> Brain size is not that great a proxy for intelligence.
Oh certainly, agreed. But larger brains can be easier to work with, such as for slicing studies where you examine the different areas of the brain to look for evidence of changes that you might want to keep for the next generation. Smaller brains have less matter to work with, and therefore have less of a chance of developing novel features that strike your fancy while you attempt to select the ones that might have a higher probability of developing impressive cognitive ability. Having said this, I am very interested in trying to take something already rather clever (like a dog) and seeing how small we can get the brain before it loses all of its interesting behavior. For whatever reason society has already developed a fascination with really small dogs with small heads anyway.....
Oh certainly, agreed. But larger brains can be easier to work with, such as for slicing studies where you examine the different areas of the brain to look for evidence of changes that you might want to keep for the next generation. Smaller brains have less matter to work with, and therefore have less of a chance of developing novel features that strike your fancy while you attempt to select the ones that might have a higher probability of developing impressive cognitive ability. Having said this, I am very interested in trying to take something already rather clever (like a dog) and seeing how small we can get the brain before it loses all of its interesting behavior. For whatever reason society has already developed a fascination with really small dogs with small heads anyway.....