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SYSK Selects: Is brain size related to intelligence? · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: M hey, everybody, Chuck here and welcome to another Saturday
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Select Stuff You Should Know episode where Josh and I
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  Speaker 1: take turns picking from the classics of some of our
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  Speaker 1: favorite episodes. Because some of you may not know that
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  Speaker 1: there are far more than three episodes that you see
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  Speaker 1: at Apple Podcasts. We have over a thousand, so you
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  Speaker 1: dig into the archives. And my pick this week is
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  Speaker 1: from July two thousand fourteen. Is brain size related to intelligence?
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  Speaker 1: I just remember loving this one. Super fascinated about the brain,
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  Speaker 1: as is Josh. It's one of our one of our
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  Speaker 1: favorite organs, to be honest, and how it relates to
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  Speaker 1: intelligence is pretty interesting. So we get into all that
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  Speaker 1: in this episode. Please to enjoy right now, Welcome to
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: M hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark
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  Speaker 1: and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and this is Stuff
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  Speaker 1: you Should Know. Yes, I think this might complete our brain.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know about that, because we've done Einstein's brain,
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  Speaker 1: done difference between men and women's brains, and now we're
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  Speaker 1: tackling brain size, which is sort of puts on both
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  Speaker 1: of us a little bit. It does, but there's always
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  Speaker 1: new findings. So yeah, that's what I'm saying. Now, if
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  Speaker 1: there's ever an ongoing sweet, it's got to be the
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  Speaker 1: brain man there. It's growing all the time, it's changing shape,
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  Speaker 1: changing size, changing connections. You can almost say that sweet
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: is plastic plasticity. Baby. Yeah, that's right. Um, you sent
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  Speaker 1: me something that I think we should talk about first, Chuck.
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  Speaker 1: This is kind of like, um, this is just like
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  Speaker 1: a grab bag hodgepodge of loosely related studies that all
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  Speaker 1: find that we don't really know the answer to the
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  Speaker 1: question like does big brain mean a smarter person? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: because there's a lot of different conflicting findings. Well, a
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  Speaker 1: few million years ago, our brains started growing a lot,
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  Speaker 1: and that kind of timed out with becoming smarter and
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  Speaker 1: using tools and things. So I mean there's a little
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  Speaker 1: bit of you call it evidence. Well, yeah, there's definitely
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  Speaker 1: some plenty of evidence. I think that's what the confounding
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  Speaker 1: part is that there's plenty of evidence that yes, as
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  Speaker 1: a brain grows, it is correlated to intelligence. But then
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: that's only holding true up to a point. I sounded
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: like a Soviet immigrant. Just then that's only holding true
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: up to a certain point. A. Right, he's in Branson, Missouri, though,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: did you know that. I think he's got like his
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: own restaurant or something. Well, he's own theater, and I
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: think all the theaters are food buttery. We should go
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: to Branson, man that I want to see what that
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: place is all about. Okay, you know, yeah, I mean
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  Speaker 1: it's a parade of stars. If it's nineteen seventy three,
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  Speaker 1: you know. Uh yeah, I bet your boy Ronnie mills
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  Speaker 1: Up is there. Yeah, if he doesn't have a place there,
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  Speaker 1: I'll bet he plays Branson fairly regularly. He sublets he
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  Speaker 1: would play well there. Um, so Branson, how do we
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  Speaker 1: even get them? Oh? Yeah? So brain size does correlate
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  Speaker 1: to intelligence to a certain extent. But you can point
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  Speaker 1: out like, well, sperm whale has a seventeen pound brain.
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  Speaker 1: Holy cow, it must be the smartest animal on the planet.
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  Speaker 1: Well it's not. I'm sorry to tell you sperm whale
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  Speaker 1: fans that it's not the smartest animal on the planet.
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  Speaker 1: Humans are the smartest animal on the planet, and don't
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  Speaker 1: you forget it. But we don't have the largest brains,
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  Speaker 1: so you kind of take that idea of Okay, Well,
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  Speaker 1: if it's not brain size. Maybe it has to do
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  Speaker 1: with the size of your brain in relation to your body.
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  Speaker 1: Then we start to get a little closer to jack pot.
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  Speaker 1: But even still, I just want to I want to
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  Speaker 1: spoil it for everybody. There's no definitive answer. Yeah, but
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  Speaker 1: sometimes those are the best ones because we get to
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  Speaker 1: explore all this stuff and we can't really get anything
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  Speaker 1: wrong because nobody knows what's right. Oh I like this,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: then yeah, I've turned you know these Yeah, Now now
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  Speaker 1: I feel good about this because I can't be wrong
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  Speaker 1: right exactly. Well, I guess we should start off with
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  Speaker 1: um a little bit about what determines what size brain
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  Speaker 1: you do have. And again they don't know everything about it,
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  Speaker 1: but they think that genetics plays apart. They know this
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  Speaker 1: in part by studying twins and identical twins. Um have,
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  Speaker 1: of course the same genes. Fraternal twins have about half
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  Speaker 1: the same genes, and there's a greater correlation in brain
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  Speaker 1: size if you're identical then fraternal. Yeah, so genetics, you know,
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  Speaker 1: looks like it probably plays a role. Yeah, And they've
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  Speaker 1: done a lot of exploration into what genes in particular
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  Speaker 1: have to do with brain size, and they've isolated a
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  Speaker 1: few um one is called beta catenin. There's a hyphen
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: in there too. It's pretty flashy. Gene not beta carotene,
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  Speaker 1: no caten in. And who's who's coming up with the
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  Speaker 1: naming convention for genes? They are all over the place,
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  Speaker 1: Like you can't look at the name of a gene
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  Speaker 1: and be like, that's obviously a gene unless there's like
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  Speaker 1: a couple of weird consonants and a number and then
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: another consonant. Then you're like, well, that's a gene. But
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  Speaker 1: you're right, that's a gene. It is a gene, and
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  Speaker 1: it's a gene that they know controls brain growth because
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: they've injected poor mice with this stuff until their heads exploded.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly their heads they fell short of exploding, but a
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  Speaker 1: lot of the mice died as a result of their
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  Speaker 1: heads growing too big. But they're there. Their brains grew big,
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  Speaker 1: and as a result of their brains growing big, they
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  Speaker 1: exhibited um more intelligence, higher cognitive function. They injected these
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  Speaker 1: things with a gene proteins your brain. That, yeah, that
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  Speaker 1: made them smarter. Yeah, but that, like Molly points out
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  Speaker 1: in this article, you can't. That doesn't mean we should
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  Speaker 1: start doing that because these mice are dying, so you
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  Speaker 1: can't just you can't play god as they say, no,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: but it does make you wonder, like, Okay, you don't
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  Speaker 1: want to shoot up beta cat and in like before
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  Speaker 1: the S A T S or anything like that, but like,
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  Speaker 1: is there a way to kind of tamper a little
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: less but still tamper with that gene? Something put under
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: your tongue and let it dissolve. Maybe sure, like you know,
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  Speaker 1: just epigenetically, just a tad bit. Yeah not maybe you know,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: amplify it, just a tad and see what happens. But
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  Speaker 1: it would cause your brain to grow, because that gene
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  Speaker 1: is partially responsible for the size that your brain gets too.
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  Speaker 1: That's right as far as large brains go. Yes, like
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  Speaker 1: it makes it larger. Yes, if you want to talk
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  Speaker 1: smaller brains, there's another gene. And boy, you're right. The
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  Speaker 1: names are all over the place, just convention wise. It's
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  Speaker 1: not like they have different names that some are numbers
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  Speaker 1: and dashes. And to get it together, people espm uh
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  Speaker 1: it's an abbreviation for abnormal spindle like uh, micro cephally associated.
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  Speaker 1: That's the name of the gene. Yeah, that's just shameful.
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  Speaker 1: And they say, microcephaliely associated, because that is a condition
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  Speaker 1: that you've probably seen before when you're born with a
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  Speaker 1: small head and small brain, which probably means you're going
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  Speaker 1: to have some cognitive impairment. So so right there, smaller
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  Speaker 1: brain is is correlated to lesser or lower faculty your
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: cognitive function. Yeah, we should look into that more for
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: another podcast. So I think it's uh from the images
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I saw, it looks like you remember, like the movie Freaks. Yes,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: that that guy. I think that's so cute the deal.
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  Speaker 1: I think you have like normal sized nose and ears
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  Speaker 1: and eyes, but your actual head and skull and brain
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  Speaker 1: are small. But you don't look like the the um,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the African safari guy from Beetlejuice not proportionately shrunk, right,
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  Speaker 1: It's yeah, you get him down so small right, favorite,
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  Speaker 1: What was that guy's name from Freaks? I've read about
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  Speaker 1: him before. No, he had his stage name. It was
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: like Topsy or Flopsy or something like that. And he
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: apparently like the greatest personality of all times, just so
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: lovable and was just exploited basically his whole life until
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: that movie like kind of got vengeance for him because
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: he was a real life side show performer. Well that's good. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Topsy It wasn't Topsy that was the elephant that Edison electrocuted,
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  Speaker 1: but it was something along those lines. Just a fun,
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  Speaker 1: fun name. Yeah, so check. There's another gene. This is
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  Speaker 1: a little more genetically sounding e m x two. Yeah
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  Speaker 1: that sequel. Sure it sounds like a dirt bike or
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: a gene Yeah, yea, yeah, it's UM. Again, we're not
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  Speaker 1: We're not saying like, well, these are the genes that
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  Speaker 1: provide you with your intellect. These are just genes that
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  Speaker 1: they are saying. These things have to do with the
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  Speaker 1: size of your brain, and they we also have figured
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  Speaker 1: out that if you mess with these genes, you may
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  Speaker 1: also be messing with cognitive function. So we're laying the groundwork. Everybody,
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  Speaker 1: just bear with us. The e m x two gene
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  Speaker 1: UM apparently has to do with the growth of your um,
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  Speaker 1: the functional subdivisions of the cortex. You have different cortices,
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  Speaker 1: they're responsible for different things. So like if in that
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  Speaker 1: New York Times article you send me, the guy uses
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  Speaker 1: the visual cortex as an example, UM, where like you
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  Speaker 1: get all your visual sensory input and your brain puts
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  Speaker 1: it all together. That cortex, that region of your brain
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  Speaker 1: is responsible for a fairly specific but also very um
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  Speaker 1: complicated task. Now, this one functional cortex that the e
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  Speaker 1: m X two gene is responsible for, UM has to
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  Speaker 1: do with basically input, sensory input and motor output. So
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: your behavior, Like, um, if I came across this desk
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: at you and like pinched your cheeks, you'd like jump back,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I'd say, what is it Wednesday? Right? Right? Yeah, you
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: would make the connection that's Wednesday. Your behavior would occur. So, UM,
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  Speaker 1: this e m x two gene has to do with
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: that cortex and its size. What they found is that
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  Speaker 1: bigger is not necessarily better. If you have a lower
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  Speaker 1: expression of it and you have a smaller subdivision of
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  Speaker 1: that cortex, you're not gonna do very well behaviorally functionally,
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  Speaker 1: Like you won't be able to hit a baseball very well. Right,
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  Speaker 1: But if it's too big, if that gene over expresses,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: you don't get better at hitting a baseball. With this
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: in particular, it seems to be fine tuned. So if
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: you're not hitting that sweet spot, you're never going to
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: hit a baseball. And there may be myriad other problems,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: but you're definitely not going to hit that baseball. So
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: that means you're born with baseball talent pretty much. Yeah,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: because it's genetic, and there's like there's some people who
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: are so close to perfect that like baseball just comes
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: naturally to the right, right, like Robert Redford exactly, he
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: really gave those lights a wall. Yeah, he's the natural.
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  Speaker 1: So that's the genetic basis of it, Chuck. Yeah, and uh,
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  Speaker 1: I guess we should talk some about size if it's important,
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  Speaker 1: because this is sort of the debate that keeps going
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  Speaker 1: on and on. Is brain size corollary to intelligence levels? Uh?
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  Speaker 1: They did find or they have found links between if
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: you have a lot of brain growth, um, if it's
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  Speaker 1: disproportionate early on, Um, they've linked that and early on
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  Speaker 1: meaning the first twelve months too, they've linked that to autism.
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  Speaker 1: So super rapid growth may what it may do is
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  Speaker 1: just prevent those neural connections from happening like they should right. Um.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: And actually, well that's kind of links into that tethering
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: thing I sent you too, it does, which we will
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  Speaker 1: talk about later. Um. In biology, though, is there's kind
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  Speaker 1: of this consensus that it's that's not the only determinant. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that has a lot to do with um environment as well,
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  Speaker 1: I think kind of as a whole. People who investigate
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  Speaker 1: correlations between brain size and intelligence have totally abandoned the
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  Speaker 1: idea that UM, like, your brain is predetermined to grow
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  Speaker 1: a certain way and then that's that. Yeah, well, size wise,
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  Speaker 1: they've also found that eight if you have a d
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: h D, if you're an adolescent, your brain might be
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  Speaker 1: three to four percent smaller than your classmate who does
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  Speaker 1: not have a d h D. UM, and your brain
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  Speaker 1: shrinks as you get older, but doesn't necessarily lose functionality
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: because of the shrinkage. It's not to say when you
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: get older, you don't, you know, lose functionality, but it's
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: not due to the size. No, they think that, um,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: it's probably mostly due to build up. Really okay, that
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: you're you're synapses are just kind of built up with
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: gunk remnant proteins from years and decades of firings. Then
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: you shake that off by can tinuing to use it. Yes,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: that's one thing. But also they've recently found that um,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: while you sleep, they think now the function of sleep.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: They didn't notice it before until I don't know what
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: kind of new imaging technology they used, but they found
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: out that there's this whole channel of like basically a
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: sewerage system that just clears out all the gunk from
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: your brain while you're sleeping at night, and it just
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: that's why you are cognitively refreshed. That makes sense from sleep.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: And we've done we did one on why sleep so important? Right, Yes,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: I think that was in there. We've done a bunch.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: There's a whole sleep suite too, alright. So one of
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  Speaker 1: the reasons why, uh, people are still debating whether or
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: not brain size equals more intelligence or less intelligence is
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: because when there are a lot of different ways to
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: measure the brain um, you know, like do you take
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: a tape measure and go around it or do you
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  Speaker 1: go from the middle out or do you do it
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: proportion to your body size, which is a real measurement
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: called encephalation quotient. And if they're talking about your body size,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: what if you're super fat? Like there are all these
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: different ways and no one, I don't think has ever
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: come to a consensus on the best way to actually
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: do the measurement in the first place. No. And there's
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: another really big outstanding question is how do you measure intelligence?
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Like our i Q tests actually legitimate. Yeah, So when
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: you have two parts of your equation that are both hinky,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: how can you come up with an answer? Well, it
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: depends like if you're comparing species to species that in
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: sephilization quotation and actually has been proven to be pretty effective.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: So like the proportion of your brain to your body
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: size is a pretty decent predictor of your e Q
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: is what it's called as a mammal. Yes, as as
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: a mammal. When you go outside of mammals, that it's
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: less and less effective. Um. But with humans, for example,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: we our our brain is like two point seven pounds
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: on average, it's something like around two to three. I've
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: seen as much as five, but I think it's about
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: three percent of our body weight. Um. But it uses
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: up about of the energy, which is another measure, Yes,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: like how much energy is your brain require? The more
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: energy your brain requires. In addition to things like e Q,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: you can get a pretty good idea of like how
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: intelligent that being is. Well, Einstein's brain remembers this was
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: the same size, but different parts were bigger than others. Right,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: so supposedly let's come under fire lately. Yeah, somebody was
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: like you, these studies are terrible, Like, you can't make
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: these huge leaps and bounds and um in conclusions just
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: from a couple of strips of brain tissue, But apparently
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: most studies have. Well I think that's sort of like
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: a juicy thing that people like to talk about Einstein's brain. Yeah,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: you know, I could see people making that leap, right,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: and the idea that like, oh, well, Einstein's brain is
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: just like anybody else's, well, that means that anybody could
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: be a genius. You know, it really argues in favor
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: of the nurture side of things. But if his brain
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: is structurally different, well, the genius is an inborn natural thing.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: It's just nature versus nurture played out on poure. Einstein
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: sliced that brain. Yeah, that lived in a garage for
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: many years, like everyone's brain. So here's the most controversial thing.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Like when you're comparing species to species, like you said,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: especially among mammals, chuck, um, it's easier to say like, yes,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: this eq thing works, But within a single species, that's
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: when things starting to fall apart. For instance, specifically among humans,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: um men tend to have about a hundred grahams more
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: mass to their brain than women. But if a bigger
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: brain means that you are more intelligent, then does that
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: mean that men are more intelligent than women? I think
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: we all know that women are more intelligent than men. Okay,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: so then brain size really has nothing to do with it,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: at least intra species, That's what I'm saying. But um,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: there have been plenty of studies that I'm sure got
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of people's hackles up. Um. One guy named
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Michael McDaniel, who's a psychologist, basically entered the news cycle
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: bursting onto the scene in two thousand five, which is
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: always a little bit like, yeah, who's this guy? Right? Yeah,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: but he came up with a study that was ready
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: made for CNN. Yeah. I mean he said flat out
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: that bigger brains means you're smarter, and that I E
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: or e G. Which one is it? Uh? I EVE
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: in this case, men are smarter than women. Yeah, yeah,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: that's what he was saying. Yeah, because he basically put
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: brain imaging tests an i Q tests together and said, well,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: there's a direct correlation between the two. And again with
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: these tests they did, uh, they compared um or they
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: converted s a T scores of a hundred thousand seventeen
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: and eighteen year old to an i Q score and
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: I don't see why they even had to do that.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: And they found that males average three point six three
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: IQ points higher, but um, I don't know. It just
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: seems really hinky because first of all, they used ten
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: thousand more females and males, so that's gonna excue things.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: And then it's an S A t R. What does
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: that even mean? Yeah, which has been proven time and
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: time again to be biased. Yeah, and then they converted
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: that to an i Q S cource with some like
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I guess machine. Seems like some things would be lost
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: in translation. Yeah, I think it's a bunch of bunks.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I think you're not alone in the idea
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: that it's a bunch of bunks. So a lot of
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: um scientists have said, okay, all right, this whole brain
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: size correlating to intelligence sting of phrenology. Yes, when you're
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: talking about looking at it just in the human species, right,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: So what is it though? I mean, surely there's got
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: to be some biological part or aspect of the brain
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: that correlates to intelligence. If it's not size, then maybe
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: it's the number of neurons that you have, Yeah, neural connections.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: A lot of people have thought that that was kind
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: of the second to most recent wave in thinking about
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: what brain structure correlates to intelligence. Yeah, this, um was
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: this the New York Times one about the tether hypothesis.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: This is just December of last year, so it's pretty recent.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: And a couple of neuroscientists from Havred so you know,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: they're right. Um, they had a pretty simple explanation. Um,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: when back in the day, when tooktok had a little
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: bitty tiny brain. Uh. Their argument is that the neurons
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: were tightly tethered in a pretty simple connection pattern, and
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: that when our brains started getting bigger, those tethers were
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: torn apart and it formed Uh, it enabled us. We
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: formed new neurons and new neural pathways and new circuits. Right,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: That's that makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: It's like the brain size might have been about the same,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: and it was, but the neuro connections were still following
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: the primal animal connectivity, where it's like they they connect
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: in a predictable way, whereas with this untethered idea, they
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: just blossomed out. And do you know the idea of um,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: like like what neuro connections look like today. Rather than
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: following like straight predictable lines, they were all over the place,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: and from these new connections, new associations arose, and that
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: gave rise to intellect. According to this, yeah, it's pretty
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: simple smart. Yeah, Like I think sometimes the simplest hypotheses
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: might be on target with acam's razor my friend, or
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: maybe they just speak to me because I'm a dummy,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: rightether of got play the other ball? Um, So that's
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: that is a competing explanation. Another one that I've seen,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: uh says that it's not not the neurons, not the
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: number of neurons, not even the number of neural connections,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: it's the chemistry and the complexity of the neuro transmitters
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: that are being conducted between these neurons. And from this
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: has kind of come this new idea that it's folly
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: to even say, well, humans are obviously smarter than a
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: bottle knows dolphins, even though they're smart because the bottle
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: knows dolphins. Um experience understanding of life is so radically
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: different from humans. Yeah, you can't. You can't compare intellect intellect. Yeah,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: you can't say, well, a dolphin can't you know, talk
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: and speak, but I can't do things a dolphin can do, right,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Or maybe dolphins are speaking, I mean to one another,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: just not to us. That doesn't make them less intelligent
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: along and thanks for all the fish and we're not Yeah,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: that's a good one. And we're not like anthropomorphizing here. Basically,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: there's there is very little um point I guess. Yeah,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: I don't get it to comparing the two. There's tremendous
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: point to getting to cracking this code and understanding dolphin
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: intellect for bird intellect, degreed octopus intellect and human intellect.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: But to compare them is it's an exercise and futility.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: There's no point to it. I don't get it. Yeah,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, compared dolphin A to dolphin B one, maybe
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: smarter one might have a little patchy mustache and hang
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: out at the gas station a lot. That's not the
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: smart one. Yeah. I think people do this to either.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: I think they're trying to claim some either superiority of
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: animals over humans or humans over animals, right, And that's
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: kind of that's a big issue these days, Like there
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: there are groups um animal rights groups that are trying
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: to further animal rights by getting them inalienable rights like
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: humans have right which would really screw up the zoos system. Yeah,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: you can look for our podcast on that too. We did. Yeah,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: that was a good one. Yeah. I think we landed
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: pretty heavily against zoos. Yeah we did. But to each
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: their own. But I haven't been to a zoos since then.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: What is this Project Enigma? I thought that was pretty interesting.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: It was another genetic thing, this UM. It was. It
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: was neat though in that like this Australian re which
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: just said, hey, we have something called the Internet and
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: m R I S and willing participants, so everybody starts
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: sending in your brain scans. Is that who proved that
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the complexity of the neural activity was the most important thing?
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Was that project? No, that was a different one. That
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: was there was a new scientist or no scientific American
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: article that UM that explored that idea as the the
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: synaptic proteins that create intellect or intelligence. But the Project
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Enigma basically found that there is a single mutation on
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: a specific gene where if you have a C instead
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: of T, I think you um have a bigger brain.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: And they correlated that to more intelligence. Yeah, but again
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: using the i Q test. Well, what I'm tired of
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: are the studies that throw out the results that don't
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: make a good fun headline. You know, right. There was
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: this one um from Smithsonian magazine from December of last
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: year that uh, well they it wasn't from them, was
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: from the Proceedings of the Royal Society b and Smithsonian
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: reported on it. But it was a study of country
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: mice and city mice. Well a bunch of animals. But
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: they found that city mice and vole. I don't even
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: know what that is vl e perrie voles, what is
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: that like? They're very sweet. They they are monogamous, like
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: a bowl weevil. No, that's a bug. A vole is
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: like a like a prairie dog. You should look up
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: prairie balls. Very cute and the idea that they're very
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: sweetest even better. You wouldn't like shoot one for being
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: on your property. No, I mean some people would, but
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: not good people. I know someone who does that kind
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: of thing shots at voles, not voles, but wood chucks
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: with with the air rifles. That's not nice. He knows
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: who he is. Boom. But the study basically said that
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: city mice and city bowls had larger brains than country mice,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: And of course that makes a big headline because people
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: are going to try and make the point that, you know,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: people that live in urban environments are smarter and the
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: hillbillies out in the country are dumber. They study ten animals,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: only two of them showed that, and some of them
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: showed the opposite that the I think bats and shrew's
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: actually the country versions had larger brains. So they don't
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: say any of that in the study because they just
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: want a headline that says, you know, if you live
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: in a city, you're smarter. Yeah, and we I mean,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: we've been addressing this lately, like there is like a
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: symbiotic collusion between bad science and bad science reporting, you know,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: yeah that results and stuff like that, where it's just like,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: you know, city city people are smarter than country people, right,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: says this one study that where the data was massaged, right, Well,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: can you city person, can you go make butter with
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: your hands? I have to say, can you farm land? No?
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Of course not um, but there it is possible that
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: there's a basis to this or as city people are
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: their brains are more stimulated than country folk. Perhaps and
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: so more neural connections, more plasticity takes place. I don't
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's true. I think there's just as
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: much stimulation in nature as there is in a city
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: full of people spends once you're stimulated by Look at Darwin,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: he spent his entire life living in the country. Yeah,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: for sure, But I mean like we're also we also
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: have hundreds of thousands of years of latent inhibition built
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: up against a lot of the stuff in nature, whereas
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: the stuff in Times Square is relatively new, so our
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: brain isn't doesn't defend against it quite as easily. So
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: hence we're possibly more stimulated. I think it depends on
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: what you're doing with your time. Sure, if you're in
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: the country sitting around watching reality TV, if you're in
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: the city in your apartment watching reality TV. I found
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: this other study today to UM from Germany about pornography
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: may reduce your brain size another kind of sexy headline
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: and um sample size at three And it's always self
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: reported to and when you're dealing with porn and self reporting,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: just do you look at porn? Check the box. Do
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: you think your brain is small? Check the box? Boom, Yeah,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: how smart are you? Somebody called news Week. Uh, they
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: cannot say that watching porn caused a decrease in brain matter,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: but they did say they found that the volume of striatom,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: a brain region that's been associated with reward processing and
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: motivated behavior, was smaller the more pornography you consumed. And
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: basically where they're at is, we don't know whether it's
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: causing this or if people that oh yeah, they get
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: struck down and they're like, yeah, they're just end up
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: watching porn more so again Idiocracy Again, that movie. There's
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: probably been no other movie that's made more of a
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: legitimate appearance in our episodes than that movie than Indiocracy. Yeah, yeah,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: I think you're right. Yeah, Mike Judge, he's onto something.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Do you watch Silicon Valley? I haven't, I know, Uh,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Kamal nan Gianni's in it. Yeah, he's funny. Does he
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: do well? Yeah, Martin Starr, it's uh yeah, it's a
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: good show. Nice, it's I think it was high time
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: that someone took on the tech industry and like a
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: comedy like that. Yeah, leave it to Mike Judge. I know. Yeah,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: if there's any crusade or satiric crusader, people feeling good
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: about themselves. Right, Yeah, it's Mike Judge. Uh. If you
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: want to know more about brain size in relation to whatever,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: just type in brain in the search bar. How stiff
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: works dot com and it's get lost. That's what I say. Yeah,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: type in brain and just go on a trip. Man.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: All right, that's right, journey. I think that the slogan
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: for how stuff works. That's right, um answers, I said,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: search parts time for what listener mail? Yes, okay, I'm
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: gonna call this help for a fan in need. It's nice. Hey, guys,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I want some help please. My wife and I are
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: expecting our first kid this summer, and thirteen days ago
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: we also found out that my wife has staged four
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: breast cancer. So we are spending our third trimester getting chemo.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: My goodness, I know. Uh, we're gonna kick cancer in
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the butt. We have no doubt, but we're scared and overwhelmed. Obviously,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: we're doing chemo now. Then we'll have the baby. Get
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: more chemo than bilateral mystechtomy than radiation. We have great
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: doctors and great fins and families, so even in the
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: face of this, we feel very lucky. Uh. And by
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: the way, I gotta follow up more recently, that says, uh,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: there is no gestational diabetes and the cancer is already shrinking.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Oh it's great. So things are going great so far.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Thanks for keeping us in suspense. I know I was
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: gonna wait till the end. Uh. And he asked for
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: a couple of favors. He said, First of all, if
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: you want follow and promote my tumbler uh to keep
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: people updated, it is um H T T P colon
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: slash slash gala freakidiki g A l l i U
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: f R e k y d e e k y
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: dot tumbler dot com. He says, we're huge nerds and
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: doctor who fans. So that was lost on me some
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: doctor who reference. I guess apparently. So does that have
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: to do with the phone booth? Maybe that's the only
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: thing you know about same here. Um. Secondly, I'm biking
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty miles to raise money, and could
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: you plug that and you can go to g O
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: O dot g L slash two w j z x Q.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: These people don't like normal words. Well that's one of
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: those shortened r L s. Oh. I see it's a
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Google uh. And then third how about a shout out,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: and I think that's what we're doing here. My wife
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: is a little shy, so just use her nickname, the Mayor.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: That's hilarious. So where's a sash during chemo and child birth?
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: I guess so, I mean I call Emily of the boss,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: So I guess it's the mayor. The mayor is like
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: the boss of several bosses, I would guess. Yeah. We
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: used to call my friend Justin who you know, the
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: mayor of Atlanta, because everywhere you went nobody knew him.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: He's a sociable fellow. But now we just call him
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: the manager of Atlanta because everywhere you go he has
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: some improvement to that place, like the lighting is not
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: quite right, or the doors should be over there in
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: the kitchen is not located properly Brits. Yeah, uh, and
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: then forth. My wife works in public policy, specifically helping
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: women and families get themselves out of poverty and advocating
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: for low income workers. So there you have it. An
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: awesome and incredible woman who dedicates her considerable talents helping others,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: is pregnant and his breast cancer kind of hard to say. No, right,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: I'm not above guilt tripping so Bob from Swithmore, Pennsylvania. Um,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: there you go. People should go and check out that
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: stuff and support your bike ride. And I hope things
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: have continued to progress well for your wife and child
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: and keep us updated. Yeah, and you keep me updated
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: at the very least. If not everybody listening, I will. Okay,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Bob and the mayor. Good luck to
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: you both. And um, let's see if you want to
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: get in touch with us, whether you're a mayor a
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: provincial governor who knows. You can get in touch with
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: us on Twitter at s Y s K podcast. You
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and join us
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Is it how stuff Works dot com