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

no

[Anonymous Coward]

*looks at the robot on Mars*

No. No it did not.

Re:no

[Z00L00K]

Only workaround would be to require everyone to have an IQ of 100 or above to be permitted to procreate.

But that's not politically correct.

Re:no

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right; it isn't politically expedient. However, if you look at stats (work on your Google-Fu; find them yourself), you'll see that people with an IQ lower than 100 have a lot more babies than people with higher IQ. So it is not a surprise that overall there is a downward trend. Don't forget that in the distant past, people with a very low IQ were at enough of a competitive disadvantage that they were much more likely to qualify for a Darwin Award. Today, they just get welfare (or whatever it is called in other countries) and keep having kids. They are at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to measures like "has a big house" or "makes a lot of money", but when it comes to the life pressure of procreation they are winning.

Re:no

[Spy Handler]

It would also not help. Most mental deficiencies are caused by environmental factors, not heredity. Problems in childbirth and drug (especially alcohol) use are by far the most common causes of mental retardation.

We are not talking about mental retardation from prenatal trauma here. We are talking about the general IQ level of those who have fully functioning non-retarded brains.

Selective pressure in favor of a certain trait results in a population with more of that trait. This is like, really obvious stuff from chapter 1 of Evolution 101. It is a well-understood and widely accepted phenomena. How do you think humans developed higher IQ than the other primates?

Re:no

[Zordak]

As a counterpoint to his specious argument about Ancient Greece being the pinnacle of human evolution, we could look at all the foolish endeavours, demagogy, rotten politics, incessant warfare, slavery, genocide and ignorance which prevailed at the time, and feel that we have collectively come a long way.

Yes, because, ALL--- no wait, MOST--- well, no, not really, SOME--- ah, screw it.

Absolutely, because we're much better at pretending we've eradicated those things than the ancients were.

Re:no

[RabidReindeer]

I would wager that Aristotle *could* comprehend calculus given proper instruction. I mean, he was one of the premier thinkers of his time. Great minds also make mistakes, but still...

Zeno's Paradox is about 98% of what it takes to invent differential calculus. All that remained to be added was limits.

Thus spoke the sage on the stage...

[tylikcat]

Having read only the popular article so far, I confess, it sounds rather speculative.

But more to the point, there is an assumption that intelligence is itself is a single quantifiable thing, and that the intelligence that did so well on the African savannah, or in ancient Athens would do equally well in our circumstance. (For that matter, that this "intelligence" would be the primary contributing factor to who lived or died.)

That there are genetic differences relating to intelligence seems highly likely. That they produce more or less of a single linearly quantifiable intelligence seems rather less likely. That selection pressures have greatly changed (as everything else about our environments have greatly changed) seems something like overhwelmingly likely.

What this means, and what conclusions can be drawn... seems speculative to the point of parlour games.

Re:Well...

[Tony Isaac]

Yes, and members of Congress!

For various definitions of "citizen"

[TubeSteak]

âoeI would wager that if an average citizen from Athens of 1000BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions, with a good memory, a broad range of ideas and a clear-sighted view of important issues,â Professor Crabtree says in a provocative paper published in the journal Trends in Genetics.

The average Athenian lived a life of drudgery and was illiterate.

Citizenship was hereditary (or very rarely granted by democratic vote) which made the "average citizen" a much different class of person than the average Athenian.
It's like saying that if the average Harvard student were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive.

Re:Actually

[MightyMartian]

And there is no objective way to test this. Let's remember here that the output of Classical Greek learning and thought was done by a relatively small number of people compared to the number of people living in Ancient Greece. Trying to determine how smart (by whatever metric you use) the average Greek was based upon how intelligent Socrates or Eratosthenes were is about as useful as trying to determine how smart the average Renaissance Italian was by looking at Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo Galilei, or the average Enlightenment Briton by John Locke or Isaac Newton.