On Monday, September 19, 2005, at 12:36  PM, Mike Weis wrote:

>  I think can be said for certain is that if 50-60 years of television
> and indulgent child-raising practices have harmed our evolution that
> much,
> then we are not nearly as hearty a species as we have been led to
> believe.
>
I don't think it is anything to do with just the last century.

One thing that is for sure is that human brain size has been getting
smaller the last ten of thousand years, compared to what it was at the
height of the ice age. There are several possibilities for this, any or
all might pertain.

One is that brains are still getting better, but are getting more
efficient and so need less raw volume.

Another is that humans are just getting smaller overall, heads too, as
we don't need the big bodies that ice age hunters needed.

Yet another is that the stresses of regular mass starvation in
agricultural societies are selecting for brains that use less energy,
regardless of how intelligent those brains are.

Or it could be nutritional, we don't eat the right foods so our brains
don't develop as they should.