Evolution continues: head and brain size

• Welcome to the BOL Forum on Evolutionary Psychology by John Grohol, 3/19/97
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    • Human Evolution Continues, I Just Decided by James Brody, 5/31/97
      
      

Consider this: Heretofore, there has been strong selection against large head size by the anatomy of human birth (my wife is a labor and delivery nurse). The huge reduction in child birth associated mobidity and mortality in developed countries almost certainly has reduced selective pressure against large head size. I would suggest that there literally is more room now for the size distribution of human heads(and possibly human brains and not just bone) to push into new territory. This may sound like a throw back to eighteenth and ninteenth century obsession with head size measurements but maybe there is some rapid evolutionary change going on here on a scale of just a few generations. Any thoughts or data on this?

• Head Size & Evolution by James Brody, 9/28/98
• How about proportions instead of size? by Bill W., 10/12/98
• Head Size and Evolution: The problem is... by Jonathan Dart, 2/27/99