point...
  • by Vonnegut. Reminds me Home sweet Home earth in 1999
  • Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:

    This should come as no surprise to us. How many among us have big heads? How many among us were the "smart people" or the "nerds" way back when. I've observed this all of my life.

    When I was born my head was so large that the doctors thought that I was hydrocephalic (water on the brain). They wanted to drill a hole in my head to relieve the pressure. My mother refused to allow it, as time went on, my body grew to match my head. At least for the most part, unless I cut all of my hair off, I can't wear a baseball cap.

    Most every highly intelligent person whom I know has a large head. Big heads = big brains (for the most part).

    LK
  • Whoa whoa! Tabernac!

    It says it was compared to 35 _men_ and 56 _women_ who had normal intellect when they died. That makes it 91 people, slightly better than 35.

    It also says these features are listed nowhere on any known atlas of brain features. So they referred to the existing knowledge base as well.

    I'd say that helps a wee bit, eh?

    BTW, there is no mention of overall cranial capacity and if you check the other articles, the weight of A.E.'s brain was in the "normal" range. They refer specifically to unusual features, not overall size.

    Be sure you absorbed the findings presented in any paper before calling someone else's study crud.
  • Actually the comment was about PhD/advanced degree people and not all of them, only some. I'm certainly not going to bother getting into a battle of wits with an unarmed anonymous coward. I don't just give respect to a person's intelligence level purely based on their degree. I see anyone who does so as a little naive.




  • like in "Foundation and Earth" from Asimov :o)
    --
  • Actually, a number of studies show that there is very little -- if any at all -- correlation between brain size and intelligence. The fascinating part of this piece (I read it in a Swedish newspaper) is that the windings on a part of the parietal lobe was different from normal. Not enough info to determine what areas actually were different, though.

    As for that "we only use xx% of our brain" thing, the explanation is easy. First, we do not need all those brain functions at the same time (don't need to identify faces when we aren't looking at a face, for instance); second, the central nervous system is the most energy demanding part of our body, and we wouldn't have a chance to achieve sufficient cooling if a larger part was in use at the same time -- we would overheat, and nerve cells really doesn't take heat well, so we'd literally think ourselves to death :)

  • . . . there's a place for you, really! :)


    . . . decrepit prose . . .

    Hey, that's pretty cool. If that phrase didn't embody what it describes, it would be completely meaningless. It's a shame you'll never get the joke . . .


    . . . a futile argument, which I am invariably bound to win anyway,

    Can you actually quantify the nature of your "victory"? . . . while accounting for the fact that every one of your statements is fallacious, irrelevant, and/or blatantly contrary to fact . . . ?


    Einstein's conjecture (I chose that term wisely)

    You chose that term just as foolishly as you choose everything else. You started off trying to claim that it was a fact (though you backed off to "'sound' working hypothesis" when you started to realize how wrong you were) when, yes, a "conjecture" is the best you can reasonably call it -- and a silly conjecture at that.


    while your pathetic little anecdotal excursions into 19th century literature (which are flawed in their own right)

    Since you know nothing of the subject, I can understand very well why you make no attempt to justify that statement. You seem to be trying to deny the existence of George Elliot, George Sand (both of whom were women writing under male names, so as not to be dismissed on account of their gender), Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, H.D., Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Parker, Gertrude Stein, Nicola Griffith, and about four hundred others. I'm sorry, but these books exist, okay? They're on my shelf, big as life. Are you going to claim that somebody else wrote them? Or are you going to claim that Einstein said ("so it must be true!"(TM)) that their work -- which you've never read, nor in your ignorance even heard of in most cases -- was of no worth?

    In short, you babble a lot, and God knows you repeat yourself endlessly, but you are absolutely incapable of putting together a credible defense of anything you say. You can't even give a coherent account of why you believe these things, let along why I should agree with you. All you can do is doggedly and proudly demonstrate your wretched lack of irony by attacking my nick. It's almost as if you're afraid that I'll mistake you for an intelligent person, and you're eager to set me straight on that point. If so, let me reassure you: I got the message a long time ago.


    "If it didn't happen yesterday, it can't happen tomorrow", . . . can indeed serve as a sound working hypothesis

    You're blind drunk, aren't you? The history of science is more tangential to this discussion than you think, but if you knew anything about it, you'd be aware that the last gasp of any dying paradigm is just that: "It didn't happen yesterday!" And it's always backed up with the argument from authority.


    you not surprisingly managed to trivialize my position into "Nya, nya, nya! Boys are smarter than girls",

    Er, no. I'd say that you trivialized it yourself, but that would imply that it wasn't trivial to begin with. :)


    our twisted little 'mind' is defying all logic by perverting this approach into "If it didn't happen yesterday, it will surely happen tomorrow",

    Jesus Christ! Any local high school in your area is bound to offer remedial reading classes for night students. Check it out. You'll be glad you did.

    What I've been saying all along is that Einstein's conjecture is insupportable, and that your attempts to support it are irrational and free of fact. You've consistently failed to address any of the points I've raised. You would know better than I why this should be so, but that's another issue. The point here is that I've simply been saying that you've failed utterly to provide any valid reasons at all for anybody to take your "conjecture" seriously. Based on history, it seems likely that women are perfectly capable of doing theoretical physics; given the career of Marie Curie, it seems more than just "likely". Did I say "surely"? No, of course not. Perhaps Curie was an aberration of some kind; perhaps "she" was a transvestite. I never met the woman. The thing is, it's easy to prove that something exists; all you need to do is provide an example (e.g. Curie in this case, a sticking point which you've tried desperately to ignore). Proving that something does not and can not exist is another matter entirely, though. It can be done in mathematics, but that brings us to some clever ideas Kant had about the nature of truth, which are over your head anyway. In a nutshell, the ground rules for mathematics are fully known, because we are the ones who defined them, just as the syntax of C is fully known: You can look at the source for the compiler. This is not true of biology, sociology, or any of the other disciplines which are relevant to this discussion. So here you are: You're just barely bright enough to realize that a negative proof is not going to happen by any honest means, so you're resorting to fallacies and name-calling. This is not an entirely bad premise for a Monty Python sketch, but for any other purpose it's got some flaws.


    you're indeed utterly incapable of following my arguments,

    It's nice to see you continuing your perfect record of never even attempting to back up anything you say. While we're here, though, you should be aware that "arguments" is what we call a "plural". This means that it implies that there is more than one. Therefore, I laugh. You have one argument. It is the argument from authority. It is silly. You are a fool. Are those sentences short enough for you? I tried not to use any big, scary words that might frighten you off.

    I'll say it again: The fact that you're too dumb to admit your error doesn't make you right. The possibility that you're too brainless even to recognize your error is not interesting to me. In fact, it's too depressing to contemplate, so I'm going to assume that you known damn well how idiotic your nonsense is.


    "Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"

  • Re:It's worth being skeptical about this... (Score:3)

    by parkrrrr ( 30782 ) on Friday June 18, 1999 @04:26AM (#1844869)
    The usual figure is ten percent of our brains, and it's total bunk [fireplug.net].
  • Another body part I have to feel insecure about .....

    Message on our company Intranet:
    "You have a sticker in your private area"
  • How long before we can get Brain Implants to improve our intelligence?

    Could do alot of good for Hollywood, me figures...

    Don't hate the media, become the media.

  • As a final caveat, we've all heard that humans only use 5% of their putative mental capacity---so why would a 15% increase in "processor capacity" make a difference? It would be like the difference between 2GB and 3GB of RAM on an Apple ][+!

    Yep. We've all heard that. That doesn't mean that it has any connection to actual reality. This story seems to have just sprung out of no where, and keeps getting repeated 'cause it sounds so promising. (As in, Wow! What if you could use 100%?) The rather more true story is that the brain is a distributed processor--your neurons (and various other brain cells) are so heavily interconnected that it's quite difficult to say which grey lump is actually responsibe for what. (Note that the pretty looking brain-maps you see in magazines sometimes are fine as far as they go, but they're very fuzzy.)

    Right. Anyway, Yea Einstein! Now let's all go out and fit some more curves through single data points.

  • This "we only use 5%" (or 10%, or whatever figure has become attached to the story at the moment) is a fallacy based on measurements of electrical activity -- only a small minority of neurons are firing at any given moment.

    There are some people who sometimes have a considerably larger-than-usual percentage of neurons firing at once. This is technically known as "a grand mal epileptic seizure".
    /.

  • He would have made his own. It's known that Einstein enjoyed being eccentric.

  • "they'd be able to avoid those nets, wouldn't they?"

    Oh you mean the same way humans avoid doing things like crack, shooting each other, eating to obesity, falling in love with evil... Sometimes maybe "you" are just sure you can get some of that good fish before the net begins to close in but instead you just make a pretty bad judgment call. It happens.
    ---
    Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OSF /...
  • I've examined many corpses from both sexes and of many races.

    Have _NO_ illusions. There _ARE_ physical differences between races and sexes, aside from the obvious ones.

    For anyone to think that these differences are of no import is inane.

    You're correct in thinking that admitting such a fact will be difficult due to the societal and political ramifications, however should the fact never be widely accepted has no bearing on its accuracy. (e.g. the flat Earth people)

    Before I'm labeled a racist or sexist (or both) allow me to expand a bit on my view of the world.

    I truly don't care if a person is male or female, of any color or creed. However, when you fully embrace this concept you must understand that you can no longer defend people for the same reasons.

    You can't say 'blacks are the same as whites' and then support affirmative action. I have a black friend that absolutely refuses to accept any hand-out/hand-up offered by the government. He went so far as applying to college as a white just so he wouldn't receive preferential treatment. THAT is true character. THAT is an individual.

    Our society is renowned for its participants struggle for individuality. However, we don't seem to have a firm grasp on what individualism truly is.


    "The only animal capable of blushing is man, and he is the only one that needs to." - Twain



    Talisman


  • The convolutions of the brain cortex are related to brain size because of mechanical factors. Actually, dolphin (whale) brains appear more convoluted than human brains even for their size, because the have a thinner cortex to fold.

    Irrelevent anyway. Different mammals have different numbers of layers in their neocortex; research has discarded any particular role for the neocortex in relative intelligence of animals; humans have greatly varying brain size with no sign of a direct relation to intelligence, and there are victims of hydrocephalus ("water on the brain") whose brain scans show only intense cognitive activity in a small amount of brain tissue, but who have relatively normal intelligence nevertheless.

    So it isn't how big it is or how many ridges it has - it seems to be more a case of how skillfully you use it.
  • After reading the article, I think the thing that hit me the most was the number of brains studied. While I understand they don't have thousands of brains sitting aroung, a study that uses only 35 brains as comparison seems ludicrous. Even saying that his brain structure/size might be a factor is vastly speculative given the number they considered. There are so many possible factors here that they seem to be ignoring - it sounds like another example of researchers with their own agenda to serve.

    Leilah
  • It was 91 brains. 35 male, 56 female.

    Spouting off an opinion about someone else's study when you glossed over their paper and got the numbers wrong is really bad science.
  • I'm suprised noone mentioned that on DS-9 the Ferengi (sp?) would always talk about the "lobes". "It's all in the lobes".
    Star Trek can be scary at times.

    Also, a question. When people say that someone looks smart, are thery just looking at their lobes?

    How about a slashdot poll? How big are your lobes? :-)
  • Yet another article [globeandmail.com].
  • I saw a similar show on our wonderful Bay Area public television station, but it was Kenny G saying that he had gone from Cs and Ds to As after he started to play his "music". Now, if it's good for Kenny G, then it's GOT to be good for eveyrone else!
  • I thought they were referencing their EAR lobes. They had extremely sensitive ears on that show, both for hearing and "stimulation".
  • First a quick tangent:

    The coined phrase 'history' says it all really. History is a man made construction. Tales of men by men.

    This is a completely bogus etymology. The word `history' derives from greek, in which it bears no relation to the greek phrase meaning `his story.'


    Now, on to the point at hand:


    And for the record there has only been one male Einstein also.

    I think this is a fascinating statement. The implication is that Einstein was the smartest person who ever lived. I think this perception stems more from his status as a pop icon than from the science he did. Make no mistake; Einstien was a smart guy. However, by the early 1900's it was clear that something was wrong with mechanics, and a lot of scientists were working on fixing it. Einstein's theory was the one that turned out to be right, and so it's him we remember 80 years later, but he achieved that result by proceeding according to sound scientific principles, not through some sort of superhuman genius.


    So, I think attempting to draw conclusions about human intelligence by examining Einstein's brain alone is misguided. A more valid approach would be to look at brain sizes from a wide cross section of people and try to find a correlation with intelligence; although, as others have pointed out, such a study would be highly dependent on how you define `intelligence.'


    -r



  • Mismeasure of Man (Score:3)

    by killbill ( 10058 ) on Friday June 18, 1999 @04:32AM (#1844904) Homepage
    There is an excellent book by Stephan J. Gould called "The Mismeasure of Man" that gives quite a bit of detail about phrenology (trying to measure IQ by brain size), and also about problems with standardized tests.

    A very interesting book with excellent scientific underpinnings. Politically, Gould leans a little to the left, but he is honest and backs up his assertions with solid theories and plenty of facts, so both ends of the political spectrum can learn quite a bit from reading his work. The majority of the book is apolitical, so most readers will probably not notice, or even care.

    A great and interesting science read, like all of Goulds books (read "Wonderfull Life" for an outstanding overview on evolution and natural selection).

    Bill "who leans a little right, but also tries
    to stick to facts" Kilgallon
  • 1) You can be used as a floatation device in case of a water landing.

    2) Your ESP powers allow you to fetch lunch without ever leaving your cubicle.

    3) You know what they say about guys with big heads, don't you? Big hats.

    4) Your head is more round than oblate spheroid, thereby becoming the perfect basketball.

    5) You don't have to dress up to look like one of those aliens (Taloks?) from the pilot of Star Trek.

  • Causation (Score:3)

    by topher ( 23024 ) on Friday June 18, 1999 @04:47AM (#1844925)
    I'm no neuroscientist, but isn't possible that the causation actually went the other way? In other words, could it be that Einstein's intelligence caused his brain to develop differently?

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