Monday 6 October 2014

Brain Myth

Many animals can use their brains to do some of the things that humans can do, such as finding creative ways to solve problems, exhibiting self-awareness, showing empathy toward others and learning how to use tools. But although scientists can't agree on a single definition of what makes a person intelligent, they do generally agree that humans are the most intelligent creatures on Earth. In our "bigger is better" society, then, it might stand to reason that humans should have the biggest brains of all animals, because we're the smartest. Well, not exactly.

The relationship between brain size and intelligence isn't really about the actual weight of the brain; it's about the ratio of brain weight to the entire body weight. For humans, that ratio is about 1-to-50. For most other mammals, it's 1-to-180, and for birds, it's 1-to-220. The brain takes up more weight in a human than it does in other animals.

Intelligence also has to do with the different components of the brain. Mammals have very large cerebral unlike cortex’s, birds, fish or reptiles. 

“If I could put my brain in her body, the world would be mine for the taking.”  Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Match Me If You Can

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