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As for how all of this happened, the professor suggests that the development of human society may be the reason. In an increasingly social environment, greater cognitive abilities probably became more of an advantage. "As humans become more social, differences in intelligence will translate into much greater differences in fitness, because you can manipulate your social structure to your advantage," he said. "Even devoid of the social context, as humans become more intelligent, it might create a situation where being a little smarter matters a lot.

Here's a question for you - not trying to be argumentative, I'd just like your take on it.

If the development of society is what caused the superfast evolution of human brains, why wouldn't *other* societal animals, like, say, wolves, also undergo a superfast evolution? Wolves have very specific societal organization, and a smarter wolf would almost certainly rise to alpha male status and thus pass his genes along.

Again, *NOT* trying to be argumentative, it just seems to be a gap in the argument, and you seem pretty knowledgeable on the topic.

If the development of society is what caused the superfast evolution of human brains, why wouldn't *other* societal animals, like, say, wolves, also undergo a superfast evolution? Wolves have very specific societal organization, and a smarter wolf would almost certainly rise to alpha male status and thus pass his genes along.

I don't know, I'm not an evolutionary biologist, but I suppose the answer is that there wasn't the same pressure on wolves or other societial animals to become smart. Are superintelligent male wolves more likely to become alfa-males and pass on their genes or do female wolves seek out other characteristics like strength or even the gloss of their coat? And the other factor, are superintelligent males any better at hunting deer and elk or whatnot than normal wolves and therefore more likely to survive to reproduction? I suspect the answer is no, or otherwise the advantage is not significant enough to lead to much of a change.

Our ancestors couldn't hunt deer with our fangs -- we had to work together and use tools and whatnot because we are so weak and slow, so yes intelligence was an advanatage.

If the development of society is what caused the superfast evolution of human brains, why wouldn't *other* societal animals, like, say, wolves, also undergo a superfast evolution? Wolves have very specific societal organization, and a smarter wolf would almost certainly rise to alpha male status and thus pass his genes along.

The Wolves that became dogs certainly went through superfast evolution. Plus there are 32 subspecies of wolf in the world so they are varied.

If the development of society is what caused the superfast evolution of human brains

If that is the case the author is arguing then I don't it can be called Darwinian evolution.

I'm no scientist but my understanding of DE is random mutations and/or gene duplication is the mechanism for DE. The beneficial random mutations are then selected and become heritable.

This guy seems to be saying that the these mutations are directed by the environment which would seem to mean that some optoisolator in the genome turned on and requested an algorithm for a larger brain.

Perhaps he's an ID guy. :-}

I'm sure if I misstated anything Darwinian the wrath of the Darwinians will soon be showering down on my blue collar but there you have it anyway.