Editing Encephalization quotient (section)

=== Variance in brain sizes ===
Body size accounts for 80–90% of the variance in brain size, between species, and a relationship described by an allometric equation: the regression of the logarithms of brain size on body size. The distance of a species from the regression line is a measure of its encephalization.<ref name=Finlay2009/> The scales are logarithmic, distance, or residual, is an encephalization quotient (EQ), the ratio of actual brain size to expected brain size. Encephalization is a characteristic of a species.

Rules for brain size relates to the number brain neurons have varied in evolution, then not all mammalian brains are necessarily built as larger or smaller versions of a same plan, with proportionately larger or smaller numbers of neurons. Similarly sized brains, such as a cow or chimpanzee, might in that scenario contain very different numbers of neurons, just as a very large cetacean brain might contain fewer neurons than a gorilla brain. Size comparison between the human brain and non-primate brains, larger or smaller, might simply be inadequate and uninformative – and our view of the human brain as outlier, a special oddity, may have been based on the mistaken assumption that all brains are made the same (Herculano-Houzel, 2012).<ref name=Herculano2012/>{{citation needed |reason=Entire paragraph is full of spelling/grammatical errors. Source material should be referenced to obtain the correct verbiage. |date=December 2019}}