BBC Focus Magazine

[scott fairbrass]

how differant would the human race be if our brain was say 10% bigger?

[MikeG]

This may or may not make a huge difference. Many hominids, including neanderthals had larger brains. In fact Einsteins brain had a lower than average weight (1,230 grams vs 1400. Apparently, the brains composition (Einstein had more glial cells) and structure play a bigger role than size.

...revealed that his parietal operculum region in the inferior frontal gyrus in the frontal lobe of the brain was vacant. Also absent was part of a bordering region called the lateral sulcus (Sylvian fissure). Researchers at McMaster University speculated that the vacancy may have enabled neurons in this part of his brain to communicate better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein%27s_brain

[Healerman]

It is most definitely more about how the brain is organised than how big it was. "Horizon" did a show a few years back on a lad who had suffered meningitis (or something of that nature). A scan of his head looked more like a coconut than a normal cranium, with the central meninges greatly enlarged so that his,brain did not so much fill his skull, as line it. He was not, however, impaired, far fromit, for at the end of the program, a footnote told us that he had in fact graduated with a first in maths from Cambridge.

[scott fairbrass]

oh! i was always under the illusion that brain size was related to intelagence. i saw a documentary a year or so back that said the reason humans survived and th eneanderthals didnt was because our large brains allowed us to have a stratagy and out wit them, also that our larger brain is what gives humans the ability of speech?

[M Paul Lloyd]

A large brain does offer some advantages, but size isn't everything as it depends on how you use it.
It's a common misconception that because we only use a small part of our brain at any one time that if we could use more, or indeed all of it, then we would be so much more intelligent.
Truth is, as shown by scans of people carrying out various tasks, we do use all of our brain, but not all at once. Which makes sense otherwise I'm pretty sure we would run the risk of 'crashing' just like an overloaded computer.
Dolphins have bigger brains than we do but studies seem to suggest that most of it deals with communication with only limited problem solving, on the other hand we excell at problem solving and that, more than just overall brain capacity, is what probably gave us a signifcant advantage over our rivals.

[Healerman]

I think I'm right in stating that H. neanderthalis had a larger brain than us, but that it was somewhat differently structured, especially in the frontal lobes. Size, as they say, is not everything.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Well put Healerman I had intended to mention the Neanderthal brain but went of on some aquatic tangent.

I'm worried that I might be turning into a lateral thinker........................

[Thinker]

Are you trying to cross-breed myself with another forum member???

[M Paul Lloyd]

No honestly Thinker, I was thinking in terms of a more generic 'thinker' than your good self as a specific Thinker.......

Perhaps I should have put Lateral-person.... possibly?

[Thinker]

Stop stammering!

Just checking.

[Nails]

how differant would the human race be if our brain was say 10% bigger?

I think we would have dies out a long time ago.
Brains are expensive, both to build and maintain.
There is also a massive cost when giving birth to a big-brained child, and this would have an impact on our locomotion - perhaps making us less efficient walkers which would decrease our ability to gather the food we need to build and maintain bigger brains....

Evolution has not needed us to be able to learn quantum mechanics in order to survive on the savanah...