# How Does Evolution Explain Birds? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 10, 2009, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015 "2009-03-10T23:20:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/41 "2009-03-12T00:03:13Z")
> [@phrederik](#): > > however i stand by my “speculation” that early animals lacked the ability to “think” in the manner quoted in the earlier post which infered reasoning. and i’m not egotistical or fearful of animal cognition, mearly trying to keep things real and not credit early creatures with abilites that clearly developed later What’s an “early” animal? Mammals developed roughly contemporaneously with dinosaurs, [in the Triassic](http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2001/05.24/01-mammal.html), and not significantly later. These “more advanced” mammals were totally unable to encroach on dinosaurs for hundreds of millions of years, until something else killed off the dinosaurs and made way for these hypothetically superior mammals to expand. Once multicellular life evolved, it very quickly reach a considerable level of sophistication. The idea that animals long ago were primitive and limited in their capacities is a discarded, older idea, a relic of Victorian self-congratulation on mankind’s sense of “progress.” Generally speaking, with the possible exception of Precambrian animals, and brief periods of radiating out to fill available ecological niches after mass extinctions, ancient animals were highly capable to survive in their environments; fast, strong, large, and yes, smart, when selection pressures favored it. There is no trend toward smarter animals; if we wipe ourselves out through our meddling, it might even be said that intelligence ultimately turned out not to be a survival advantage after all. What’s an “early” animal? Dinosaurs evolved as dinosaurs for hundreds of millions of years longer than humans have evolved as humans – would that make them “more advanced”, since we just got started? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/42 "2009-03-12T00:12:50Z")
I agree that there’s no general trend to “smartness” in evolution, but Stephen J. Gould did point out that the bounds of complexity aren’t symmetrical. That is, there’s clearly a simplest organism that can survive, the bacteria. There is no general trend for bacteria to get more complex, but a bacteria can’t get any simpler and still live. Therefore the farther along we get in the history of life the more likely we are to see more complex life, just because complex life requires time to evolve. There’s a limit to how dumb an organism can be, which is 100% dumb. Many animals exist with no brain. There’s no such limit to how smart an organism can be. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/43 "2009-03-12T00:23:36Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > Dinosaurs evolved as dinosaurs for hundreds of millions of years longer than humans have evolved as humans – would that make them “more advanced”, since we just got started? Strictly speaking, that’s not really a fair comparison. There are roughly 600 genera of known dinosaurs (not including birds), with probably several times that number unknown, spanning some 165 million years (if you exclude birds; add in many more genera and a total span of around 230 million years if you include them). Humans have only been around for a couple million years, depending on what you want to call human. Really, you could just as easily say “mammals have been evolving as mammals for hundreds of millions of years longer than humans have evolved as humans”. In other words, it’s certainly true that dinosaurs as a group lasted longer than Man (even if you include our immediate and not-so-immediate ancestors), but it doesn’t really say anything insightful about either Man or dinosaurs. ---
**Author:** ![Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9a28c/32.png) [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oslo_Ostragoth)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/44 "2009-03-12T00:28:55Z")
> [@MarcusF](#): > > Brilliant! What’s really cool is that once you achieve “blindness” in one of the patterns, you can shift between the three and all the X’s pop into and out of view. Well done, sir (or madam). ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/45 "2009-03-12T00:59:42Z")
> [@Darwins\_Finch](#): > > Strictly speaking, that’s not really a fair comparison. There are roughly 600 genera of known dinosaurs (not including birds), with probably several times that number unknown, spanning some 165 million years (if you exclude birds; add in many more genera and a total span of around 230 million years if you include them). Humans have only been around for a couple million years, depending on what you want to call human. Really, you could just as easily say “mammals have been evolving as mammals for hundreds of millions of years longer than humans have evolved as humans”. > > In other words, it’s certainly true that dinosaurs as a group lasted longer than Man (even if you include our immediate and not-so-immediate ancestors), but it doesn’t really say anything insightful about either Man or dinosaurs. What’s your take on modern animals being smarter because they’re more evolved? ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/46 "2009-03-12T01:00:21Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > There’s no such limit to how smart an organism can be. I know what you mean by no limit, but I wonder if there is a practical limit that is based on the environment that the organism exists within? Must there be some phenomenon that requires quickly solving differential equations for us to be generally (as a population) fluent in that type of advanced math, for example? ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/47 "2009-03-12T01:01:06Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > I agree that there’s no general trend to “smartness” in evolution, but Stephen J. Gould did point out that the bounds of complexity aren’t symmetrical. That is, there’s clearly a simplest organism that can survive, the bacteria. There is no general trend for bacteria to get more complex, but a bacteria can’t get any simpler and still live. Therefore the farther along we get in the history of life the more likely we are to see more complex life, just because complex life requires time to evolve. Well, that’s why I included my caveats of “after the Precambrian” and “aside from radiating out after mass extinction.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/48 "2009-03-12T01:05:56Z")
> [@](#): > > I know what you mean by no limit, but I wonder if there is a practical limit that is based on the environment that the organism exists within? Must there be some phenomenon that requires quickly solving differential equations for us to be generally (as a population) fluent in that type of advanced math, for example? I’ve heard speculation that our intelligence is at least partly due to runaway sexual selection, like a peacock’s tail: It doesn’t have to actually serve any purpose, so long as other humans find it an attractive quality in a mate. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/49 "2009-03-12T01:09:27Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > What’s your take on modern animals being smarter because they’re more evolved? My take is that there’s no such thing as “more evolved”. I have no opinion on the relative smarts of modern animals vs. their extinct counterparts, as intelligence is a tricky thing to measure in living critters, and nigh impossible to measure in extinct ones. About all we can do are make generalizations based on relative brain sizes, but even then, that doesn’t tell us what a given animal was or was not capable of. Basically, I don’t disagree with your general statement; it’s just that the whole “dinosaurs vs. man” comparison has never seemed like an “apples-to-apples” one to me. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/50 "2009-03-12T01:31:45Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > I agree that there’s no general trend to “smartness” in evolution, but Stephen J. Gould did point out that the bounds of complexity aren’t symmetrical. That is, there’s clearly a simplest organism that can survive, the bacteria. There is no general trend for bacteria to get more complex, but a bacteria can’t get any simpler and still live. Therefore the farther along we get in the history of life the more likely we are to see more complex life, just because complex life requires time to evolve. I’m back after more thought on this subject. Stephen Jay Gould had something else to say that I find relevant. He eventually argued (after the reinterpretation of _[Hallucigenia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucigenia)_ as a likely [onychophoran](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_worm) in 1991 that the Cambrian Explosion produced all modern phyla (in addition to many phyla now extinct). His emphasis, probably because it fit his theory of [punctuated equilibrium](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium), was on the _speed_ of the Cabrian Explosion – certainly less than 5 million years, possibly 2 million years, and Gould felt that it could have been much faster than that. His point, and mine, was that such a short time produced all major phyla that exist today, and more besides. Complexity does not require as much time as we tend to think. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/51 "2009-03-12T01:54:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’ve heard speculation that our intelligence is at least partly due to runaway sexual selection, like a peacock’s tail: It doesn’t have to actually serve any purpose, so long as other humans find it an attractive quality in a mate. I always assumed it helped with survival, as in gathering food, fighting, etc., never considered it from that angle. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/52 "2009-03-12T02:04:05Z")
> [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](#): > > What’s really cool is that once you achieve “blindness” in one of the patterns, you can shift between the three and all the X’s pop into and out of view. Well done, sir (or madam). It’s sir… And I hadn’t tried it that way. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/53 "2009-03-12T05:04:03Z")
> [@](#): > > I always assumed it helped with survival, as in gathering food, fighting, etc., never considered it from that angle. Well, being able to knap a spearhead out of a piece of flint helps with survival, but really, what evolutionary benefit is there to being able to do calculus? And yet we are endowed with brains capable of both of those problems. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/54 "2009-03-12T05:16:56Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Well, being able to knap a spearhead out of a piece of flint helps with survival, but really, what evolutionary benefit is there to being able to do calculus? And yet we are endowed with brains capable of both of those problems. My guess is that the ability to do calculus is really just the utilization of a general tool for abstraction and problem solving, which obviously has advantages. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/55 "2009-03-12T07:08:31Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > My guess is that the ability to do calculus is really just the utilization of a general tool for abstraction and problem solving, which obviously has advantages. The problem that this and similar explanations run into is that the area of the brain that does calculus is very, very specific. It’s quite possible to suffer a brain injury that prevents you from doing multiplication and higher mathematics, but still leaves you perfectly capable of adding and subtracting as well as any other problem solving. What that suggesta, very strongly, is that the human brain evolved a specific ability to do high level mathematics. It doesn’t at all support the idea that higher mathematics is done by utilising more general problem solving and abstraction abilities of the brain. If that were the case then we would expect the ability to be decentralised throughout the brain and for people to lose the ability only when they have also lost a significant number of other problem solving and abstraction faculties. But that isn’t the case. Instead what we find is that people can lose this ability and still retain all other problem solving abilities and even basic mathematical ability. This is also the reason why there is a mathematical section on most mental ability tests. It’s perfectly possible for a normal person to do amazingly well at higher mathematics and very poorly at problem solving and abstraction in other linguistics mechanics, or vice versa. Once again this is indicative that this ability isn’t just utilising generic problem solving abilities. Similarly is if it were true we would expect a person who excels at mathematics would always be at least average at general problem solving, but you only need to look at many people on the autistic spectrum to see that this isn’t the case. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/56 "2009-03-12T07:12:51Z")
I don’t mean this snarkily, but, could you provide a cite for that? Exactly what do you mean by saying that there’s a center of the brain that controls multiplication which is distinct from that which handles addition? Certainly, we couldn’t expect there to be a center of the brain specifically devoted to calculus, what with calculus only having been around for a few centuries (and the case for multiplication hardly seems much better, though it depends on what exactly you’re saying)… ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/57 "2009-03-12T07:47:55Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > I don’t mean this snarkily, but, could you provide a cite for that? I’ll see what I can do. It;s not exactly a secret, but Google is swamped when you try to search for “mathematics centre” by every bloody mathematics centre in every school in the world. > [@](#): > > Exactly what do you mean by saying that there’s a center of the brain that controls multiplication which is distinct from that which handles addition? I mean exactly and precisely what I said: It’s quite possible to suffer a brain injury that prevents you from doing multiplication and higher mathematics, but still leaves you perfectly capable of adding and subtracting as well as any other problem solving. I really don’t know how to say that any more clearly. Perhaps if you can tell me which part your having trouble with I can clarify? > [@](#): > > Certainly, we couldn’t expect there to be a center of the brain specifically devoted to calculus, what with calculus only having been around for a few centuries (and the case for multiplication hardly seems much better, though it depends on what exactly you’re saying)… Whether it sounds better or not, it remains a fact. Low level “mathematics” such as counting operates from a separate part of the brain to higher level mathematics such as multiplication or calculus. In fact the low level stuff seems to be largely intuitive/instinctive and can be done quite well even by people who can’t count. It’s probably an ability that most mammals have. The higher level stuff such as multiplication requires that the person be able to count first, and it works from a totally unrelated part of the brain as far as anyone can tell. They just aren’t related. Now whether that sounds good to you I couldn’t say. But them’s the facts. The brain has specific mathematics centres, one for basic mathematics including addition and another unrelated centre for higher operations. Mathematics is not don’t through general problem solving and abstraction centres, which is why people can suffer brain abnormalities that leave then capable of great mathemetical ability but extremely poor at problem solving, or they can be almost completely numerically disabled and still able to solve problems as well as anyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/58 "2009-03-12T07:51:28Z")
Well, it’s not that I have difficulty imagining that there are specialized facilities which come into play in carrying out mathematics which are separate from other problem solving facilities, that some things like elementary counting don’t engage these facilities while other more complex mathematics does, and so on. But I have difficulty imagining that things are so very biologically specialized as to distinguish between, for example, carrying out the algorithms of addition and multiplication for numbers (presumably expressed in our modern base 10 positional system), mechanical activities which are not only quite similar, but which have also only been a part of human history for a pathetically short period of time, as these things go. (Which is why perhaps you mean something else by “prevents you from doing multiplication… but still leaves you perfectly capable of adding and subtracting”, and thus the request for clarification) ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/59 "2009-03-12T07:55:42Z")
As one person said the visualization problems stems from people thinking apes evolved into people. Much like the diagrams we had in school. This would make apes our grandparents, when they are our cousins. Apes today are STILL evolving. They are getting better at being an ape. As humans move closer to their habitats, the ones that can cope with humans will survive and reproduce. Evolution doesn’t do what’s BEST, it does what works. The best example of this is the throat where the air and food pipes cross. This is a horrbile design flaw. But evolution didn’t have to “redesign it,” it simply “gave” a cough reflext to some and not to othes. Those who couldn’t cough choked to death and those who coud reproduced, thus we are stuck with this bad design flaw and a way to cope with it. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2009, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015/60 "2009-03-12T08:12:24Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > But I have difficulty imagining that things are so very biologically specialized as to distinguish between, for example, carrying out the algorithms of addition and multiplication for numbers expressed in base 10. I doubt if addition in other bases has ever been tested. I can only tell you what I know of that has been tested, and that is that in some individuals with very specific brain damage the ability to add and subtract in base 10 remains and the ability to do any higher level functions including multiplication or calculus, is lost. > [@](#): > > an activity which humans have been engaging in for only a pathetically short period of time People have been speaking English and Cantonese for much, much less time than they have been counting in base 10. Nonetheless it is well documented that a bilingual person can suffer a brain injury which leaves them incapable of speaking English but remain perfectly fluent in Cantonese. Heck, in some cases people can lose the ability to speak English in their native _accent_ and remain perfectly fluent in English provided they speak with an Irish accent. What this sort of thing tells us is that the brain isn’t managing language or speech with reference to generic problem solving abilities, but rather that it has dedicated structures to deal with these things. We may be able to train those centres so they become dedicated in base 10 or become dedicated in English with an LA accent, but the centre itself remains dedicated.Or maybe base 10 is the natural “mathematical language” of the human brinma. I don’t know. What i do know is that the fact that they are dedicated to some cultural artefact that only came into being 100 years ago doesn’t support a contention that the brain is utilising generic problem solving abilities in these tasks. In fact quite the opposite. It supports the idea that these specialised centres evolved so long ago that they have needed to evolve the ability to be programmed to the local lingo. > [@](#): > > (Which is why perhaps you mean something else by “prevents you from doing multiplication… but still leaves you perfectly capable of adding and subtracting”, and thus the request for clarification) And I still can’t clarify it until you explain what part needs clarifying. People have been found to have suffered brian damage that has removed their ability to do multiplication and higher level mathematics, yet left their ability to add and subtract unaltered. What in that statement is unclear. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-evolution-explain-birds/489015.md?page=4)