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257. Simon Conway Morris on Design in Evolution & the Possibility of Purpose in the Cosmos

The Michael Shermer Show

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The Birth Canal Is the Constraint

Our brains can't really get any bigger because of the limitation of the skull passing through the pelvis opening in the female for birth. The relative growth rates of white and grey matter are such that our brains could not get bigger than about three times their present size a without basically collapsing an a number of other sort of constraintson you're quite right. In point of fact, if you look at a human from one perspective, we're absolutely monstrous, because we have these colossal heads. And n of course, as we grow into adult hood, the body gets bigger and the head gets proportionately smaller. We might get on to the conversation acause what our brain can do already is so phenomenal

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