• Question: why is our brain so clever?

    Asked by juneoct2233 to Hayley, Sophie on 22 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Hayley Evers-King

      Hayley Evers-King answered on 22 Mar 2013:

      Being clever seems to be what makes us so successful as a species. The fact that we can adapt to many situations, learn things, build things and manipulate our environment (with farming and things like that) has helped us grow phenomally as a species. When our ancestors started developing bigger brains, the ones who were most clever were most likely to survive the longest (by hunting better, escaping predators etc) and have children – passing on their cleverness. In this way we’ve become cleverer and cleverer over time – evolution in action!

    • Photo: Sophie Holles

      Sophie Holles answered on 22 Mar 2013:

      One theory about why we are so clever is that our cleverness is sexually selected… so more intelligent people are more attractive, or are better at impressing or outwitting the other sex and getting them to sleep with them! This explains why we find funny witty people attractive, and why we are impressed by art and literature. So for sexually selected traits, the more sex the trait (ie in this case intelligence) gets you, the more likely it is to be passed on to future generations!

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