'Birdbrain' Gets Some Smart Backers (Humans and Birds now originate from common Evolutionary branch)

Forbes ^ | Jan 31, 2005 | Amanda Gardner

[gobucks]

It took 29 internationally renowned scientists to get the ball rolling, but the term "birdbrain" could be on its way out, at least in its pejorative sense.

"Birdbrain comes with two ideas: a small brain and also stupidity," said Erich Jarvis, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Duke University Medical Center, and one of the ringleaders of the group. "It just has to change."

*snip*

"The classic view is totally wrong," said Jarvis, who is also lead author of the paper. "I realized I couldn't publish papers with names that have wrong meanings attached to them. It is against my scientific conscience, and it is poor for scientific advance."

*snip*

At the heart of the debate are competing views of evolution. The current nomenclature for avian brains was developed about 100 years ago by Ludwig Edinger, considered the father of comparative neuroanatomy. His view of evolution was linear and hierarchical, positing that humans were at the top of the evolutionary chain, the pinnacle of creation.

Other creatures, including birds, were of "lower" intelligence and hadn't changed in millions of years. Their only purpose was to have given rise, evolutionarily speaking, to humans. Needless to say, the whole schemata was highly bird-ist.

The new view holds that most vertebrates inherited the same three major brain subdivisions from a common ancestor. These three areas control complex behavior.

"We're saying different vertebrate groups, such as birds, reptiles, amphibians and humans, inherited them and then independently amplified them into various structural differences," Jarvis said.

*snip*

It took the 29 scientists seven years to get to this point, with 2,000 scientists in 16 countries involved in the dialogue. And many of the old guard apparently remain skeptical of the change.

[gobucks]

"It is against my scientific conscience, and it is poor for scientific advance."

The new view holds that most vertebrates inherited the same three major brain subdivisions from a common ancestor.

This is big news out of Duke University. Bottom line, we singing humans are on equal footing w/ birds. So, humans are no longer a higher degree of evolved animal than birds. From a brains point of view, they are parallel to us, humans. Erich, this is just priceless; in my Freeperific conscience, it would be poor Freeper ethics to ignore this. Wow.

Hey Kids! meet one of your cousins!!

[orionblamblam]

Quick question: how do you get from "common ancestor" to "humans are no longer a higher degree of evolved animal than birds?"

[MRMEAN]

[gobucks]

Quick answer from article:

In the classic view, most of the avian brain was made up of basal ganglia, associated with primitive behavior, while the human brain exhibited more advanced behavior with having a large cortex. Hence, such terms as paleostriatum and neocortex. "Paleo" means "old" while "neo" means "new." Only humans, of course, had a neocortex, the supreme achievement.

"That's where you get lower and higher," Jarvis said. "I don't use higher and lower any more."

See, the scientist himself, from DUKE no less, sez so!!

[gobucks]

Oh, its poor toes! Someone was really, ahem, mean to this bird!

[DannyTN]

"Quick question: how do you get from "common ancestor" to "humans are no longer a higher degree of evolved animal than birds?"

PETA?

[BenLurkin]

[orionblamblam]

An amazing leap you made.

Another guffaw: "Humans and Birds now originate from common Evolutionary branch"

Ummm.... "now?" We've known that for more than a century. It's just that the branching point was a looooooong time ago.

[DannyTN]

Next we will learn that the birds created us for target practice.

[tiredoflaundry]

My Quaker parrot can talk, Can your honor student fly???
:-)

[RightWingAtheist]

Far more intriguing is that we have definitively proven our common ancestry to sea squirts

[Ciexyz]

My three parakeets applaud the sentiments expressed in this article. They're chirping their congratulations as I type.

[DannyTN]

My Quaker parrot can talk, Can your honor student fly??? :-)

We won't let her yet.

[tiredoflaundry]

lol