The Decline of Intelligence in Modern Humans
Studies suggest that we are gradually becoming less intelligent. The comparison is between us and the primitive hunter-gatherers, the Paleolithic early humans, for example. It has nothing to do with brain size -- the Neanderthals have larger brains than us.
The reason for losing our intelligence is due to the fact that we are no longer pressured to live under the fight and flight situations. We no longer have to make tools and hunt for food. The development of our intelligence had peaked during the period before Homo Erectus (about 2 million years ago). The advent of agriculture had contributed to the decline in our intelligence.
So if we think about it, it is about the learning curve. The early humans, before Homo Sapiens, had a steep learning curve. The learning was happening rapidly, intensely, and not enough time to model an experience -- it was a very precarious, intense life. The evolutionary stress, as researchers call it, was the reason why primitive humans experienced the highest increase in intelligence.
On a side note, domesticated cats have smaller brains than the wild cats. Their neural crest cells had decreased in size as they no longer experience threats like in the wild.
Addendum:
Should we adjust our thinking about intelligence and redefine what it is today? Or should we have a continuum of measurement starting from the early humans? I believe that our comparison should be a continuum. We can't use technology today to argue that we're smarter. There's a measure for that that has nothing to do with the intelligence we are talking about here.
The reason for losing our intelligence is due to the fact that we are no longer pressured to live under the fight and flight situations. We no longer have to make tools and hunt for food. The development of our intelligence had peaked during the period before Homo Erectus (about 2 million years ago). The advent of agriculture had contributed to the decline in our intelligence.
So if we think about it, it is about the learning curve. The early humans, before Homo Sapiens, had a steep learning curve. The learning was happening rapidly, intensely, and not enough time to model an experience -- it was a very precarious, intense life. The evolutionary stress, as researchers call it, was the reason why primitive humans experienced the highest increase in intelligence.
On a side note, domesticated cats have smaller brains than the wild cats. Their neural crest cells had decreased in size as they no longer experience threats like in the wild.
Addendum:
Should we adjust our thinking about intelligence and redefine what it is today? Or should we have a continuum of measurement starting from the early humans? I believe that our comparison should be a continuum. We can't use technology today to argue that we're smarter. There's a measure for that that has nothing to do with the intelligence we are talking about here.
Comments (102)
How do these studies define and measure intelligence?
Sorry, I made an edit above. Please read my OP again. Thanks.
Mostly spatial skills and tasks-driven abilities. They contend that our ability today, such as computer knowledge, is the result of those early primitive skills.
Tom, now that you said that, we can look at philosophy to know that misery is actually a modern problem. But, good point. lol.
What studies. Without that your post is vapid.
The Flynn Effect
I call bullshit.
Quoting Banno
Banno - You beat me to it. Here's a link to the Wikipedia article on the Flynn Effect. IQ test results are going up significantly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
Here's one.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2011.0099
Quoting T Clark
You guys should wean yourselves from IQ and Wikipedia.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-smart-early-humans-brain-imaging-answers-180963176/
Um. You realize domesticated cats are exponentially smaller than wild cats, right? That kinda goes along with the whole size thing. A blue whale's brain is 20 pounds yet all it can do for the creature is let it know when to make weird noises and not suffocate to death.
Quoting L'éléphant
Maybe but, naw...
Quoting L'éléphant
Oh but we can use it to argue that we're dumber. As Trump would say "bing bing bong".
Quoting L'éléphant
I would hope so, seeing as you've neglected to include any details of it.
Quoting L'éléphant
That study is about whether language was a result of tools making or gesturing. It does not support your thesis.
I said in my OP "studies suggest". The precursor of all our skills today are the evolutionary wins that the prehistoric humans had achieved. Do you really think that someone today learning another language has an equal difficulty and learning curve as the prehistoric humans who were just beginning to form a language? Be serious now.
The steepness of the curve shows how much a person had learned and improved. So, a person learning a completely new task, has a very steep curve, compared to the one who does not have to invent the wheel.
I see where you wish to go; that the lack of existential threats means we don't have to think as hard; but firstly the evidence seems to lead to the opposite conclusion, and secondly we live in far more complex societies, which presumably are more difficult to navigate.
Banno, sometimes talking to you incites the murderous self in me.
Did you read the links I provided?
it's what I do.
Quoting L'éléphant
Yes. You've tried to infer more than they will allow.
The study and article linked to in later posts do not "suggest we are becoming less intelligent".
[quote=Louise Pasteur]Chance favors the prepared mind.[/quote]
[quote=Lowell Edmunds (Chance and Intelligence in Thucydides)]Thinking in opposites was a Greek habit, and the antithesis of chance versus rational planning and competence was a common place in fifth-century Greek thought. In this ably written study Lowell Edmunds shows how Thucydides uses the antithesis of chance and intelligence both to analyze events and to characterize persons. He sets forth the view of the Thucydidean Pericles, in which intelligence is expected to overcome fortune, and contrasts it with that of the Spartans, who had a strong sense of the limitations imposed on the human mind by the power of chance. This difference emerges especially in the story of Nicias, “an Athenian with a Spartan heart.” Thucydides, whose methodology is obviously akin to Athenian rationality, faces a dilemma in the defeat of Athens by Sparta; this leads the author to a discussion of Thucydides’ methods and concept of history.[/quote]
In Darwinism, blind chance (evolution) beats blind chance (extinction level events are all rolls of dice) with blind chance (random genetic mutation). At some point the accumulated random mutation resulted in an intelligent ape (h. sapiens) who's the Thucydidean Pericles.
Trial and error/guess and test is the most primitive method of solving problems and yet, given the random nature of the universe, the solution ought to be proportionately random. Random walks, idiots do it best! Geniuses need to become dunces to live to see the next day.
Exponentially smaller? What do you mean? Your stuff about the whale is far from the truth.
Quoting Agent Smith
So the dogma goes...
I'm actually with Jackass on this one, mean IQ has been steadily increasing for decades. OWID documents the trends here: https://ourworldindata.org/intelligence
That being said, there are plenty of studies showing a reverse Flynn Effect, Flyn Effect being the theory that better nutrition and educational standards increase IQ, in certain localized regions; that info can be found here, but you'll have to make an account https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277726115_A_negative_Flynn_Effect_in_France_1999_to_2008-9. Definitively, there isn't enough data to conclude one way or another just yet, but the trends are towards IQ increase. To put that into perspective, you can view this study which documents a reversal of the Flynn Effect trend as well https://www.pnas.org/content/115/26/6674. Either way, there's not enough research to go on just yet. This topic is premature.
That's exactly why something silly as the IQ has been developed. To find your way or excell in exactly the kind of society that sprang from the abstract thinking.
First, we would need a controlled study over those decades. Consistent measures of what it is to be intelligent, and ensuring that such a measure of intelligence is not culturally or socially biased.
Second, we would likely need detailed brain scans to compare brain development.
Neither of these things is available. Therefore any claim that we are less intelligent than our ancestors is purely speculative, and cannot be based on any serious study or science.
You can close it if you're tempted. No sweat.
Quoting unenlightened
Right. Compared to your boring threads? Sorry, just kidding. *giggles*
Quoting Philosophim
They actually did some measurements -- https://theconversation.com/how-our-species-got-smarter-through-a-rush-of-blood-to-the-head-73856
-- granted these are primates (hominid) -- https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.160305
And if I haven't linked this https://www.livescience.com/24713-humans-losing-intelligence.html This is the article that you may or may not agree. In the end, perhaps, we could only opine that intelligence had become more diverse, but not superior.
Quoting Garrett Travers
Okay, for the sake of discussion, how does this increase compare to the learning curve theory?
If increase in knowledge is behind this, then rather than looking at improvement in intelligence as the result of improvement in nutrition, it may make more sense to see historical development of intelligence in terms of neural connectivity, which is how our brain manifests cultural transmission.
As we change our social and physical environment ( including our bodies) through our technologies, these feed back to us and increase the complexity of neural connections, producing an accelerating trajectory of knowledge growth. Intelligence should be seen as a self-perpetuating reciprocal process of human-environment interaction.
To use a computer analogy, instead of equating intelligence with hardware, we should see it as software continually updating itself.
Seems like what's being argued actually relates to a specific and limited set of cognitive skills rather than intelligence in general or intelligence as it's generally understood. And there's not even a clearly articulated alternative theory of what intelligence should be. It could be an interesting subject but it deserves a much more nuanced approach. E.g. Recent evolutionary studies pose questions for how we measure intelligence, or X cognitive skills are on the decline in modern humans (+this is bad because...)
please cite the studies. Otherwise please withdraw this statement.
Maybe. But I just had a cheese, mushroom and sage omelet that might have been good enough to make up the difference.
And just how did they test the intelligence of Paleolithic humans?
I have heard rumors that IQ scores have been rising throughout the 20th century. Maybe it's just me, but I haven't seen any evidence that people are getting smarter.
We shouldn't see any real change in intelligence or brain size over a short period of time -- like 2 or 3 centuries. In time, it might change, but with 8 billion people breeding without any eugenic supervision, it's hard to see how the AVERAGE intelligence would change. Very stupid and very bright outliers have always been produced.
No, no, no! You have to grow the sage and mushrooms, hunt down the eggs, and build the fire to get the full benefit...
A minor 'dip or flux' of observation is irrelevant to large scale studies that show human intelligence as well as human well-being is steadily increasing, slowly but surely.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Mr. Graham tried something like that with the graham cracker.
“The graham cracker was inspired by the preaching of Sylvester Graham who was part of the 19th-century temperance movement. He believed that minimizing pleasure and stimulation of all kinds, including the prevention of masturbation, coupled with a vegetarian diet anchored by bread made from wheat coarsely ground at home, was how God intended people to live, and that following this natural law would keep people healthy.”
Washington Post Headline: Cheaters invalidate IQ study results.
Thanks for the laugh.
Meanwhile, I have work to do:
Are Humans Getting Smarter or Dumber?, Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience
I don't have access to the actual Crabtree research. But I just want to point out that this is one of those studies examining the development of intelligence throughout the history of prehistoric and modern humans.
IQ is culturally influenced. The researchers are looking into factors that are not cultural-driven. Reaction time is one. Here's Woodley:
Are you referring to the Darwin Awards?
There is truth to this. All in moderation.
Quoting Agent Smith
IQ is influenced by culture. And yes, you can practice the IQ tests.
Yes, there is evidence to suggest that hunter-gatherers were much more well-rounded and capable than modern domesticated humans (the same can be said about domesticated farm animals). Much of this has to do with the specialization of work that comes with sedentary agricultural life. Cities are like tool boxes, with each person being a tool that performs a specific function but is only really useful when part of an assembly of other tools. A hunter-gatherer, on the other hand, is like a Swiss army knife, capable of doing lots of different tasks on its own (viz self-sufficiency), or at least with assistance from a small group of other multi-purpose tools (of which the collaboration is voluntary).
We don't care.
So, at least Crabtree based his guess on something in particular, though it isn't at all convincing. Look, we don't know whether people are smarter now, or dumber, than they were 1, 2, 5, 10, or 50 thousand years ago. We have no way of knowing that--none. We don't have highly valid and reliable ways for measuring the intelligence of people who are here today. (Which is not to say that existing instruments have zero validity and reliability.)
It is better to operate with the understanding that human intelligence has not changed on average. It might have changed--might be better, might be worse--there is just no way to prove either one.
What difference does it make in the end? Whoever is alive at any given moment in history has a unique set of problems to deal with, a set of resources to work with, and a certain amount of intelligence and experience. They may do well, the may do badly, or some result in between. There are far too many factors in play for anyone to derive meaning estimates about intelligence.
I'm gonna use my bias argument and say this is the kind of thinking I have been expecting on this thread.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Unfortunately, I do. I started this thread. I should at least have some responsibility for it.
Quoting Bitter Crank
You mean you're not convinced. That's fine. That's why I created this thread. But to continue saying "we don't know..." and "we have no way of knowing.." are killers of rational dialectic. You don't know. That's fine. But Crabtree and Woodley certainly know something. Crabtree runs the lab to investigate things like this.
We have domesticated ourselves which could possibly have effected our cognitive abilities as it has with other domesticated animals ... but we were actively selecting in those cases so maybe not the best comparison.
One thing I think we should take into account is that smart people will likely shine brighter within a certain population range. In a group of ten people the smartest will likely be clear, whereas in a group of more, at some point, they may not shine as bright.
The smartest human in the world today will probably not be appreciated by m/any around them beyond those close to them. In smaller groups the ability to shine is more easily recognised.
There are two questions here:
One is: Were hunters / gatherers smarter than us, or not?
Two is: Can we determine the answer to question One?
Answer One: I don't know; nobody else does either.
Answer Two: We can not.
At a distance, I don't have a reliable, valid way of measuring your intelligence. I would need to be present with you, administer tests, and observe your performance. I would need to interview you, take a personal and family history, etc. For a much less robust measurement, I could have someone administer a paper and pencil test to you.
Let's try going back in time to... 1900. Let's measure the intelligence of your ancestor. You choose. I will assume the person is dead. How would we measure his or her intelligence?
Let's go way back to 15,000 B.C.E. The time machine is broken so we will have to measure the intelligence of someone ??? far away in time and space. How would we measure his or her intelligence?
Quoting L'éléphant
Not so! There is nothing wrong or irrational about saying "We don't know" when, in fact we do not know, and in fact there is no way to know.
What we can and do know about our hunter / gatherer forebears is that
a) they survived the difficulties they faced (we know, because we descended from them)
b) they were very good tool makers (we know because many of their stone tools survived)
c) they had a culture for which they left very few traces, except cave paintings and many stone tools. (We know that fabric and wood tend to not survive in the environment for long. We have seen the caves, and have collected the stone tools.)
d) they were successful in their lives (their skeletons show that they were generally healthy and strong
When you reach the end of what you can currently know, it is appropriate to claim no more knowledge. Future research may reveal more about our distant forebears. I will quote Wittgenstein here: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." Topics like "The nature of God" are examples about which we should remain silent.
We certainly can and will speculate about what we MIGHT know in the future. That's fine as long as we don't claim our speculation as fact, until it IS fact, which it might never be.
?
Don't worry about that. I said that becauseI favor that kind of thinking. There's insight.
Quoting I like sushi
Well, that's what we would commonly expect. But have you ever been a part of a group assigned to do a project with very little training and of diverse background? I had been in that group. The will (or motivation) will always trump smarts.
It was a large group, so you couldn't shine. We were all given a manual to read and learn all the nooks and crannies and names of departments, their functions, on all 4 directions of the NSEW of a very large complex and multiple buildings. A guy next to me who didn't go to college and probably barely passed high school started reading the manual in the morning and by afternoon he was giving directions and instructions to people. Like, he could even estimate the distance from the east wing to across the courtyard to the next building. WTF. If you were not born with high IQ, develop your will.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Crabtree and Woodley are researchers. They use science to do their work. Not speculation.
And yet you have presented nothing but speculation. You eventually found someone who agrees with you but still cannot come up with anything. You haven't even read the papers. The quote about Crabtree gives no evidence that intelligence has gone down, only a possible reason why it might. This thread is really bad, partly because of your obnoxious manner. I'm reluctant to delete it only because people have put some effort into writing posts.
If you had not pretended that there was evidence, and had instead been open about being entirely speculative, the thread would have been better.
Of course. I respect scientists, science, and research. The fact remains that they could not examine the subjects because they had been dead for thousands of years.
Genetic changes may well have occurred. As far as I know (that's not too far) the means by which any given gene or set of genes determines intelligence isn't a road map.
Here:
I'm biased towards genetics determining a lot of what we are--now--but even that is hard to prove.
a) 64% admitted to cheating on a test.
b) 58% admitted to plagiarism.
c) 95% participated in some form of cheating.
:up:
Quoting jamalrob
It's not my problem that you refused to delete it. If you're not happy with it, then just close it. No need to stress out and show you care. It's really no big deal. This is just a thread. Sorry to disappoint you.
Obnoxious? Wow!
If our environment isn't so filled with problems and just to survive isn't a challenge, then the outcome that our brains aren't so focused on problems of survival is logical.
Besides, advance language and written text has expanded vastly our abilities to communicate and solve problems. Just think about, look at the threads in this forum. Now what would it look like to people let's say in the 19th Century? They would awe how much the members (who all aren't academic professionals) know about literature or the data about a subject. Of course, they should be explained that we can use search engines and "google" things.
Okay, I'm sorry I called you obnoxious. I just wish you had responded more amiably when people quite reasonably asked for evidence. Carry on.
You have a far better chance to be hear and gain support among ten people than amongst one hundred.
Quoting L'éléphant
As someone else notes there is a difference between IQ and being intelligent I think? At least in general parse. Even so, those with top heavy 'g' (the element IQ tries to measure) tend more towards caution and people en masse usually side with promises rather than estimations with nuance attached the more pressing the problem/subject is.
Is your argument like this? Intelligence produced luxury. Luxury produced laziness. And laziness reduced intelligence.
If so, we start with the premise that there was intelligence thousands of years ago, and this intelligence produced for us, a degree of luxury. I think that proposition is reasonably well supported with evidence.
The second proposition appears intuitive, but it may not be true because of the complexity of the issue. Luxury is the privilege of an individual, and it is not in general evenly distributed amongst a group of people. Because of this inequality in distribution, luxury amongst some might actually increase competitiveness in others. Therefore we cannot hold the second premise as a general principle. Differences between individuals deny the validity of such a conclusion.
And this is the problem with your argument in general, it relies on invalid generalizations. "intelligence" is a capacity which, if we even had an acceptable standard for testing it, varies greatly between one individual and another. So even if we could measure it, we could not make the generalization, that at this point in time, human intelligence is at this particular level. There might for instance be a relatively small group of humans with a very high level of intelligence but that would just get lost into the average.
Consider for analogy, the proposition that human beings had better eyes, and could see better, thousands of years ago, than they can now. And we offer up as evidence, that now people use eye glasses, to argue that the eyes of modern human beings have gotten lazy, and can't see as well as they used be able to. We've now become dependent on eye glasses. Further, we could say that eye glasses factor into evolutionary forces such that weaker eyes now survive better, so overall, human beings have gotten worse eye sight. You ought to be able to see how the whole argument relies on faulty generalizations.
I think intelligence is very similar. We can name some principles whereby we can claim that intelligence has gotten weaker, but it's all based in faulty generalizations anyway, so it's really meaningless.
Thank you, @jamalrob.
I dead-ass believed I had pissed you off permanently.
Quoting I like sushi
I said in my OP it has nothing to do with the size of the brains -- at least not this time.
Quoting ssu
While this is not the subject of the studies I mentioned on this thread, are you forgetting the masterpieces created in the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries? Literature, fine arts, music?
Quoting I like sushi
I agree. I used "IQ" because that's what everybody here wants to use.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It's more like this:
Quoting _db
While I could not produce concrete evidence -- as what our forum friends have been asking -- I could only cite studies by researchers whose findings tend to show that intelligence is not the IQ we are used to attribute to intelligence. IQ is culturally influenced. What I want to talk about is intelligence that could be measured without the benefits of modern culture we have now. The researchers have identified one -- reaction time. It could mean reaction time to threats, which requires quick thinking, which requires quick decision making. We no longer live in life and death situation where our adrenaline could be tasked regularly. Because we have all the tools and technology now to do all that for us. Of course, you could argue that we created these technologies, so we must be awesome compared to the prehistoric humans. And for that, I do not have an argument.
So in light of the prevailing attitude here that I should produce concrete evidence, instead of extrapolating from the findings of research and trying to gain insight from those findings, let me say that they are still in the process of research.
Quoting Baden
I like your approach. Thanks.
Yes, this could be true. And yes, "intelligence" has been taken for granted and meaning seems to have been accepted without argument and counter argument. So, maybe we should start there. What is intelligence?
The researchers seem to have been zeroing in on that question. "Reaction time" seems to be important to their findings. A lot of what we have now were not re-invented. We certainly relied on pioneers or the early humans and built our ideas from their ideas. This goes back to the question of the learning curve theory. Someone who was trying to discover fire would have a different mind acuity than someone trying to use fire for various purposes.
And that's supposed to be a sign of intelligence? Why not call that stupidity?
No, I just couldn't outright argue as to the comparison to the mind-capacity of the prehistoric humans. And I'm not even sure if you're being sarcastic. So, if you don't mind elaborating on what you mean.
I am on the camp of future-value computation of cognitive currency of the past compared to now. Similar to the question, what is the value of discovering iron as the material that had catapulted humanity into a whole new civilization in today's currency?
Priceless.
What you have posed is a possibility but we can argue the opposite too. How can we measure this realistically? I don't think we can as there are far to many factors involved and many cognitive abilities are not exactly well understood by any means.
For the sake of arguing against I could suggest that agriculture allowed us to free up our time and work together in groups more easily (specialisation). Of course there are counter argument to this too as there is reasonable evidence to suggest that human collaborated on a pretty large communal scale prior to the full blown advent of sedentary living and/or agriculture.
I would also argue that 'intelligence' for humans is something that expands due to better lines of communication and interaction (something that has become increasingly prominent in the modern era), but again I could offer up an opposing view that may partially agree with this overall, yet question whether or not there is an optimal amount of 'communication and interaction' and that too much of this would actually start to reverse progress.
Finally, one more part of this puzzle ... education and pedagogy at large. We seem to have struggled to adapt our education facilities to changing times of late. The industrial revolution had, in my view, a partly detrimental effect upon education standards as it copied and pasted the 'factory' method by viewing schools as factories for employable citizens. In our times now I think this has mostly been realised, yet not by any means addressed fully. Now we have a weird social landscape in which there seems to be a growing inclination to throw the baby out with the bathwater in terms of educational syllabuses and the general view of pedagogy at every stage from primary school to university (although the latter is a little more robust imo).
Less intelligent? I don't think so but it could be true; in terms of genetic predisposition. I think it is more about our educational systems lagging behind population growth, political shifts and trends, and increasing technological advancements that we've had little time to fully utilise.
I don't think societies and individuals ever were preferred to live and reproduce due to their stupitidy. Maybe brawl and brute strength were given better chances to survive, but innate physical strength is not a measure of stupidity or intelligence.
So by this idea alone, society's individuals are more intelligent now than in cavemen's times.
On the other hand: human intelligence transformed the environment to make it hospitable for the stupid.
So while there was a long stretch in history, during which intelligence provided a survival advantage, that advantage has disappeared. Now only the severely challenged in mental capacity won't mate to reproduce. Not that they would not want to, but the "normals" don't allow them.
The bottom 3 percent (IQ equavalent: 70 IQ points or fewer) gets eliminated constantly, while everyone else below the median has the same chance to produce offspring as those above the median.
This provides for another genetic up-smartening of society, although the pace is substantially slowed.
Over the past 5,000 years, cultural evolution has produced astonishing changes in human understanding, changes which occur with an ever accelerating tempo. One could imagine this knowledge growth as manifesting itself physiologically in terms of an increasing complexity of neural connectivity. Let’s call this the brain’s software updating itself. Now let’s assume that all this was accomplished on the basis of brain ‘ hardware’ that has remained essentially unchanged over all that period of cultural progress. We don’t have to assume this, but there is no reason not to. The point is, whatever changes in hardware (I.Q), either for better or worse, may have occurred over the past 5,000 in humanity as a whole, or between individuals, would have to be seen as utterly insignificant in their effects as compared to the powers of cultural transmission , our ‘software updates’.
I should also mention that scientists may have no idea what they’re really measuring. For instance, what does speed of calculation mean? Computers are much faster than we are at calculation , but does this make them smarter? Autistic savants can perform amazing calculative and mnemonic feats, but is this because they are smarter or because they are not distracted by higher order abstract processes? Perhaps ancient humans could perform certain tasks faster than modern humans for the same reason.
What makes your smartphone smart? Is it how fast it’s processor is, or how much content and how many apps it has? Is a 70 year old Kant less intelligent than a 20 year old because his memory and mental speed are less impressive?
Indeed. Scientists don't know what they measure with IQ tests, they just know that the results are consistent, and predictive.
Quoting Joshs
The operative word here is "perhaps". Very true.
Do you know how to do long division? Or, the calculator just does it for you?
Okay, I can agree that we're not sure about realistic measurement. But could we at least look at the big picture of the results of our mindset. For example, how is it that the more our intelligence increases, the more our environment is being destroyed by us. Let us at least think about that. With all the advancement in technology, there are issues that just don't seem to benefit from out increased intelligence -- overpopulation, environmental pollution, etc.
Quoting I like sushi
Agriculture had made our activities money-centric or commercial-centric.
Quoting Joshs
Good analogy. The updates -- cultural updates -- could be the culprit, not necessarily the brain.
Shuntar? It?, a historian of science and civilization, predicts the coming of Environmental Revolution as the next turning point in human history. This is a very culture-centered view of civilization.
Plus the world is not 'overpopulated' nor does that seem likely to happen. It terms of resource management there is certainly room for improvement. Germany has scraped nuclear energy which is most certainly a backwards step in terms of efficiency and general pollution. There are political games at play and society at large seems to be struggling with adapting to mass communications.
As with the industrial revolution I see something similar happening now with the internet revolution. Lots of doom and gloom that will likely amount to nothing much other than a flash in the pan. The CRISPR revolution is going to be something far beyond my comprehension and I'll see its birth in the world of commerce before I die most likely.
Yes. Why do we have a hard time accepting nuclear energy? Is it due to ignorance? Lack of education? Cultural?
Quoting I like sushi
Until the dinosaurs died, in short burst of time.
They do. They measure the number of right answers on abstract questions. It's therefore an abstract measure of intelligence, as intelligence can't be quantified. Already the IQ itself is part of the strange kind of intelligence it's supposed to be a measure of.
That's the thesis here. I haven't read any proof. Anyone with common sense could compare our current level which we harness our own minds to communicate, engineer, economize, etc.. and it will be evident that this is far more intelligent than the primitive mode of our species.
The Flynn Effect, is a calculated anti-thesis. Any age before google search, was surely an age of human beings being less intelligent than they are now.
If I were to posit that we are more conscious than we were in the past, that is also evident, given the circumstances in which scientific notions are available to think "about reality" (consciousness) more so than ever before.
A more interesting inquiry, would be "why are we more intelligent than our ancestors?" I think I even answered that vaguely here.
I think the average philosophy forum thread would certainly support the contention. Not this thread, especially, but certainly the average.
All questions are abstract, since language is an abstraction.
You spelled out that IQ is a "strange" kind of intelligence. What do you mean by that? I think what you mean is that we don't know what kind of intelligence it is.
Which means that we don't know what we measure with IQ tests.
And you agree with that.
So why did you disagree with my line, "scientists don't know what they measure with IQ tests?"
Why is everyone a naysayer and yet winding up in self-contradictions on this site who oppose my opinions?
Why??????
Quoting L'éléphant
I haven't seen such a study, and Elephant could not point at one such study either.
But responses to my posts on this site certainly suggest that.
All those masterpieces are actually far more accessible to me now as they would have been then.
The most obvious case is when I look at my children's school books where there can be a question to use the internet to answer some question. Do you know how difficult it would have been to answer those question without using search engines conveniently at your fingertips with one's smartphone or the laptop they gave from school? It would many times taken hours first to go to a library, find then a book where the information might be.
For the record, I provided some passages of the articles about the studies conducted by the researchers whose names I also provided. So stop being dramatic. If you have a habit of skipping pages of threads so that you only get the middle or end or incoherent posts , it's not my problem.
What one article mentioned regarding what those researchers refer to as intelligence are spatial and task-driven abilities, which the early people possessed due to pressure from their environment. So, they're not measuring academic abilities, they're not measuring intelligence enhanced by culture, nor enhanced by proper nutrition. They're measuring what I think was brute intelligence -- intelligence necessitated by motivation to survive a harsh environment unlike what we have now -- you know, cities, suburbs, countryside.
Quoting ssu
Right. So, are you actually agreeing with me or trying to make a point? How does the many hours of work to get some information affect the acuity of the brain? Did you know that the ancient Greek historians or writers had no laptop to record what they heard inside the courtroom? They were not allowed to bring the stylus or any writing or recording instruments inside a courtroom to record the case word for word. So what they did was listen and commit to memory the words they heard, then run back outside and start retrieving the information while writing them down.
I learned my lesson well. I think this is what you are referring to:
Quoting L'éléphant
This is a flawed article. Mutations do not occur to all members of a species all at once. A mutation may create a trend that makes an entire subset of a species die out due to inability to survive due to the mutation's effect. But the mutation does not happen in all members of the group all at once. It happens to one member, who propagates it, and eventually a popluation will come to existence with that mutation.
The article you quoted is flying directly against the practical reality of the evolutionary aspect.
And that is such a seriously grave error that one can reject the point of the article altogether.
Quoting L'éléphant
You ... ... . This has nothing to do with the comparison of human's intelligence today and in history. It has to to do with the parallel development of humanoid toolmaking and humanoid language.
Why do you think you can get away with this? With quoting completely irrelevant articles? Because it is a long and technical one, nobody else bothered to read it, you were in the position of proudly referring to it as a "study that shows human intelligence is declining". Well, it does not.
Your credibility is shot, my friend. First you name a fact that never happened; and then you are uncovered for either misunderstanding a complicated study, or else malevolently using it to create a wool over the eye of your debating opponents.
I'm a yehsayher! I don't agree that scientists don't know what they measuring. If any intelligence they know a measure of its their own kind.
IHa! ndeed. But that's because the posts of god claiming he must be an atheist are are testifying to that in the first place.
Intelligence isn't something easy to measure and define like measuring muscle strength or how fast can someone move from point A to B.
Intelligence is perceiving or inferring information, learning and having the ability to deal with new situations. And when those situations change, it doesn't affect intelligence as the problems and the situations change. We simply have different problems and situations than hunter-gatherers had. Memorizing or learning by heart is an ability, but it isn't at all synonymous to intelligence. In fact, as a way of learning it has many negative aspects starting from people can memorize "by heart" something they have absolutely no idea what it's about (as even the saying learning by heart, not by brain, tells us). But of course put into extreme, some transferring accurately through time the vedas in Hinduism by the Vedic oral tradition can be successful.
So if we have things starting from having the written word (a massively useful tool that no animal has, even if they can communicate to each other) and then computers and so on, it really doesn't mean that our intelligence has become worse. We just can solve different problems far more quickly. That doesn't make our intelligence lazy.
I think I understand your point, but it isn't so straightforward than comparing physical stamina and physical strength to what we need to "survive" in our society and what a hunter-gatherer needed in his society. And even that is a far more complex issue than it might at first seem as then we understand the importance that physical exercise has for our health and well being.
The fact that the Flynn Effect has reversed in developed countries is a well-established and replicable finding.
Explanations abound, complex systems generally overshooting and then ratcheting back to equilibrium:
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2339&context=cs_techrep#:~:text=This%20steady%20increase%20in%20intelligence,who%20actively%20promoted%20this%20idea.&text=While%20the%20intelligence%20scores%20have,grow%3B%20instead%2C%20they%20decline.
Changes in the environment:
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/26/6674
There are many more. One thing to note is that it is not caused be genetic changes in the population. This is a common misattribution. Because distinct genetic groups tend to vary in IQ scores, the initial explanation for this shift could be that the underlying genetics of the population are causing the shift. While it is true that these changes cause a shift in mean population IQ within national borders, the Flynn Effect and its reversal are observed within population groups, controlling for variance in heritage.
But here things get very complicated. Obesity is highly heritable. Your relatives' BMI is highly predictive of your own. However, environment clearly plays a role, as obesity was uncommon until quite recently. Intelligence is similar. It is highly heritable, holding most things mostly equal (e.g., looking at twins who are both raised in the same country, even if the socio-economic status of their parents varies quite a bit.)
Changes in environment appear to account for the reverse Flynn Effect. There are some proposed culprits. Half of all plastics were made since 2008. The environment is now saturated in microplastics in developed countries. The average American consumes a credit card worth of plastic a week. Plastics work as endocrine disruptors and may have profound long term, ongoing effects on the body. Obesity is another macro level trend in populations caused by shifts in the environment and there are mechanisms through which it may impede cognitive function. Exercise is shown to delay the onset of dementia, prevent depression (which in turn negatively effects cognitive performance on tests that measure G), etc. and people are increasingly sedentary. The water supply is also awash in pharmaceuticals such as birth control, anti-depressants, etc. which also have a possible connection.
Point being, there are a lot of things that could be causing it, but it is definitely there, even when just considering within family effects. Then, for population means, genetics is also a factor that can raise and lower means. In general, higher IQ past a certain point is negatively associated with number of offspring. So aside from the environmental effects, there is also a selection element where genes associated with higher g may be selected against in the current environment.
Also of note, the effect is extremely large:
A 30-point gap, two standard deviations in most scoring systems, is the difference between mean IQ and many definitions of mental retardation, or mean IQ and common definitions of "gifted." A long-term trend that reverses the Flynn Effect has profound implications for future societies.
Are you just making conversation, or is there some relevance to the topic?
Asia surpassing the west is interesting. Computers were developed in the US with government funding the research but it was Japan that latched on to the potential of this technology and quickly surpassed the US economic growth building on the technology. Japan has a labor shortage and that increases interest in robotics, but once the robots are in place, a decline in thinking is to be expected. I have heard if the bridge had not already been invented modern man would not be able to do so, for the reasoning expressed in the OP. There is a lot we could not do without being able to rely on the "experts".
I worry about a major event that means no one is left to maintain nuclear plants. Humans doing their best to survive may not realize the danger of not maintaining a nuclear plant and even if they were aware that maintenance is essential, which one would know enough to know how to maintain the nuclear plant.? How smart are we without our technology and computers?
Here is a humorous example. I was leaving a nursing home with a friend who can not read at the 8th-grade level. Most people would consider him retarded. We came to a gate that required knowing a code to open the gate and I was stopped, sure I could not get out of the gate without the code. Mind you I have a college education so I am smart, right? :lol: My retard friend didn't think twice before putting his hand through the bars in the fence and opening the gate from the outside handle. I have known a couple of people I would rather be within a survival situation than college-educated people, because they are free from our programming and are more like animals that have a keen awareness of what is around them and how to achieve what needs to be achieved.
Just making conversation mostly. Sorry, 95% of that post was me just chiming in, the only reason I quoted the two references I saw to the Flynn Effect is that it sounded like they might have been given in the sense that the Flynn Effect shows that intelligence is increasing, not decreasing, which is indeed what the term meant until quite recently, when decreases began to show up.
The graph is growth in scores from regional means so you can't compare between them; growth is relative, not absolute. Because both genetics and enviornment influence g, you need to scale IQ tests, with 100 as the mean for a given population. This is why they are often critiqued. Scores vary depending on if you use a national mean, or a mean using some sort of ethnic identifier (always poorly defined to varying degrees, and worse, self reported). The mean also changes over time, so 100 today would be significantly higher than 50 years ago. It's also meant for age cohorts.
Ideally the mean should always be 100 for a given population. That population should be selected based on genotype, and for a given region with similar economic development. Instead, the mean from Western European nations is used, or a mean of "White" Americans to set 100.
There is a better term for people before us like hunter gatherers being "smarter" than us. We use the term "street-smart". For a homeless child growing up in a modern slum in the Third World, the life expectancy is decades lower from the nation's average and there are a lot of dangers and life is about survival, about where to get the next meal. For hunter gatherers the life expectancy was low: those that survived to 15 years had a reasonable chance to survive over 45. But one slight injury that got infected, something easily preventable by modern medicine, might end it. Today, the life expectancy in slums can dip below 40 years, even if the national average even in Third World countries can be in the 70's.
We likely would notice that many of the "street smart" are quick witted, but lacking formal education they likely would do not so well in an IQ test. And likely would our ancestors, the hunter gatherers, would do not so well on an IQ test either...if the piece of paper is given to them with a pencil.
The thing is, our society needs that kind of intelligence that at least partly is measured by IQ tests: to notice patterns, to use mathematics and formal logic and above all, have a lot of educational knowledge and to use it when seeking those patterns out that others have not noticed.
Intelligence is very much about curiosity. People who think they know it all have a serious problem learning because they are close-minded. That can make forums a terrible experience and it might also be harmful to society in general? Perhaps our increased hostility and violence comes out of being close-minded and really uninterested in what other people have to say? Like talking to a teenager who knows it all. :grimace: When there is no curiosity there is no learning.
On the other hand, good logic skills, with curiosity can greatly increase our intelligence. Then, as a hunter-gather learns from his/her environment, we can learn from each other. But only if we have learned those high-order thinking skills and we remain open-minded. Unfortunately, nature starts closing our minds when we pass age 8. Our brains literally change preventing us from absorbing knowledge as we do when we are very young, but if we learned the high-order thinking skills and remain curious we can greatly increase the knowledge in our heads. Then in our later years, our brains change again and instead of learning new facts, we begin having enlightenment experiences that are a more complex understanding of the meaning of those facts. This is a time of wisdom unless, of course, one stops thinking at age 30 and goes through life with a closed mind. Too many of those people are in forums pissing everyone off. :lol:
The 2012 Texas Republican agenda was to stop education for higher-order thinking skills. Their well-meaning intent was to keep people dependent on authority, the authority of parents, and the authority of the church, and the authority of experts. That is conservative thinking and not the way to increase our intelligence. It goes with teachers taking Texas to the supreme court, to end the Texas drive to make teachers teach creationism as scientifically equal to evolution. :grimace:
This is so true. And once we have no curiosity and just close our minds, we start to go backwards. The idea of lifetime learning is extremely important. I remember how refreshing it was in the late 1990's when the internet was still a new thing an old relative in his 80's gave his email address to be intact. I always respect old people who learn new things and keep up with current times even after retiring.
Perhaps the ease that we can be complacent is the problem when our environment doesn't challenge us.
Could the decline in IQ be a sign that Orwell's depressing prediction about an authoritarian world order is coming true? :chin: We, the boiling frogs get cooked and all the tyrants have a cannibalistic feast! :fear:
Another possibility: Intelligence isn't decreasing, in fact it's rising, but this is offset by problems getting harder to solve. The entire calculation for IQ, appropriately adjusted, then registers as a decline.
Third: The clever ones never marry or have children. Genius and antinatalism, there's something goimg on between 'em.
Nice topic.
Quoting L'éléphant
Right.
Quoting L'éléphant
I don't think knowing how and being good in fighting and hunting makes man -- has made him, in any period of this history-- more intelligent. Are bullies, barbarians, belligerents, primitive tribes intelligent than civilized people?
So, I don't think that intelligence has started to decline since the primitive man. But I believe it is in a declining phase. It has reached a peak, and then started to decline.
This has to do with the historical phenomenon of the rise and fall of civilizations. During these periods, between rise and fall, civilizations reach a peak and then start to fall. At their peak, morality, intelligence, creativity and other human mental abilities seem to also at a high point. There is no specific evidence for that, but I think it is evident. For example, ethics (morality) and rationality (intelligence) go hand in hand. So goes with creativity, which characterizes these periods and which depends much on intelligence.
Now, I believe that the decline of intelligence we are witnessing today, is very closely related to the decline in ethics (morality, moral behavior) which I think is quite evident, since ethics and rationality are directly and closely connected. Actually, ethics is based on rationality. (I have explained that a few times elsewhere (e.g. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/582354)
But intelligence is also affected by ethics. E.g. Lying or stealing on a frequent basis impairs your intelligence, because going against of what you actually believe is true or right, produces a strong conflict, breaks your personal integrity and shatters your reality. It can go so far that at some point you can't know what is true or not or distinguish between right and wrong, which is a case of mental illness.
Greeks' IQ is very kow relatively to other European countries (maybe the 2nd lowest). So is their ethics level!
I had to pinpoint this much neglected factor, because it has to do a lot with the decline of intelligence, which is the subject of this topic.
I think we can all agree that the Flynn effect's scope are the changes in IQ that happened in the 20th century. That's environmental, since a study like that cannot possibly address evolutionary/mutation with only a century's worth of observation. What I have been referring to are studies that cover civilizations worth of data. Well, the smithsonian article cited a study talking about 1.5 million years ago. But there's also the Crabtree study which goes back only to 6000 to 2000 BC.
But both deal with the changes in the brain structure. For example, this passage from the link I provided earlier in this thread:
So while the above does not address the hypothesis of decline in intelligence, I pasted it here to show that the studies focus on the evolution of the brain as influenced by the motor actions.
Yes, you have a point. That's why I think the studies do not refer to mere brute force as factor in intelligence. Rather, environmental pressure (this is their description) is the one area they're looking at.
So, going back to the issue of evolution/mutation, another passage citing measurements the researchers performed:
And again, while the above passage does not address the supposed decline, I pasted it here to show what they're focusing on.
:grin: Intelligence in action.
Quoting Agent Smith
I like where you're going with this, but this doesn't even factor in to the explanation as to why, if intelligence is declining, it is so. The modern problems aren't harder. The logistics of living in the ancient times required acuity of the mind. Remember that without them pushing the civilizations forward with their primitive thinking, we wouldn't be here.
That is an interesting notion. I know my brain started shutting down when we were in lockdown in Oregon, even though I got on the internet daily. I couldn't go to the pool or anywhere else, and I was not sure I was going to get my brain or my body back! I am serious. I was so thankful when I could return to going to the pool and driving around and it all came back. For sure being physically active is part of having an alert brain and now that you mention it, I think the stimulation of driving was helpful. :lol: We might not have to worry about tigers, but driving can be an alarming experience that gets the adrenaline going. We can not have lazy dreaming brains when we drive.