Intelligence Influences Evolution

http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/master.html?http://www.naturalhistorymag..com/1108/1108_samplings.html#bird

Having a big brain can open all kinds of doors, even evolutionary
ones, it seems.

First formulated in the 1980s, the “behavioral drive” hypothesis
posits that intelligence can influence the course of evolution. The
idea is that intelligent animals can find ways to exploit new foods
and new habitats, thus exposing themselves to new selection pressures.
So, if the species in a given taxonomic family have large brains
relative to their body size, they should also have widely divergent
body sizes, among other traits, as a result of varied selection
pressures.

Daniel Sol of the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Trevor
D. Price of the University of Chicago tested that prediction on birds.
They extracted data on 7,209 bird species from the scientific
literature, and found many examples of bird families that are both
brainy and quite diversified in body size, such as the crows, the
woodpeckers, the hornbills, and the parrots.

Comparing all avian families, Sol and Price showed statistically
that brain size explains 12 percent of the variation in body size. The
percentage may be small, but it confirms the theory that in evolution,
behavior is more than just the result of selective pressures; it can
also alter those pressures. (The American Naturalist)
--
I learned that ... the most grinding
poverty is a trifling evil compared
with the inequality of classes.
--William Morris

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Relevant Pages

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