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Ask any biologist what makes primates special, and they’ll tell you the same thing: big brains. Those impressive noggins make it possible for primates from spider monkeys to humans to use tools, find food, and navigate the complex relationships of group living. But scientists disagree on what drove primates to evolve big brains in the first place. Now, a new study comes to an unexpected conclusion: fruit.
“The paper is enormously valuable,” says Richard Wrangham, a biological anthropologist at Harvard University who was not involved in the work. For the last 20 years, many scientists have argued that primates evolved bigger brains to live in bigger groups, an idea known as the “social brain hypothesis.” The new study’s large sample size and robust statistical methods suggest diet and ecology deserve more attention, Wrangham says. But not everyone is convinced. Others say that although a nutrient-rich diet allows for bigger brains, it wouldn’t be enough by itself to serve as a selective evolutionary pressure. When the authors compare diet and social life, “they’re comparing apples and oranges,” says Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and one of the original authors of the social brain hypothesis. [...] Science | AAAS / Link 2
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