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lsparrish comments on Scientific misconduct misdiagnosed because of scientific misconduct - Less Wrong
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Temperature regulation aspects might rate more highly as an influencing factor than one would think. Large bodies (and probably the head in particular) would be more resistant to hypothermia, whereas small bodies would be more resistant to heat-stroke.
Regardless of why, animals definitely do become larger further north and the brain size seems to follow the body size quite closely without much impact on intelligence. I don't know if arctic animals are quite on the scaling line. They do seem a bit smarter.
(The point of this comment is just to disentangle theory from observation.)
If I'm reading this right, the brain-to-body mass ratio dosen't change?
I was not claiming that. That is the thing I said I don't know: "I don't know if arctic animals are quite on the scaling line." This is a precise question about data is that has been collected. I just don't know what the data says. I'm not sure what I meant by "quite." When animals diverge from the scaling line, like primates, corvids, and dolphins, they move to parallel scaling line, not far from the main line.
Incidentally, the scaling line is not a constant brain to body mass ratio, but that the brain mass is a constant multiple of the 3/4th power of the body mass.
Ok than you for clearing that up (up vote), I hope you didn't mind me asking since I wasn't sure if I understood the comment properly or not. :)