Why Are We So Intelligent?

That graph doesn't really go against what I'm saying? I mentioned, humans from an early period to to now, there's not much difference in brain structure size.

Was star gazing last night and it got me thinking. How did we as a species completely dominate all others in terms of intelligence...?

It all seems to be all down to our opposable thumbs...
They allowed us to manipulate the environment in a way no other species could...

This very basic feature seems to explain everything such as creativity, empathy, technology evolution and our complex social networking.

Manipulating our environment allowed us to disambiguate the environment actively. The relationship between numerous objects for an ultimate goal, was identifiable through our ability to actively immerse ourselves with them, simultaneously. This gave us the ability for insight, creativity and invention...

...cognition developed through this intense immersion with the environment. We no longer had to rely on instinctual problem solving, this insight and creativity became an extension of our cognition. Complex learning processes were learned from imitation of others engaging in similar activity. Our increased capacity to understand the relationship between ourselves, the environment and others allowed us to visualise possible solutions to problems we had not before solved. This extended to our understanding of other humans.

Excelling in the above traits would have been ridiculously awesome for survival, through evolution...these genes would be passed on and regions in the brain which had the ability to disambiguate the environment in terms of objects (range of functions) and humans (range of functions/actions).

These areas would develop. Simply imagining a certain action would provide stimulation in the appropriate areas of the brain, similar areas to actually experiencing such an action?

For example; a human sees another of their species being attacked...this will activate areas in the bystanders brain that are associated with pain. Our ability to empathise with our own kind has developed because of this.

The complexity of interaction within our environment and with others of our species meant language needed to be more than warning based, but it also had to reflect the complex nature of the more intricate processes going on in the human brain (bit of pseudo-science to get to language lol). More complex language>more complex cognition.

Were we are today is heavily linked to our ability to record information, pass it onto the next generation, improve upon it and pass it on....(opposable thumbs)

...without the ability to record? There would be no distinct difference in intelligence and social construct between a human and a monkey (still have better environment manipulation and creativity).

Evolutionists...! Debate me...

In before tldr...

That graph doesn't really go against what I'm saying? I mentioned, humans from an early period to to now, there's not much difference in brain structure size. Not apes to us, I admitted we had more specialisation/organisation in the our frontal lobes? How we got to that, I want to know. How we got from there to today...

The answer is our Brain-It's the most complex organ in our body.Our brain has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times as large as the brain of a typical mammal with an equivalent body size.[and you know the rest of the story]

There are a lot of dangers in using EQ, as highlighted by the fact that, for example, in very small rodents relative brain size can be as high as 10% compared to the 2% seen in humans (Roth, 2002). Humpback whales have an incredibly low EQ, yet display a variety of complex behaviours such as structured vocal sequences and sophisticated hunting techniques (Rendell & Whitehead, 2001).

There's a lot more to it than just encephalization.

Well, it has though.

In the lineage leading to homo sapiens, brain size increased with body size to a power of 1.73 compared to 0.33-0.34 in non-human primates (Pilbeam & Gould, 1974). Overall, in a period of 2.5 million years the hominid brain increased three-fold in size (Schoenemann, 2006).

Not that size is the only change, as you know. But it certainly has increased in size within the lineage.

But still the answer would be our brain-Science has still much more to discover about "The Brain" and who knows in the near future,we may find our answer that might have lied within the core of our brain

It's not the only factor, just without them...
...we wouldn't be intelligent, in terms of knowledge...etc.

I've explained how cognition evolved to develop theory of mind which linked to the opposable thumbs...

Look for the bit about the interaction between us, the environment and other humans. It all links to perception without first-hand physical experience, insight...etc.

This was a question anyway, never said I had all the answers...

You will never learn anything, if I give you the answers, broski.

It's the organisation of the brain, neuronal networks...etc
For example, white matter in the human brain is noticeably greater in humans. More connections means our out thought processes are more intricate and complex. But how did we develop to that point?

Diet maybe? Our ability to stand up? Manipulation of our environment (although other primates have opposable thumbs, ours a more intricate and capable)?

"Think of a forest, then imagine taking 10,000 trees and squeezing them together until there is essentially no space between them. That's what the neocortical column looks like"

It's the organisation of the brain, neuronal networks...etc
For example, white matter in the human brain is noticeably greater in humans. More connections means our out thought processes are more intricate and complex. But how did we develop to that point?

Diet maybe? Our ability to stand up? Manipulation of our environment (although other primates have opposable thumbs, ours a more intricate and capable)?

Yup...

i think judging by all the posts you've totally failed here

The presence of more meat in the diet lead to humans being able to support larger brains.

That graph shows the size has increased 3 times in the last 2.5 million years or so, which is a massive difference in brain size, and is from the start of human evolution to now. Which is something you disagreed with.

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and actually our brain size has reduced and not increased

http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news/chiefeditor/2008/09/neanderthal.html

Ah. That bottom link's very interesting. It completely blows away the arguement of brain size increasing due to intelligence as brain size has actually decreased since our ancestors.

You both know, I'm agreeing with that point...? The size of the brain is not the most important factor.