Anatomical and neurological studies are irrelevant. BEHAVIOR is relevant.
Why do you think I said "FUNCTIONALLY" more complex?
>Simply listing a series of human accomplishments
>that cows have not been able to emulate is not sufficient evidence that
>humand are functionally more complex.
Do you think cow behavior is as complex as human behavior? Do you think it's
even as complex as that of the average DOG? If you do, perhaps you haven't
spent enough time with humans or cows or both. As I said earlier, the issue
is the survival/perpetuation/propagation of information, not complexity per
se. A very complex organism that is nevertheless poorly "designed" for it's
environment may be much less useful as an information-perpetuator than a
simpler but better "designed" organism.
Whether or not a better-surviving glob (that's a technical term :-) ) of
information is or is not more complex (and whether its basic phenotype is
more complex) is incidental. It happens that, like bacteria spreading to the
edge of the agar, evolution does produce more-complex organisms where there
is a niche for them and where the right kind of complexity works better than
available simpler alternatives.
In the long run, some organisms will become very complex because the
information-processing needs will become progressively more complex,
providing survival rewards for genetically-stored information about building
more-sophisticated information processors (i.e., brains). The only limit is
that the costs of maintaining the information processor and using it must
not be so great that they seriously cut into any survival value such
more-advanced brains give. But, while complex information processing
requires a certain basic complexity, and while more-advanced information
processing requires greater complexity in the long run, evolution does not
run along smooth tracks, so it is quite possible for less-effective but
more-complex information processing systems to develop in some niches
because of the evolutionary equivalent of the "qwerty" effect; whatever
already exists tends to provide a "template" for what comes to exist, so
development along certain lines may proceed for some while, until the costs
of continuing in that direction prevent further development in that
direction. Thus, a complex structure may perform a function that might be
better performed by another, simpler structure, were that structure in
place. I don't know what a cow does with its brain, in any detail, but I'd
bet it's not figuring out how to ensure that it's offspring have a good
supply of grass, etc.
Put another way: The complexity of the organism is like the complexity of
the genome itself; it does not tell us much about the survivability of it.
Complexity in genes only goes down when the price of it is too high.
Complexity will go up if it is NEEDED by the genome for general
perpetuation. Simpler solutions will tend to arise when the cost of complex
solutions is too high. The human brain is one such; it is structurally
perhaps no more complex than a cow's brain, but it has the thick neo-cortex
that the cow does not have, and this gives it the right KIND of complexity
to enable it to do things that the cow's brain cannot do. That's why, among
other reasons, there are so few cows on this list (and cows say that the
difficulty of getting good cow-keyboards is another reason).
Progress in evolution is not toward more complexity as such, or even toward
more complex information processing, but toward information processing that
yields a better chance of surviving and perpetuating geneticly and/or
non-geneticly stored information. Complexity is sometimes a necessary aspect
of the means of doing this. This is why a desktop computer is more complex
than an abacus; no one has been able to make something as simple as an
abacus that can do what a desktop computer can do. But the desktop's
complexity is not a goal in itself. Indeed, if we COULD have something as
simple as an abacus that could do what a desktop computer can do, we'd go
for it immediately (unless it was too costly for some reason).
>However, "conceptual coping" is not a neurological term; would you please
>define it and give an example or two?
This is a surprising question, like being asked to give an example of
eating. Besides, I gave several in the paragraph you are criticizing.
As for giving a definition:
Conceptual coping: Using conceptual thought as a major, general, and crucial
aspect of dealing with the environment.
We humans THINK our way, to a very large degree, through life, and we would
not last long if we did not.