From Primitive Parts, A Highly Evolved Human Brain

From one perspective, the human brain is a masterpiece. From another, it's 3 pounds of inefficient jelly. Both views are accurate, and that's because our remarkable brain has been assembled from some very primitive parts.

"Although the things it can do are very wonderful and impressive, its design is very poor engineering in many respects," says David Linden, a professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the author of The Accidental Mind.

August 9, 2010, on NPR