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Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« on: November 13, 2012, 09:12:55 pm »
http://news.yahoo.com/humans-becoming-less-intelligent-173400651.html

Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
By Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff Writer | LiveScience.com – Mon, Nov 12, 2012

 

Humans may be gradually losing intelligence, according to a new study.

The study, published today (Nov. 12) in the journal Trends in Genetics, argues that humans lost the evolutionary pressure to be smart once we started living in dense agricultural settlements several thousand years ago.

"The development of our intellectual abilities and the optimization of thousands of intelligence genes probably occurred in relatively non-verbal, dispersed groups of peoples [living] before our ancestors emerged from Africa," said study author Gerald Crabtree, a researcher at Stanford University, in a statement.

Since then it's all been downhill, Crabtree contends.

The theory isn't without critics, with one scientist contacted by LiveScience suggesting that rather than losing our smarts, humans have just diversified them with various types of intelligence today.

Life or death situations

Early humans lived or died by their spatial abilities, such as quickly making a shelter or spearing a saber-toothed tiger. Nowadays, though almost everyone has the spatial ability to do ostensibly simple tasks like washing dishes or mowing the lawn, such tasks actually require a lot of brainpower, the researchers note.

And we can thank our ancestors and the highly tuned mechanism of natural selection for such abilities. Meanwhile, the ability to play chess or compose poetry likely evolved as collateral effects.

But after the spread of agriculture, when our ancestors began to live in dense farming communities, the intense need to keep those genes in peak condition gradually waned.

And its unlikely that the evolutionary advantage of intelligence is greater than it was during our hunter-gatherer past, the paper argues.

"A hunter-gatherer who did not correctly conceive a solution to providing food or shelter probably died, along with his/her progeny, whereas a modern Wall Street executive that made a similar conceptual mistake would receive a substantial bonus and be a more attractive mate. Clearly, extreme selection is a thing of the past," the researchers write in the journal article.

Intelligence genes

Anywhere between 2,000 and 5,000 genes determine human intelligence, and these genes are particularly susceptible to harmful changes, or mutations, the researchers write. Based on knowledge of the rate of mutations, the team concludes that the average person harbors two intelligence-stunting genetic changes that evolved over the last 3,000 years.

The hypothesis is counterintuitive at first. After all, across the world the average IQ has increased dramatically over the last 100 years, a phenomenon known as the Flynn Effect. But most of that jump probably resulted from better prenatal care, better nutrition and reduced exposure to brain-stunting chemicals such as lead, Crabtree argues.

But just because humans have more mutations in their intelligence genes doesn't mean we are becoming less brainy as a species, said psychologist Thomas Hills of the University of Warwick, who was not involved in the study. Instead, removing the pressure for everyone to be a superb hunter or gatherer may have allowed us to evolve a more diverse population with different types of smarts, he said.

"You don't get Stephen Hawking 200,000 years ago. He just doesn't exist," Hills told LiveScience. "But now we have people of his intellectual capacity doing things and making insights that we would never have achieved in our environment of evolutionary adaptation."
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Offline Relic

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #1 on: November 13, 2012, 09:24:51 pm »
Doesn't take a scientist to see that coming. This movie, a stupid movie, is more prophetic than I'd like it to be.


Oceander

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #2 on: November 14, 2012, 02:08:05 am »
Kurt Vonnegut touched on the topic in his book Galapagos.


It does make for an interesting read.
« Last Edit: November 14, 2012, 02:08:41 am by Oceander »

Offline Scottftlc

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #3 on: November 14, 2012, 03:21:23 am »
Ask Joe Biden and you'll find the answer.
Well, George Lewis told the Englishman, the Italian and the Jew
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Offline alicewonders

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #4 on: November 14, 2012, 03:32:58 am »
"Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?"

Yes.   :thud:
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Offline Allegra

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #5 on: November 14, 2012, 04:34:17 am »
Just look at some of the shows that are popular on TV and there's your answer.
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Offline Poser

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #6 on: November 14, 2012, 04:36:15 am »
Devo had it right

famousdayandyear

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #7 on: November 14, 2012, 04:49:56 am »
And you can bet the teacher's union will hurry along the decline that will be wrapped up by marxists at tenured universities

Oceander

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #8 on: November 15, 2012, 03:23:08 am »
Quote
whereas a modern Wall Street executive that made a similar conceptual mistake would receive a substantial bonus and be a more attractive mate.

Nope.  That's pure B.S.  A crony capitalist, like the goons at Citigroup, who have democrat/progressive politicians - like Barack Obama - in their pockets will get along just fine because they've purchased effective immunity from politicians like Mr. Obama; real Wall Street executives, like hedge fund managers, can easily lose their live savings by making a conceptual mistake; unlike crony capitalists and their captive politicians, who simply use the coercive force of government to reward themselves whether or not they've made a conceptual mistake.

Offline Zissou

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #9 on: November 15, 2012, 03:28:27 am »
After 102 years of Union run Schools, certainly Americans are.

It's part of the plan to create dependency.



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Offline PzLdr

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #10 on: November 27, 2012, 05:00:59 pm »
http://news.yahoo.com/humans-becoming-less-intelligent-173400651.html

Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
By Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff Writer | LiveScience.com – Mon, Nov 12, 2012

 

Humans may be gradually losing intelligence, according to a new study.

The study, published today (Nov. 12) in the journal Trends in Genetics, argues that humans lost the evolutionary pressure to be smart once we started living in dense agricultural settlements several thousand years ago.

"The development of our intellectual abilities and the optimization of thousands of intelligence genes probably occurred in relatively non-verbal, dispersed groups of peoples [living] before our ancestors emerged from Africa," said study author Gerald Crabtree, a researcher at Stanford University, in a statement.

Since then it's all been downhill, Crabtree contends.

The theory isn't without critics, with one scientist contacted by LiveScience suggesting that rather than losing our smarts, humans have just diversified them with various types of intelligence today.

Life or death situations

Early humans lived or died by their spatial abilities, such as quickly making a shelter or spearing a saber-toothed tiger. Nowadays, though almost everyone has the spatial ability to do ostensibly simple tasks like washing dishes or mowing the lawn, such tasks actually require a lot of brainpower, the researchers note.

And we can thank our ancestors and the highly tuned mechanism of natural selection for such abilities. Meanwhile, the ability to play chess or compose poetry likely evolved as collateral effects.

But after the spread of agriculture, when our ancestors began to live in dense farming communities, the intense need to keep those genes in peak condition gradually waned.

And its unlikely that the evolutionary advantage of intelligence is greater than it was during our hunter-gatherer past, the paper argues.

"A hunter-gatherer who did not correctly conceive a solution to providing food or shelter probably died, along with his/her progeny, whereas a modern Wall Street executive that made a similar conceptual mistake would receive a substantial bonus and be a more attractive mate. Clearly, extreme selection is a thing of the past," the researchers write in the journal article.

Intelligence genes

Anywhere between 2,000 and 5,000 genes determine human intelligence, and these genes are particularly susceptible to harmful changes, or mutations, the researchers write. Based on knowledge of the rate of mutations, the team concludes that the average person harbors two intelligence-stunting genetic changes that evolved over the last 3,000 years.

The hypothesis is counterintuitive at first. After all, across the world the average IQ has increased dramatically over the last 100 years, a phenomenon known as the Flynn Effect. But most of that jump probably resulted from better prenatal care, better nutrition and reduced exposure to brain-stunting chemicals such as lead, Crabtree argues.

But just because humans have more mutations in their intelligence genes doesn't mean we are becoming less brainy as a species, said psychologist Thomas Hills of the University of Warwick, who was not involved in the study. Instead, removing the pressure for everyone to be a superb hunter or gatherer may have allowed us to evolve a more diverse population with different types of smarts, he said.

"You don't get Stephen Hawking 200,000 years ago. He just doesn't exist," Hills told LiveScience. "But now we have people of his intellectual capacity doing things and making insights that we would never have achieved in our environment of evolutionary adaptation."

Check the election results for the answer.  :smokin:
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Offline Scottftlc

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #11 on: November 27, 2012, 05:26:40 pm »
Sort of messes up the whole Darwin thing.
Well, George Lewis told the Englishman, the Italian and the Jew
You can't open your mind, boys, to every conceivable point of view

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Oceander

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #12 on: November 27, 2012, 07:56:49 pm »
Sort of messes up the whole Darwin thing.

Not really.

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #13 on: November 27, 2012, 08:06:43 pm »
We're not stupider by nature than our ancestors. But as the quality of education declines, we are certainly acting that way.

"The most terrifying force of death, comes from the hands of Men who wanted to be left Alone. They try, so very hard, to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love. They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it. They know, that the moment they fight back, their lives as they have lived them, are over. -Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Offline Relic

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #14 on: November 27, 2012, 08:14:50 pm »
We're not stupider by nature than our ancestors. But as the quality of education declines, we are certainly acting that way.

The movie "Idiocracy" makes a valid point, even though it's a comedy. We know how to breed animals. That's a given. We have made any number of breeds of dogs, and cattle. If you accept that humans are animals, then it's reasonable to expect that we can breed traits into, or out of our species.

Stupid people are breeding at a much higher rate than smart people. The net result is....?

Offline DCPatriot

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #15 on: November 27, 2012, 08:23:18 pm »
You're mixing up breeding traits with obedience school.

All humans are born ignorant.   Education is key.
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Offline Relic

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #16 on: November 27, 2012, 08:25:30 pm »
You're mixing up breeding traits with obedience school.

All humans are born ignorant.   Education is key.

Education is key, but breeding matters. There's a reason that Clay Matthews father, Clay Matthews was a star in the NFL.

Smart people generally have smart offspring.

Stupid people breed to make stupid people.

Online andy58-in-nh

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #17 on: November 27, 2012, 09:34:45 pm »
Stupid people are breeding at a much higher rate than smart people. The net result is....?

..what anyone can see displayed in red and blue on any county electoral map.
"The most terrifying force of death, comes from the hands of Men who wanted to be left Alone. They try, so very hard, to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love. They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it. They know, that the moment they fight back, their lives as they have lived them, are over. -Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Offline Poser

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #18 on: November 27, 2012, 09:50:07 pm »
..what anyone can see displayed in red and blue on any county electoral map.


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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #19 on: November 27, 2012, 10:15:39 pm »
Any professor who has been teaching for more than a generation can tell you that the intellectual capabilities of today's students is not even close to what they were a generation ago.  Part of it is the fact that technology has severely diminished their capability to concentrate for any extended period of time.  Part of it is the fact that the culture has changed for the worst in terms of how much discipline and achievement are admired and respected.  Part of it may be the fact that we have artificially elevated the incompetent and mediocre, and that means less resources available to nurture the true geniuses among us.

In truth, we don't have to be particularly intelligent to get by in most jobs today.  Machines do most of the heavy lifting for us.

Offline truth_seeker

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #20 on: November 27, 2012, 11:02:06 pm »
At a macro level we may be going backward.

Consider that prosperous Western democracies are literally feeding islamic terrorist supporting regimes.

Egypt cannot feed itself, yet gets massive food aid. In turn those fat bellies strive to kill the very hand that feeds them.

Who is the stupid one? The helping hand or the taking hand?
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Offline Scottftlc

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #21 on: November 27, 2012, 11:04:53 pm »
Feeding them?  Hell, we're arming them.
Well, George Lewis told the Englishman, the Italian and the Jew
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Offline ladybug

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #22 on: November 27, 2012, 11:41:16 pm »
Feeding them?  Hell, we're arming them.

That's more than stupidity, that's psychotic...We are giving them the rope with which to hang us...as a Russian whose name I can't remember, once prophesized.

Offline ladybug

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #23 on: November 27, 2012, 11:44:09 pm »
Ask Joe Biden and you'll find the answer.

Or ask any Democrat.

Offline Scottftlc

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Re: Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
« Reply #24 on: November 27, 2012, 11:47:35 pm »
That's more than stupidity, that's psychotic...We are giving them the rope with which to hang us...as a Russian whose name I can't remember, once prophesized.

That would be Khruschev.
Well, George Lewis told the Englishman, the Italian and the Jew
You can't open your mind, boys, to every conceivable point of view

...Bob Dylan