"Treffert is convinced that some savants don't have to learn the algorithms involved in tasks like calendar calculating. The software comes preinstalled."

This is ridiculous. The probability of a random rewiring of the brain producing any type of useful algorithm is so small it would never be observed. Besides, what is the possible survival value of calendar computations?

The answer to that may lie in Las Vegas (hat tip: "The Rain Man").

Orrin:

Maybe it was but your savant had ADHD.

What jd said.

Calendars are human constructs, so at a minimum, the savant has to be taught the notions of days and years and, probably, counting.

Stephen Jay Gould, whose son was a calendar counter, has a curious paragraph in which he asks the boy how he did determine a fact (if I recall correctly, the boy was able to name the day of the week instantly for a distant date). The boy's explanation was as mechanical as a bird song.

The algorithms for performing the everyday actions that we take for granted, like maintaining balance as we walk, or caculating the trajectory of a thrown object (whether trrowing or catching), would put a simple calendar calulating algorithm to shame. In that light, the savant's abilities are not all that amazing.

I read a book on human evolution (the name and author escape me now), that suggested it was the practice of throwing stones accurately to kill prey that drove the evolution of ever increasing brain capacity in humans. Each mutation which increased brain size led to an increased ability to calculate trajectories, which allowed stones to be thrown from greater distances, enhancing the success and survivability of the hunter. Does anyone remember reading this?

Robert:

Thankfully, no. But why would they need to? Why would a generation need to improve on the previous generation's ability to do so if the previous generation had survived well enough to beget it. Were the animals evolving better evasive techniques? Also, if that theory is true, we must be far better at felling deer or birds with stones than out distant ancestors. Any proof of that or did our brains decide to take a rest for a few eons?

Peter,
The added advantage wasn't to compete with swifter animals, but with other (proto)humans. If I can bag bigger game at less risk than comrade Og, then I'll be able to have a beter party at my cave and lure all the hottest babes.

It is like the joke: Two men are out in the bush photographing wildlife. They come upon a lion eyeing them with thoughts of dinner. One of the men takes a pair of running shoes from his backpack and starts putting them on. The other man says to him "You don't really think you can outrun that lion, do you?" The first man says " I don't have to outrun him, I only have to outrun you."

Robert:

Whoa. I thought evolution explained our development in terms of the ability of our species to survive, i.e. compared to other species. Now you are telling me it is a beggar thy neighbour process to see which of Og or Ug starves. Meanwhile, according to Jeff, it gave us some innate moral sense based upon reciprocity which makes Og beholden to Ug.

Evolution really is a many-splendoured thing.

Peter:

Recall that Darwinism either has to explain every persistent and recurrent emotion, thought, and action or be called into doubt--therefore, it does explain them all for the faithful.

I wish you antidarwinists knew even a little bit about it. Natural selection is all-inclusive. Darwin wrote a 2-volume book about sexual selection. Yes, attracting the hottest babes is a survival mechanism.

And, yes, the prey species do keep getting better. Once there were plains covered by reptiles, who moved sluggishly compared with mammals. You don't see giant herds of lizards in the Serengeti today, though they hang on, generally as individuals, in out of the way places.

And Orrin is incorrect to say that darwinism has to account for every single persistent character. Evolution occurs as suites, not the selection of individual characters. The lion, when he eats the hunter, does not select between the two because one has blue eyes, the other brown. But whichever he gets, that tends to push the characters of future generations toward the preserved eye color.

Not important, probably, in a population of 6 billion, but it could be in a population of 16.

"Orrin is incorrect to say that darwinism has to account for every single persistent character. Evolution occurs as suites, not the selection of individual characters. The lion, when he eats the hunter, does not select between the two because one has blue eyes, the other brown. But whichever he gets, that tends to push the characters of future generations toward the preserved eye color."

That's self-contradictory.

And illogical to boot. Why would lions end up mainly eating hunters of any one eye colour?

If a persistent character occurs billions of times and has not changed in recorded history, then the theory is missing something.

Thus, the question of the soul. What is even more problematic is the recurrence of aesthetic genius springing from seemingly barren conditions (examples too numerous to mention, even in antiquity), and decadent sloth coming from fertile ground (see Gibbons, Nietzsche, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Bret Easton Ellis, et. al.).