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occlude comments on Brain shrinkage in humans over past ~20 000 years - what did we lose? - Less Wrong
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Here is another, just as plausible hypothesis: given that intelligence is determined largely by the amount of grey matter of the neocortex, which is a relatively small part of a mammalian brain, the absolute increase in the grey matter volume would allow for much larger absolute reduction in the brain size without reducing intelligence.
There is nothing inherently "default" about either hypothesis, both require experimental testing just the same. If you privilege one of them, you are committing a cognitive fallacy.
If all you know about two mammals is that they have different brain sizes, then it seems plausible to guess that the one with the larger brain (especially if the brain is larger by mass and as a ratio to body size) has greater overall functionality. This doesn't seem like a particularly privileged hypothesis, just the baseline observation.
Look at the title: "...what did we lose?". It assumes that we lost something, seems like clearly privileging this hypothesis.