Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!bbncca!rrizzo From: rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) Newsgroups: net.sci Subject: Re: darwinism Message-ID: <1477@bbncca.ARPA> Date: Fri, 28-Jun-85 16:25:33 EDT Article-I.D.: bbncca.1477 Posted: Fri Jun 28 16:25:33 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 30-Jun-85 00:22:18 EDT References: <542@petsd.UUCP> Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 21 I don't know about the % of gray matter "normally" used, but one installment of either the PBS series "The Mind" or another Nova program provided the following startling findings: Using recently developed (tomographic?) techniques for scanning the brain in detail along various physical variables, researchers found that a number of people who suffered massive brain damage at birth or early in life but who display not only above average abilities but high general intelligence (unlike the "calculating idiots") are using less than 10%, in some cases less than 5%, of their brain mass: the rest is clinically or effectively dead! I haven't though about how this relates to evolutionary issues, but it struck me that these simple facts must have a serious impact on various theories about how the brain works: wouldn't most of the current theories imply however vaguely a wide yet limited range of possible values for variables like % of active brain mass minimally necessary, etc., values well above those of the above findings? Ron Rizzo