John Hawks

John Hawks

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Research highlight: Brain of the Taung Child
A new study of the endocast discovered a hundred years ago asks, what if we found this fossil today?
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John Hawks
Did two pulses of evolution supercharge human cognition?
An intriguing new study tries to tabulate the ages of genetic variants associated with human phenotypes, but its claims about recent brain evolution may…
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John Hawks
Many people have a little Neandertal in the brain. Does it matter?
Research has started to show the ways that introgressed genes from Neandertals affect brain shape in living people.
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John Hawks
Brain-body allometry revisited across mammals
Reviewing a 2021 paper in Science Advances by J. B. Smaers and coworkers, which looks at brain-body allometry across mammals.
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John Hawks
Return of the “amazing” Boskops
Bringing some scientific reality to an excerpt from a book that tries to revive the myth of an ancient, large-brained race of humans.
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John Hawks
Notes on Ashley Montagu, recent human evolution, and human equality
The anthropologist argued that humans have stopped evolving, but that isn't the way we understand human evolution today.
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John Hawks
The “amazing” Boskops
A book tries to revive the myth of a large-brained ancient race in southern Africa. It was wrong in 1958 and remains wrong today.
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John Hawks
Ninety percent of your brain is (not) useless
A close look at the idea that most of the brain is superfluous space, with a review of people who get by with extraordinarily small brain mass.
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John Hawks
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