Friday, June 17, 2005

Study shows big-brained people are smarter





"The study, published on line June 16, could settle a long-standing scientific debate about the relationship between brain size and intelligence. Ever since German anatomist and physiologist Frederick Tiedmann wrote in 1836 that there exists 'an indisputable connection between the size of the brain and the mental energy displayed by the individual man,' scientists have been searching for biological evidence to prove his claim."

This makes me feel a little bit better about my bulging forehead.

3 comments:

W.M. Bear said...

People with bigger brains are smarter than their smaller-brained counterparts, according to a study conducted by a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher published in the journal “Intelligence.”

Well, doh.

TheUltimateCyn said...

hmmm... I don't agree.
Have you seen this???

http://www.mindpowernews.com/049.htm

W.M. Bear said...

"He was a bear of very little brain."

--Winnie the Pooh

cyn -- I hate to go all debunky on you but I'm pretty sceptical of stories like this about people with no brains leading fairly normal lives. As in this case, the writers never provide references to medical literature or anything else. The story itself, or course, does not count as a reference, even mentioning Dr.'s names does not count, since these are easy to fabricate. I'm not saying it's either true or false, but simply that you can't take what you read in articles like this at face value.

Also, I've seen this story before and think it really has something of the quality (I hate to say it) of an urban myth. My procedure, if I had the time (which I don't), would be to check the story out and see if there are references to this case in the medical literature.