Kerry McCarpet: The Shrinking Human Brain

[P2daMizzle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5sT48AoI-k
Sorry for the click bait title, but you really won't regret watching this video, assumed that you like to engage in a rather heavy discussion about the human mind and evolution

So, I just watched this video by Kerry McCarpet - unbelievably great mind - I know, it sounds a bit exaggerated but it's really rare to find a "thinker" like her in today's modern society (not talking about academics, professors, scientist etc. - even though some of them are as unintelligent as the majority of people)

In the video she discussed the question why the human brain is shrinking since about 30.000 years and the arguments she presents are really fascinating. I wonder what you guys think about some of the points she's making, especially the statement about empathy (that our brains shrank/is shrinking because we've lost our ability to empathize and thus undergo a kind of atavism)

[Red]

Pretty sure you could have gave a better title, such as tge name of the video you sent. I'm sure the video is interesting though.

[brimstoneSalad]

Please use descriptive titles to your posts.

I don't think much of Kerry McCarpet, as a woo enabler. She's one of the main people who was promoting "Jen Journey" and enabling her suicide by supporting her shunning treatment for her very treatable cancer. Kerry has Jen's blood on her hands, along with the many others who may follow in those footsteps.

Scientists have explanations for this, which true to form as a woo she flippantly dismisses in favor of quack "theories".
Yes, we're obviously not getting stupider (well, not until recently anyway), so it stands to reason that the brain probably is just getting more efficient (something that has been studied more than she would like to admit). Intelligence isn't very well correlated to brain size among humans, except IIRC for within families (e.g. siblings).

Next she references Tony Wright, who is a complete nutcase the raw community has decided for some reason is credible. A bunch of phytonutrients are the root of all evolutionary processes pseudoscience, from what I can tell. There's nothing of substance in these arguments, just a bunch of assertions and science-sounding words to wow people into a state of gullibility.

Next she claims our empathy is shrinking. Oh no, the world is ending! Everything is falling apart these days!
Except that's not true at all. Great talk by Steven Pinker:
https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence?language=en

"Tony Wright's research"? Yeah? Where?
Let's see a link to a respected peer reviewed journal on evolutionary biology. Or maybe just see some real data rather than a bunch of ridiculous powerpoint slides with meaningless flashy illustrations.

More unsubstantiated claims. Lots of rhetoric. Total bullshit. She's completely nuts.
She's accidentally right about the problems of hedonism, but totally wrong about the solution.

She doesn't even seem to understand the basics of evolution, painting some kind of Lamarckian picture instead.
And then as she goes into meat and fruit... This is the kind of stuff that makes vegans look crazy. No substance to it at all.

Yes, meat causes heart disease and cancer. No, it doesn't shrink the brain from generation to generation and atrophy our emotional organs.

[Cirion Spellbinder]

Yes, meat causes heart disease and cancer. No, it doesn't shrink the brain from generation to generation and atrophy our emotional organs.

An uncle of mine is trying to decrease his meat consumption because he heard that meat will make him stupider. I don't see him very often, but if I get the chance, do you think it would be worth explaining to him that his reason for decreasing meat intake is not a good one?

[knot]

Party pooper here. I unsubbed from Kerry a while back, as I realized she's just a well-spoken propagator of nonsense. With a bit of fact checking it becomes clear that video is total BS. First of all, I can't find any scholarly articles by this Wright dude, or any information about his academic credentials at all, so I think the label "consciousness researcher" should be applied very loosely. If he had actually discovered something as astonishing as *meat consumption causes brain shrinkage*, he would have many, many references. I think he's just some borderline uneducated person out to sell books to misguided raw foodists.

If I'm not mistaken, brain size is moderately correlated with intelligence at about 0.4 or 0.5. At age 55 human brains start to shrink naturally, and a decline in intelligence follows. So I'm inclined to believe that it could become a problem that the human brain is shrinking in general, because I do think it will result in peole being less intelligent, but it might not matter in the end if we have the technology and culture to make up for it. The leading hypothesis for why the human brain is shrinking (generally) seems to be something as boring as "civilization". Apparently the shrinkage coincides with the rise of densely populated civilizations, where you have division of labor, social safety nets and so on. The theory is that survival has just become too "easy". Charles Murray makes a similar argument in "The Bell Curve", where he warns of the dangers of the welfare state, as it has a potential to accelerate IQ decline by providing stupid people with survival fitness they wouldn't have had in a more hostile environment. The challenge then is to build a society that halts this decline, while at the same time not being completely inhumane.

[brimstoneSalad]

An uncle of mine is trying to decrease his meat consumption because he heard that meat will make him stupider. I don't see him very often, but if I get the chance, do you think it would be worth explaining to him that his reason for decreasing meat intake is not a good one?

I wouldn't mention it, but maybe talk to him about other reasons to reduce meat consumption. Sooner or later somebody is going to inform him that reason is nonsense, so it would be good to have a backup. If he finds the other reasons credible and agrees with them, you might mention that you're skeptical of the meat brain shrinkage one, and that since there are better reasons with more evidence you prefer those.