Now if you could just come up with a similar explanation for the development of the ability to speak and to understand speech, the evolutionary advantages of which are much greater.
Thoughts on the writing direction theory? Right to left writing resulted in hyperflexed posture (as with smartphones), leading to low fertility among the Middle Eastern scribal class. Top->down/right->left writing was consistent with good posture (chin up), leading to higher fertility among the East Asian scribal class and Chinese characters undergoing increasing complexity rather than simplification. Left to right writing resulted in hyperextended or chin tucked posture, which resulted in this direction being the only one consistent with mass literacy (in Europe/Southeast Asia), with the possible exception of Japan (which had three tiers of script, Hiragana being for flatbacks).
Also, do you guys know any literature as to the origin of the human chin? There is a conspiracy to hide its purpose (as a rest for stomach sleeping).
Fertility seems to have been high among scribes, at least according to Sirach in his praise of scribes: "Many will praise his understanding; it will never be blotted out. His memory will not disappear, and his name will live through all generations. Nations will speak of his wisdom, and the congregation will proclaim his praise. If he lives long, he will leave a name greater than a thousand." Book of Sirach [39.1-11].
Scribes seem to have been trained and recruited among the children of scribes: " ... scribal education was conducted and managed by families and small groups at the local level and not by centralized institutions mandating a unified state curriculum from the top down." Delnero, P. (2016). Scholarship and inquiry in early Mesopotamia. Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History, 2(2), 109-143.
As for the human chin, I can only say that it is sexually dimorphic. There seems to have been selection to make the female face look more paedomorphic (smaller nose and chin, reduced prognathism, large forehead in relation to the rest of the face).
When hunter gatherers (or other traditionally non-literate peoples) assimilate into literary societies, how does it go? Do their children read just as well as those children whose ancestors have been reading and writing for hundreds of years?
I have nothing on Australian aboriginals. The Brazilian studies are:
Braga, L. W., Amemiya, E., Tauil, A., Suguieda, D., Lacerda, C., Klein, E., ... & Dehaene, S. (2017). Tracking adult literacy acquisition with functional MRI: A single-case study. Mind, Brain, and Education, 11(3), 121-132. https://doi.org/10.1111/mbe.12143
Dehaene, S. & Cohen, L. (2011). The unique role of the visual word form area in reading, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(6), 254-262. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2011.04.003
Pegado, F., Comerlato, E., Ventura, F., Jobert, A., Nakamura, K., Buiatti, M., ... & Dehaene, S. (2014). Timing the impact of literacy on visual processing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(49), E5233-E5242. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1417347111
Scribes had higher fertility because of the high demand for their services. The ability to read and write, for sustained lengths of time, was confined to a small minority for most of history. Such people were a bottleneck, so to speak, in the functioning of societies that depended on record-keeping and other forms of knowledge storage and retrieval.
"Short-term memory for faces was associated with general intelligence at .34."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289616300125
Now if you could just come up with a similar explanation for the development of the ability to speak and to understand speech, the evolutionary advantages of which are much greater.
Thoughts on the writing direction theory? Right to left writing resulted in hyperflexed posture (as with smartphones), leading to low fertility among the Middle Eastern scribal class. Top->down/right->left writing was consistent with good posture (chin up), leading to higher fertility among the East Asian scribal class and Chinese characters undergoing increasing complexity rather than simplification. Left to right writing resulted in hyperextended or chin tucked posture, which resulted in this direction being the only one consistent with mass literacy (in Europe/Southeast Asia), with the possible exception of Japan (which had three tiers of script, Hiragana being for flatbacks).
Also, do you guys know any literature as to the origin of the human chin? There is a conspiracy to hide its purpose (as a rest for stomach sleeping).
Fertility seems to have been high among scribes, at least according to Sirach in his praise of scribes: "Many will praise his understanding; it will never be blotted out. His memory will not disappear, and his name will live through all generations. Nations will speak of his wisdom, and the congregation will proclaim his praise. If he lives long, he will leave a name greater than a thousand." Book of Sirach [39.1-11].
Scribes seem to have been trained and recruited among the children of scribes: " ... scribal education was conducted and managed by families and small groups at the local level and not by centralized institutions mandating a unified state curriculum from the top down." Delnero, P. (2016). Scholarship and inquiry in early Mesopotamia. Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History, 2(2), 109-143.
As for the human chin, I can only say that it is sexually dimorphic. There seems to have been selection to make the female face look more paedomorphic (smaller nose and chin, reduced prognathism, large forehead in relation to the rest of the face).
When hunter gatherers (or other traditionally non-literate peoples) assimilate into literary societies, how does it go? Do their children read just as well as those children whose ancestors have been reading and writing for hundreds of years?
Apparently not as well, if we go by the Brazilian data.
Interesting - thanks! Any formal studies of this? How about Australian aboriginals?
I have nothing on Australian aboriginals. The Brazilian studies are:
Braga, L. W., Amemiya, E., Tauil, A., Suguieda, D., Lacerda, C., Klein, E., ... & Dehaene, S. (2017). Tracking adult literacy acquisition with functional MRI: A single-case study. Mind, Brain, and Education, 11(3), 121-132. https://doi.org/10.1111/mbe.12143
Dehaene, S. & Cohen, L. (2011). The unique role of the visual word form area in reading, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(6), 254-262. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2011.04.003
Pegado, F., Comerlato, E., Ventura, F., Jobert, A., Nakamura, K., Buiatti, M., ... & Dehaene, S. (2014). Timing the impact of literacy on visual processing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(49), E5233-E5242. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1417347111
thanks!
you need to make a case about how this ability either enhanced survival or facilitated mate attraction/selection. I didn't find that.
Scribes had higher fertility because of the high demand for their services. The ability to read and write, for sustained lengths of time, was confined to a small minority for most of history. Such people were a bottleneck, so to speak, in the functioning of societies that depended on record-keeping and other forms of knowledge storage and retrieval.