Academic Competency

Sir Ken Robinson links to a fun film where giraffes jump from a springboard into the water (Deveaux). It evokes the emotions of surprise and curiosity. The film can be created because of something called imagery – the ability to work out scenarios for our inner eye. This ability arose (1) after our ancestors started eating bone marrow and meat that expanded their prefrontal cortex, (2) after [at least] two major climate changes. In 1840, Elizabeth Ricord wrote that using imagination to combine conceptions was the highest level of the intellect. In the early 20th century, physicists, mathematicians and psychologists reasoned about the same. Link to my appearance at the 2012 Science Festival on creativity. The neurological and psychological dispositions of our species, which enable creations like the video showing giraffes jumping, arose as a consequence of animal-based food and significant climate change. Note. The same mental ability underlies all artifacts (things that do not occur in...