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All scientists accept that human intelligence evolved along with the gigantic human brain. However, did intelligence, in general, evolve, or did specific components of intelligence evolve? If general intelligence evolved, but not its specific components, then the human brain must be extremely flexible during its development. If the specific components of intelligence evolved as well, then all humans regardless of culture and of how they are raised will display certain universal characteristics.

Certain human universals of intelligence and behavior are beyond question. One is language. The human brain seems to be "hardwired" for language acquisition, and specifically for language that consists of words and grammar. The occasional human child raised apart from human culture (such as "wolf children") develops rudimentary language components. All healthy humans have the Wernicke's area and Broca's area on the left side of the brain that function in language recognition and production, respectively. Anthropologists have examined hominin skulls closely for evidence of little bumps that might indicate these areas in the brains of Homo ergaster but have not reached a firm conclusion as to whether they had them.

Beyond this, the evolution of specific thought and behavior patterns has proved controversial. Sociobiologists claim that specific thought patterns such as the fear of snakes and of strangers, and specific behavior patterns such as violence and polygamy, have evolved, and that specific neural networks for them exist in the brains of all humans. These neural networks are proclivities, rather than causes of action; therefore humans can learn to overcome innate tendencies that evolution has caused their brains to possess. Other scientists object strongly and assert that the human brain can be trained during childhood to think and act in an almost infinite variety of ways. Sociobiologists say that war is innate to the human brain; other scientists assert that humans can learn to be perfectly peaceful. The evidence is unclear:

There are more universal behavior patterns (violence is one of them) than one would expect from a flexible brain, but even the one ability that all scientists admit is universal--language--is controlled by the brain in a decentralized way. The Wernicke's and Broca's areas are essential for language acquisition and production, but not sufficient. The neural networks that sociobiologists expect to find have not been clearly identified by brain studies. Positron emission tomography (PET scans) that reveal the parts of the brain that are active during certain mental functions have not shown a perfectly clear and consistent correspondence of specific behaviors with specific brain regions. Brain damage early in life can sometimes be overcome during development, as a different part of the brain takes over the function that the damaged portion would have governed. There are more universal behavior patterns than non-sociobiologists can explain, yet the brain is more flexible than sociobiologists might have expected.

Intelligence, though not its components, appears to have a genetic component. Psychologist Thomas J. Bouchard has measured IQ (intelligence quotient) of numerous people, most notably from many identical (monozygotic) and fraternal (dizygotic) twins. The correlation coefficients presented in the table are calculations of how much statistical variability can be explained by the comparison. Separate tests on the same person yield a close but not perfect correlation. The IQ scores of identical twins are more closely correlated than those of fraternal twins, which are more closely correlated than those of biological siblings; unrelated people living apart show no correlation of IQ with one another, on the average. . .

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