[GOPJ]

Sensory function such as smell, vision and hearing are difficult to quantify, but improvements, if they exist at all, are small. Some might even argue for a diminishing of ability.

We part on this issue - improvements are NOT small. I can "see" a person in real time - a person thousands of miles away. Same with hearing them - any phone will do. You might be right about 'smell' but many inventions extend our bodies. A plane moves us faster than our legs... cars too. Machines extend the power of our muscles beyond the wildest imaginations of a person 300 years ago...

[James Oscar]

Oh I don't believe we have an argument. Remember that MA was talking about genetic variations.

The aid of technology has improved almost all aspects of perception, but the basic equipment you are born with to see and smell (in her opinion) are not that much changed from early man.

Her thesis revolves around the development of perception that can best be called “fourth dimensional perception” - that is the ability to revisit (in your mind) events of the past, develop an understanding of patterns in those events and to hypothesize on future events using that perceptual tool.