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by derleth 5477 days ago
Cite that it has happened, and cite that it matters, please: Brain size is only very loosely correlated with intelligence, and that doesn't sound like it's something that actually occurred anyway. As per the Flynn Effect, in fact, IQ has been trending upwards for quite a while.
2 comments
arethuza 5477 days ago
flowerpower is possibly thinking about Neanderthals - who have been reported as having larger cranial capacity than "modern" humans:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

However, this isn't particularly relevant as we aren't descended from them and AFAIK the link between cranial capacity and intelligence isn't clear.

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xiaoma 5477 days ago
》Cite that it has happened, and cite that it matters, please: Brain size is only very loosely correlated with intelligence

Maybe you should share some of your own citations before making claims like that.

The correlation between raw volume performance on general mental ability assessments is about .4, which is very significant. For a comparison, siblings' intelligence has a correlation of about .47. Considering that siblings share both a great deal of the same genes and have a similar environment, the fact that brain volume has nearly the same correlation is huge.

http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/002074508023258...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK11129/box/A1833/

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