Posted: Nov 23, 2019 10:04 pm
zoon wrote:
This is interesting, especially as it seems to be claiming that the metabolic rate of modern human brains is very much higher than would be predicted from studies of other modern primates, excluding the great apes.
I'm a little confused as to how you would arrive that conclusion. It doesn't suggest that at all and I'm not seeing where it is claimed in the article. Rather, this suggests that, over time, all apes have followed this trajectory, which would explain why a modern ape has gone further along this trajectory than an ape from 3 or 4 million years ago. It's that passage of time and generations, and the continued selection pressure on metabolic rate which is the take-away, I would say.
In terms of plotting the trajectory, modern humans fall very slightly above the predicted figure, but bear in mind that the quotient is taking into account brain size as well.