Musk claims birth by C-section leads to bigger brains - but as he constantly proves its not size that matter but intelligence

It doesn't "wind me up", but it does concern me that this may represent a move further towards a 'women as gestational incubators' position. That natural pregnancy and birth are outdated anomalies to be replaced by factory like gestational processes.

Vaginal birth provides the newborn with an environment in which the immune system is boosted. Studies show that children born by caesarian have weaker immune systems:

Exposure to beneficial bacteria
During vaginal birth, a baby is exposed to beneficial bacteria from the mother's birth canal. This bacteria helps build the baby's immune system and coats the baby's skin, which prevents harmful bacteria from growing.

Higher levels of protective antibodies
Babies born vaginally produce double the amount of protective antibodies after childhood vaccines compared to babies born by C-section.

Development of immune system
The composition of the maternal microbiota that is transmitted during vaginal birth plays a role in the development of the baby's immune system.

Reduced risk of conditions
Babies born vaginally may have a lower risk of developing asthma, food allergies, and lactose intolerance.

Babies born by C-section may have an impaired immune system later in life because they don't have the same exposure to maternal bacteria.

I used to think that Musk was just misunderstood but he’s gradually outed himself as being a genuinely arrogant twat.

I am beginning to align myself with this

Not that I ever paid much attention to him.

The logic is basically sound that removing one constraint to maximum infant head size by having CS available where necessary might lead to gradual increase in average infant head size.

But Jen is right that the changes found in this paper in adults are far far more likely to relate to social factors like childhood nutrition and education.

And more to the point in FWR, EM has a long history of thinking that it's important for "the right" women to have more babies, regardless of what they or "the wrong" women actually want, and this comment whiffs of a similar Handmaid's Tale line of thought.

Brain size correlates with about 9 to 16% of the variation in intelligence. Density of neural networks about 25%.

I don't think that's true - children have much denser neural networks than adults. The process of learning seems to be more about removing neural connections than creating them.

E.g. https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2018/05/17/Intelligence-is-correlated-with-fewer-neural-connections-not-more-study-finds/2041526572310/

Brain size is not what determines intelligence. It is the density of the neural network.

To make an analogy: It is not the size of the building the library is in that determines how good a library is, it is the quality and quantity of the books and the way in which the books are organized.

If the large building is empty except for two books about the Kardashians, well ....

Perhaps everyone is just bored with the relentless Elon Took My Dinner Money threads, but I didn't get the joke. I reread the article and still don't get the joke.

There are a lot of "ifs" in that hypothesis though. I started writing out the way it could lead to the opposite happening but it felt quite eugenicsy so I didn't.

Its very very theoretical, the sort of discussion you might have while slightly stoned on "Do you think that we will all eventually evolve to have no toes due ...." Harmless as a random musing. But not something to be taken seriously and I think he really thinks his thoughts should be.

And brain volume depends more on the amount of wrinkles the brain has. A race of huge headed, smooth brained people bumbling about Mars 1 million years from now would be fun to see though.

"In fact, the people interpreting his statement as ridiculous are proving him right because they aren't smart enough to understand what he's talking about"

it's not so much about stupid/smart. it's more about confirmation bias. musk said it and we hate im so let's take worst possible interpretation.

This theory has been around for a while. I don't know if it's true but it's a reasonable theory I think and not beyond the realms of possibility.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38210837

If, for whatever reason, humankind adopted 100% csection policy over thousands of years then the brain and birth canal size would cease to be an issue.

It doesn’t need a 100% CS rate, just CS whenever necessary.

It's not false though. He's speaking from a vast, evolutionary scale and has nothing to do with a single anecdotal claim of csections creating bigger heads. In fact, the people interpreting his statement as ridiculous are proving him right because they aren't smart enough to understand what he's talking about.

1. Human birth evolved to be extremely dangerous due to the size of the baby's head. Babies are already being born at the earliest possible time without potentially killing a lot of the mothers.

2. That also explains why human infancy and babyhood is ridiculously difficult compared to the infancy of animals. The brain is essentially maturing and growing for years after birth at the cost of independence and survival skills.

3. If, for whatever reason, humankind adopted 100% csection policy over thousands of years then the brain and birth canal size would cease to be an issue. It would be unpredictable how human gestation would evolve as a result of this.

4. Babies may end up being born later as they can survive without the risk of mother and child dying during birth. The head and brain size might start increasing because this is no longer a factor for mortality.

5. It would also mean that at some point in humanity's distant future, becoming pregnant without access to csection care would be a death sentence. It could have dramatic impact on birth control, society, medical care etc.

6. It could also mean that humans end up evolving into two different races similar to homo sapiens and neanderthals. One tribe would be similar to today with the ability to give birth naturally. One would be solely reliant on csections to the huge size of the babies. Going logically, the smarter and wealthier class would be those with mandatory csection.

There also seem to be a large number of posters (here and on other threads) equating not being able to understand, or not agreeing with, something someone said with lack of intelligence of that person rather than themselves.

What matters more - size, intelligence or money, pots of money.

The number of people who have commented on this thread to mock Musk's tweet without reading or comprehending it is more of an indication of intelligence on population level than anything he has said. That includes OP who seems to have misunderstood his quote to mean delivery by C-section causes big heads and others who believed her.

This is what Musk said (see photo) and there is nothing controversial about it. C-section has allowed babies with large heads and hence brains to be born and allowed human evolution to continue in the direction of larger brains beyond the limit of the birth canal.

C-sections increase head size on a population level because they allow babies with larger head circumference (and mothers producing babies with larger head circumference) to survive and reproduce meaning more babies with larger heads. Simple evolutionary genetics.

The process of having a c section increases the head circumference of a baby?

Or do you mean the average head circumference of babies born by c section is greater than the average of babies born vaginally?

Very different.

And you can tell from the bumps on the head if they're going to grow up to be idiots, the bigger the bumps the bigger the idiot. When your whole heads one big bump you're Elon Musk.

It's a well known scientific fact don't you know. 🤣🤣🤣

I think the problem here is in him suggesting any causal pattern, rather than correlation.

How can a procedure that happens AFTER gestation affect anything that happens during gestation? Does the C section act retrospectively?

It is to be expected that more large sized babies are born by C section because they are too big for vaginal birth. This would be correlation at a population level; the large baby with large brain (head) is causing the C section not the other way around.

So if he is using these stats to argue that C section produces (causes) babies with bigger heads /brains he is a simpleton.

I have assumed that he is talking about brain size at birth? Beyond birth there are many environmental factors that might affect subsequent growth.

C sections do increase brain (or at the very least head) size at a population level. This isn't in dispute. Musk is still a wanker though.

What has this got to do with sex and gender? I know! It is because Musk has stopped people being banned on X for pointing out it is impossible to change sex 🤔

Oh to be as thick as Musk so my business enterprises do as poorly as his…

Large head circumference is linked to ASD.

This is a follow on from evolutionary psychology which teaches that as humans developed, and their brains got bigger, the women who could give birth without the babies heads getting stuck meant that human evolution could progress at such a fast rate. This is basic stuff taught in universities for decades. So c sections allow for the birth of babies with larger heads. It doesn't mean that having a c section makes babies heads bigger.

And people continually starting threads moaning about Musk being given too much coverage...erm thats what you just did.

I think he sounds confused. We may need c-sections or cutting sometimes because our heads are so big but I’m not sure where he got that c-sections increase head size. Bewildering.