Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence [Paperback]

Gary Lynch (Author), Richard Granger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 6, 2009 | ISBN-10: 1403979790 | ISBN-13: 978-1403979797 | Edition: First Edition

In this groundbreaking look at the evolution of our brains, eminent neuroscientists Gary Lynch and Richard Granger uncover the mysteries of the outsize intelligence of our ancestors, who had bigger brains than humans living today. Weaving together history, science, and the latest theories of artificial intelligence, Lynch and Granger demystify the complexities of our brains, and show us how our memory, cognition, and intelligence actually function, as well as what mechanisms in the brain can potentially be enhanced, improving on the current design. Author of The Emotional Brain, Joseph LeDoux praised it as "provocative and fascinating," and, writing in the New Scientist, Willian Calvin called it "a popular account of how brains enlarge, in both evolutionary and developmental terms" and "a much needed book."

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An excellent book...very well written and informative." --CHOICE

 

"[A] fascinating and provocative account of the human brain's recent past."--Joseph LeDoux, author of The Emotional Brain

"A much needed book on big brains… Big Brain is a popular account of how brains enlarge, in both evolutionary and developmental terms. The strength of the book lies in the neuroscience, especially its treatment of neural plasticity and the "association areas" of the brain… "--William H Calvin, New Scientist

"The Lynch and Granger combination is like mixing gas with fire. In this book there are big, explosive ideas by two ingenious brain scientists."--Michael Gazzaniga, author of The Ethical Brain

"On a planet in which everything seems to be getting bigger (the internet), hotter (our climate), or more numerous (the world's population), Gary Lynch and Rick Granger reveal the intriguing possibility that people with larger brains than us may have been around a few thousand years ago. Their account of the mysteries of the brain and intelligence challenges conventional views in a scholarly yet wonderfully accessible manner."--Richard Morris, Director of the Centre for Cognitive and Neural Systems, University of Edinburgh, and President, Federation of European Neuroscience Societies, and Former Chair, Brain Research Association of the United Kingdom

"Riveting…the book tracks the evolutionary development of the human brain…" –Anthony Doerr, Boston Globe

About the Author

Gary Lynch is one of the most cited neuroscientists in the world and author of more than 550 scientific articles. He is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California at Irvine. Richard Granger is the WH Neukom Distinguished Professor of Computational Sciences at Dartmouth. He is internationally recognized for his work in experimental neuroscience.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; First Edition edition (January 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1403979790
• ISBN-13: 978-1403979797
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #874,970 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Read., March 20, 2008

By 

Phillip Stall (Milton, WI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence (Hardcover)

Professors Gary Lynch and Richard Granger have put forth a strong body of work in support of why we humans have big brains and the implications for the future of our species, doing so in the context of anthropological and neuroscientific evidence.

As a neuroscience student who is interested in anthropology, it certainly was interesting to read of a species that had brains which were spectacularly larger than ours per body size. While explaining the development of brains in the context of evolution, Lynch & Granger make an effort to confront, as they refer to it, the ultimate "irresistable fallacy"-- that evolution favors us precisely because of our intelligence--strongly arguing why our intellectual capacity differs from other species (our big brains, as well as minute qualitative differences), and how this came about over millions of years. Lynch & Granger also portend, based on the tenets of their argument, what lies ahead for species with bigger brains--or in the case of the Boskops, what lies in the past.

This is a must read for anyone who believes they have evolution 'figured out', and/or for anthropological fans intrigued as to differences between primates based on neuroscientific knowledge.

27 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars BIG Problem, April 5, 2008

By 

KNMWT15K (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence (Hardcover)

Granger & Lynch are both accomplished neurobiologists, but they clearly didn't do their homework on evolutionary biology & evolutionary anthropology. How so? The "Boskop" race of humans that are a central point of discussion in this book only existed for about 40 years, after researchers started digging up ancient crania in South Africa, & before they started analyzing them with modern science. Google the topic, & you'll find that in the professional literature, the Boskops were dismissed as artifacts of shoddy scholarship over 50 years ago! To make a long story short, geological & archeological contextual affinities are a bit more important than similarities of morphology in identifying populations. Are Shaquille O'Neal & Yao Ming from the same population because they're both extremely tall? This is basically how the Boskops were created by early 20th century scientists...

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars questionable thesis, January 5, 2010

By 

Christopher Ryan "Co-author: Sex at Dawn: The... (Barcelona, Spain) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence (Hardcover)

The thesis at the heart of this book is highly questionable. Take a look at what paleoanthropologist John Hawkes' has to say:

"I hate to think that the theme of a 2008 book was pulled straight from a 1958 essay, but I don't know where else they would have gotten the idea. No anthropologists have written much about the so-called "Boskopoids" since 1958. There is no such thing as an "IQ estimate" for a fossil human; that's entirely nonsensical. There's no question that there have been massive cultural changes in the last 10,000 years. But the idea that our brains' functions have atrophied from some Pleistocene state has been left long behind in the dust of nineteenth-century race studies.
So I'm left wondering: Why would two neuroscientists, after going to all the trouble to write a book about the evolution of the human brain, use completely obsolete anthropological information without doing a simple Google search to see if the facts have stayed the same as in 1923?"

Based upon this, you've got to wonder...

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