Is there any indication of increased intellegence over time within the Human species?

Humans have a brain capacity of 1350 cc's. Chimpanzee's have a brain capacity of 350 cc's on average. Neandertals have 1500 cc's. In fact, the largest Neandertal brain is at 1700 cc's. This doesn't mean that any of the above are intelligent. It just means that their luggage case is large. And remember, brain's aren't the only things in our heads. We have cerebral fluid and the pituitary gland, and we're not fully sure of how they all work or what volumes they need to function in certain ways. The frontal lobe is a great place to start, particularly Broca's area in the left frontal lobe which contains the center for language (a rough generalization). However, it's more appropriate to say that the connections to different areas in the brain are more important, such as the amygdala/hypothalamus interaction and how that affects emotion. No. But Leselie Aiello and Peter Wheeler came out with a fantastic idea called the Expensive Tissue Hypothesis. Simply put, it is the energy put into the brain that really makes it tick. The brain of a human weighs 2 lb, yet it takes up 20% of our metabolic energy. That's expensive tissue! But that isn't free. Our intestinal tract is only operating at 60% capacity based on other primates. As such, we've super-powered our brains, rather than grow it larger. The increase in size is probably due to the additional fatty cells used to insulate these connections. Think of it like your CPU and the heatsink in your computer, large changes in speed will necessitate changes in the size of the heatsink... but not in a reliable manner. Particularly if you use the water-cooling systems, but I digress. That's a loaded question. Ultimately, no. There are increasing forms of complexity in tool manufacturing over time, but these are not correlated with brain size. And even this data is highly suspect, because few of us could slash out a Acheulian handaxe, and that's 1.5 mya old technology!In the end, remember that when we look at fossils, we see more into ourselves than we do in our ancestors.Do Svidania,
Theus

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Veri Omni Veritas

Problem solving skills is measured only in what they are applied toward... which doesn't preserve in the fossil record. In a sense, they are moot, despite being so bloody interesting.That being said, the argument that our brains aren't hard wired is.... ach.. ridiculous. There is no evidence for it in cultural diversity or in performance. We aren't very plastic people. Don't get me wrong... I used to be on the other side of the camp coming from hippie parents. But the data has been drawn out. For particularly excellent treatment, check out Synaptic Self by Joseph LeDoux and The Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker.John Locke's "Tabula Rasa" was written in binary all along. The genetic variation seen in humans reflects the difference in personalitise in humans. This makes since evolutionarily... how could any personality traits evol without natural selection... how could selection work on indefinite traits?However, an excellent point has been made by JavaMan in that the concepts of human nature, even in the scientific literature, is still bound to the cultural views of the time. As such, it waxes and wanes between the two poles of nature and nurture. However, the answer to all of this is simple. Nurture cannot act outside the constraints of nature, and any nurture must feedback into a hard-wired system. No if, ands, or buts.

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Veri Omni Veritas