Neocortex? What Neocortex?

Scientists have been putting forward for years now that consciousness in mammals (specifically humankind, as you can guess, but not excluding a whole four kinds of great apes, the bottlenose dolphin and the Asian elephant) arises in the neocortex, a supposedly more highly evolved structure of the brain.

Now, however, we've discovered that the humble Magpie , which has no neocortex, is a self-aware, and therefore conscious, animal.

Err... bird.


I don't know what's taken them so long.

The scientists, that is, not my birdy brethren


I do know however that I subscribed to the 'consciousness resides in the brain and that's why damage to the brain damages consciousness' theory for years.

Only a little thought is necessary before you realise that this is not the soul-disproving mantra that it's taken as by many rationalist.

So far, the evidence we have would fit equally well to the materialist origin of consciousness as to the brain-as-receiver theory, espoused by such unorthodox thinkers as Aldous Huxley. Unorthodox, not loopy.

Unorthodox science of another sort comes from a celebrity geographer Akhil Bakshi, who claims that different 'races' of humanity arose from entirely different species of ape.

I'm not too sure what evidence he's using to support his theory - apparently something concerning the impossibility of humans crossing oceans and deserts thousands of years ago - but he's probably going to be lauded in the NeoNazi and White Power groups*. Funny how the dominant members of the hierarchy are often the ones looking for reasons to bolster their own positions. Or is it funny? Perhaps they are feeling the chilly winds of destruction of this toxic, anti-life structure we've built and name civilization at last.

*=Who, of course, don't realise that Bakshi is of the same basic 'race' as them, that is, Caucasian.

Pic from another of those sites