Written by Brendan Maloney   

History strongly suggests that our over-large, complex brains are evolutionarily maladaptive. Virtually un-interrupted homicide, genocide, environmental destruction, and now the possibility of species-wide suicide, leave little room for debate on this point. Clear evidence of this monstrum et machina has surrounded us for millennia. My studies have resulted in these findings-

One: Dr. Hansell Stedman of U.Penn, researching muscular degenerative diseases, discovered that during a population bottleneck about 2 million years ago when proto humans numbered only about 10,000 breeding pairs, a species-wide jaw-muscle weakening disease, evidenced in the defective human gene myosin-variant MYH-16 which all humans have, but strong-jawed apes do not have, radically reduced muscular constriction of the cranium and allowed early hominin brains to rapidly expand after small brains proved to be successful in upright, tool-using primates for four million years. Engineering wisdom: “If it isn't broken, don't fix it!” and “Bigger is not always better.”

Image of early hominin population bottleneck:
http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx/news/hires/535px-Humanevolutionchart.jpg

Image comparing gorilla and human skulls. Gorilla jaw muscles constricting their craniums are the size of our thigh muscles, so gorilla and chimpanzee brains and skulls stop expanding by age 3-4 years:

http://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/200432431.jpg


Two: Transitory hemispheric suppression studies by V. L. Deglin and M. Kinsbourne show that the linear, reductionist, male-dominant left brain accepts false propositions merely because the internal structure of the proposition is valid, when the holistic, synthesizing, right brain knows from experience that those propositions are false. Since the great majority of government, military and religious leaders are men, this is a huge problem.

http://public.psych.iastate.edu/almorris/519%20readings/2006/Deglin.Kinsbourne.pdf

Three: The non-verbal right brain is the seat of visions, dreams, and perceptions of oneness with our universe, but cannot easily express them. The verbal I, me, mine left brain very often misinterprets holistic right brain phenomena, reducing universal truths to egocentric, localized myths. Over 1200 gods are listed in A Guide to the Gods, and this vast “My god is better than your god” brain catastrophe has resulted in the deaths of an estimated 809 million humans, whose bodies lined head-to-toe would circle the 24,901 mile long equator 34.6 times!

TED Talk by neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor, who had a stroke that forced her to live in her non-verbal, holistic right brain, a phenomenon she was uniquely qualified to describe:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight?language=en

Four: The dawn of agriculture ushered in two competing concepts that mirror our brain's hemispheres: The right brain nurturing of crops and animals and the left brain acquisition of wealth. Nearly universal female-affirmative goddess - worshiping cultures provide evidence that both our brain hemispheres and our societies were largely in balance at that time. However, agriculture concentrated and increased food resources, populations, wealth and power so that any added brain catastrophe might be as devastating as a lit match tossed into a gunpowder magazine.

Pulitzer Prize winning author Jared Diamond's paper about the dawn of agriculture, The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race:

http://www3.gettysburg.edu/~dperry/Class%20Readings%20Scanned%20Documents/Intro/Diamond.PDF

Five: The invention of linear alphabets ignited that gunpowder. The abstract letters of l-i-n-e-a-r a-l-p-h-a-b-e-t-s only acquire meaning when perceived in a sequential manner, so reading strongly stimulates the abstract, linear, and sequential left brain. The alphabetic worm - a faulty virus-riddled software program - literally re-wires the hard drive in the Apple computers of our brains via epigenetics by creating millions of new glial and neural cells and pathways in the troublesome left brain. The resulting glitches spread throughout the data storage systems of our cultures and then cascade from one generation to the next in our traditions, laws and religious dogmas, to the great detriment of modern humanity largely lacking the positive right brain input of women.

The late Dr. Leonard Shlain's 2006 lecture at Pepperdine University, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QQuD62RxrU

A woodworker by trade, I have few connections to the academic world. I would very much like to form or join a multi-discipline study group in order to explore solutions to the immense problems my paper illuminates. It could be fleshed out into a substantial right-brain symposium with help from scholars with the fortitude to engage these dilemmas which not only have horns, but hellaciously nasty bites. At present I can only hold on to a flailing tail, yelling, “Here be dragons!”
Brendan This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it