Page 120 - The Miracle of Electricity in the Body

as far as we know, is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter
in the universe. How could the human brain develop out of the primeval
slime? 68
In order to conceive of the magnitude of the number of nerve cell
interconnections in the brain, the Amazon rain forest can provide an ap-
propriate analogy. These forests extend over an area of 7,800,000 square
kilometers (3,011,596 square miles) and contain around 100 billion trees.
The number of connections between the neurons is much greater than all
the leaves on the trees in the Amazon rain forest. If only 10% of
the 100 billion neurons transmit a signal at any given
moment, the intensity of the chemical and electrical
activity that results shows the extraordinary na-
ture of the brain. 69
On the other hand, the area covered by
the brain is remarkably small to contain
such a detailed network. Richard Dawkins,
one of the most prominent adherents of the
theory of evolution, compares the neurons
in the brain to transistors and offers the fol-
lowing analogy about the area taken up by
neurons in the skull:
But the individual neuron is a much more so-
phisticated data-processing unit than the transis-