2. Evolving a Good Guess
8 James L. Gould and Carol Grant Gould, The Animal Mind (Scientific American Library, 1994), pp.
68-70.
9 T. Edward Reed and Arthur R. Jensen, Conduction velocity in a brain nerve pathway of normal adults
correlates with intelligence level, Intelligence 16:14 (1992).
9 A good summary of IQ and its racial differences, in a statement signed by dozens of the leading
researchers, may be found (of all places) in the Wall Street Journal, p.A18 (13 December 1994). See
Earl Hunts The role of intelligence in modern society, American Scientist 83:356-368 (July-August
1995).
10 Barbara L. Finlay and Richard B. Darlington argue, in Linked regularities in the development and
evolution of mammalian brains, Science 268:1578-1584 (16 June 1995), that if a human ancestor were
selected for any nonolfactory capacity requiring more brain space, the brain space for all others would be
increased in parallel.
10 A. J. Rockel, R. W. Hiorns, T. P. S. Powell, The basic uniformity in structure of the neocortex, Brain
103:221-244 (1980).
11 Bertrand Russell, Philosophy (W. W. Norton & Company, 1927).
11 See the last chapter of Jean Piaget, The Origins of Intelligence in Children (translation of La naissance
de lintelligence chez lenfant, 1923).
12 H. B. Barlow, in Oxford Companion to the Mind (1987). See also Haneef A. Fatmi and R. W. Young,
A definition of intelligence, Nature 228:97 (1970): Intelligence is that faculty of mind by which
order is perceived in a situation previously considered disordered. Note how close this comes to the
mathematicians definition of chaos (finding order among apparent randomness).
12 Infant soothing: Sandra E. Trehub, University of Toronto, personal communication (1995).
12 Donald N. Michael, Forecasting and planning in an incoherent context, Technological Forecasting
and Social Change, 36:79-87 (1989).
13 Frans de Waal, Peacemaking among primates (Harvard University Press, 1989).
13 Gould and Gould (1994) p.149.
13 ... slip the bounds of instinct.... is from Gould and Gould (1994) p.70.
14 J. P. Guilford, Traits of creativity, in H. H. Anderson, ed., Creativity and its Cultivation (Harper,
1959), pp. 142-161.
15 Chimpanzee understanding of spoken requests vs. symbolic ones: the 1993 videos of Sue Savage-Rumbaughs research address these issues. The footage appears in the commonly available BBC and
NOVA edits of the original NHK production, usually entitled Kanzi. The researchers also have a
privately-circulated videotape of techniques and negative results.
15 Stanley Coren, The Intelligence of Dogs: Canine Consciousness and Capabilities (Free Press, 1994),
pp.114-115.
15 Richard Byrne and Andrew Whiten, editors, Machiavellian Intelligence: Social Expertise and the
Evolution of Intellect in Monkeys, Apes, and Humans (Oxford University Press, 1988).
17 Kenneth J. W. Craik, The Nature of Explanation (Cambridge University Press, 1943).
17 Birds and hawks: See Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Ethology (Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1975), pp.87-88.
17 Random elements in music: Brian Eno, personal communication (1995). Disordered sensations not
signaling harm but mistakenly perceived as painful: Calvin, The Throwing Madonna (McGraw-Hill,
1983). Perhaps if multiple sclerosis and phantom limb patients became accustomed to heavy metal music,
they could learn to love their disordered sensations too! Or at least treat them as not really threatening.
18 Loren Eiseley, The Star Thrower (Times Books, 1978).
19 Neoteny is discussed by Stephen Jay Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (Harvard University Press, 1977),
pp. 177 ff., Barry Bogin, Patterns of Human Growth (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 71,
Ashley Montagu, Growing Young (McGraw-Hill, 1981), and F. Harvey Pough, John B. Heiser, and
William N. McFarland, Vertebrate Life, 3rd edition (Macmillan, 1989), p. 68. Such shifts in
domestication are noted by Coren (1994), pp. 37-41.
19 For the story of the Japanese monkeys, see chapter 3 in my essay book, The Throwing Madonna (McGraw-Hill, 1983).
20 Patricia S. Goldman-Rakic, Working memory and the mind, Scientific American 267(3):73-79
(September 1992).
20 The bee navigation story is in Gould and Gould (1994).
20 Jacob Bronowski, The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination (Yale University Press, 1978, transcribed
from 1967 lectures), p. 33.
21 Hunter plotting various approaches.... Much of hunting in carnivores is determined by some simple
innate behaviors, such as encircle the prey (dogs that herd animals are following this same innate
tendency). The big cats clearly do not understand certain principles such as stay downwind and may
spook their prey in a way that human hunters can avoid. See Coren (1994).
21 A futurist spinning three scenarios, see Peter Schwartz, The Art of the Long View (Doubleday, 1991)
or Joel Garreaus magazine article on the Global Business Network in WIRED 2.11 (November 1994).
21 Back in slide rule days, students were actually taught to guess the answer before moving their slipstick.
Thats because slide rules dont give you the order of magnitude: 2.044 at the index mark still needs to be
interpreted as .2, 2, 20, 204, and so on. So the student would look through the equation and guess whether
the answer ought to be dozens or hundreds or thousands. The advent of hand calculators has eliminated
this as a necessary step, but it remains one of the best ways of catching errors. A modern application is
mentally estimating prices from exchange rates while traveling abroad.
23 Gould and Gould (1994), p.163