Study Claims Human Intelligence Peaked Two To Six Millennia Ago

eldavojohn writes "Professor Gerald "Jerry" Crabtree of Stanford's Crabtree Laboratory published a paper (PDF) that has appeared in two parts in Trends in Genetics. The paper opens with a very controversial suggestion: 'I would be willing to wager that if an average citizen from Athens of 1000 BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions.' From there, Crabtree speculates we're on the decline of human intelligence and we have been for at least a couple millennia. His argument suggests agriculture and, following from that, cities, have allowed us to break free of some environmental forces on competitive genetic mutations — a la Mike Judge's theory. However, the conclusion of the paper urges humans to keep calm and carry on, as any attempt to fix this genetic trend would almost certainly be futile and disturbing."

Comments

Flynn effect?

[Janek Kozicki]

What about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

"The Flynn effect is the substantial and long-sustained increase in intelligence test scores measured in many parts of the world from roughly 1930 to the present day."

Sure IQ is not Intelligence. But, this publication should relate somehow to this effect.

Re:Actually

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a "no shit?" comment.

The point was if you transplant a guy from 1000BC as a child, and raise him today, he would be smarter than people today.