Androids Zombies Brains

These examples of experimental evolution with robots verify the power of evolution by mutation, recombination, and natural selection. In all cases, robots initially exhibited completely uncoordinated behaviour because their genomes had random values. However, a few hundreds of generations of random mutations and selective reproduction were sufficient to promote the evolution of efficient behaviours in a wide range of environmental conditions. The ability of robots to orientate, escape predators, and even cooperate is particularly remarkable given that they had deliberately simple genotypes directly mapped into the connection weights of neural networks comprising only a few dozen neurons. PLoS Biology

Is bigger always better? When it comes to brain size, that has long been the prevailing theory-at least among big-brained humans. But a new analysis shows that in the course of primate evolution, brains and brawn haven't always been on the rise.

The ways the Internet supposedly affects thought are as apocalyptic as they are speculative, since all the above are supported by anecdote, not empirical data. So it is refreshing to hear how 109 philosophers, neurobiologists, and other scholars answered, "How is the Internet changing the way you think?" That is the "annual question" at the online salon edge.org, where every year science impresario, author, and literary agent John Brockman poses a puzzler for his flock of scientists and other thinkers.

t's long been thought that so-called modern human behavior first arose during the middle Stone Age, in "modern" humans-Homo sapiens. But a new study suggests modern living may have originated roughly 500,000 years earlier-courtesy of one of our hairy, heavy-browed ancestor species.

EDGE 2010

Scientists may have solved the mystery of how human hands became nimble enough to make and manipulate stone tools.

child & chimp cooperation

Chimps and apes are genetically so similar to humans - and their human-like gestures do remind us how close we are on the family tree - that scientists have long been puzzled why they don't live as long as we do. Diet-related evolutionary changes may explain it.

Hawks provides a brief summary/commentary of the PBS Human Spark, ep. 1

18 November 2006 - New Scientist

Those of us who are critical of evolutionary psychology (EP) are often accused of being anti-evolution and/or anti-psychology. Many of us are neither. That's because evolutionary psychology isn't really evolution and it isn't really psychology.

Do apes and monkeys have a secret language that has not yet been decrypted? And if so, will it resolve the mystery of how the human faculty for language evolved? Biologists have approached the issue in two ways, by trying to teach human language to chimpanzees and other species, and by listening to animals in the wild.

Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons From the Biology of Consciousness

Duke University anthropologist Steven Churchill presents his research on the evolutionary origins of projectile weaponry, and how weapon use changed interactions between humans and other species-including, perhaps, the Neandertals. (October 20, 2009) » American Scientist

It has been suggested that interconnected brain areas evolve in tandem because evolutionary pressures act on complete functional systems rather than individual brain areas. The cerebellar cortex has reciprocal connections with both the prefrontal cortex and motor cortex, forming independent loops with each. Specifically, in capuchin monkeys cerebellar cortical lobules CrusI and CrusII connect with prefrontal cortex, whereas the primary motor cortex connects with cerebellar lobules V,VI,VIIb, and VIIIa. Comparisons of extant primate species suggest that the prefrontal cortex has expanded more than cortical motor areas in human evolution. Given the enlargement of the prefrontal cortex relative to motor cortex in humans, our hypothesis would predict corresponding volumetric increases in the parts of the cerebellum connected to the prefrontal cortex, relative to cerebellar lobules connected to the motor cortex. We tested the hypothesis by comparing the volumes of cerebellar lobules in structural MRI scans in capuchins, chimpanzees and humans. The fractions of cerebellar volume occupied by CrusI and CrusII were significantly larger in humans compared to chimpanzees and capuchins. Our results therefore support the hypothesis that in the cortico-cerebellar system, functionally related structures evolve in concert with each other. The evolutionary expansion of these prefrontal-projecting cerebellar territories might contribute to the evolution of the higher cognitive functions of humans.

Commentary on Ned Block (1995)

What makes us human? There are at least as many answers to this provocative and searching question as there are authors of this compendium. In the various articles you will find suggestions that include the 'spirit of man', referring particularly to religion, speech and not just language, imitation and 'mimetics', cooking, high levels of cognitive ability, causal belief, that humans are symbolic creatures, innate curiosity and the desire to know, mental time travel, and the ability to read other's minds. These all have cognitive ability as a common thread and, deriving from this, high-level development of language and cultural transmission.