Study show we're all growing more stupid, not only those on Political Forums (wink)- Human intelligence peaked several thousand years ago and we've been on an intellectual and emotional decline ever since THE DESCENT OF MAN Hunter-gatherer man The human brain and its immense capacity for knowledge evolved during this long period of prehistory when we battled against the elements Athenian man The invention of agriculture less than 10,000 years ago and the subsequent rise of cities such as Athens relaxed the intensive natural selection of our intelligence genes. Couch-potato man As genetic mutations increase over future generations, are we doomed to watching soap-opera repeats without knowing how to use the TV remote control? iPad man --- Although we are now surrounded by the technological and medical benefits of a scientific revolution, these have masked an underlying decline in brain power which is set to continue into the future leading to the ultimate dumbing-down of the human species, Professor Crabtree said. His argument is based on the fact that for more than 99 per cent of human evolutionary history, we have lived as hunter-gatherer communities surviving on our wits, leading to big-brained humans. Since the invention of agriculture and cities, however, natural selection on our intellect has effective stopped and mutations have accumulated in the critical intelligence genes. I 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, Professor Crabtree says in a provocative paper published in the journal Trends in Genetics. Furthermore, I would guess that he or she would be among the most emotionally stable of our friends and colleagues. I would also make this wager for the ancient inhabitants of Africa, Asia, India or the Americas, of perhaps 2,000 to 6,000 years ago, Professor Crabtree says. The basis for my wager comes from new developments in genetics, anthropology, and neurobiology that make a clear prediction that our intellectual and emotional abilities are genetically surprisingly fragile, he says. A comparison of the genomes of parents and children has revealed that on average there are between 25 and 65 new mutations occurring in the DNA of each generation. Professor Crabtree says that this analysis predicts about 5,000 new mutations in the past 120 generations, which covers a span of about 3,000 years. Some of these mutations, he suggests, will occur within the 2,000 to 5,000 genes that are involved in human intellectual ability, for instance by building and mapping the billions of nerve cells of the brain or producing the dozens of chemical neurotransmitters that control the junctions between these brain cells. Life as a hunter-gatherer was probably more intellectually demanding than widely supposed, he says. A hunter-gatherer who did not correctly conceive a solution to providing food or shelter probably died, along with his or 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, Professor Crabtree says. ( from The independent - 12th Novemeber 2012) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...ever-since-8307101.html?origin=internalSearch ..
This seems awfully speculative on the part of the professor. Also, it's worth noting that knowledge is often more useful than intellect for certain things. A man from ancient Athens might technically have a higher potential for critical thinking, but all that potential means little if he doesn't have access to the same knowledge we do today. The passing down of knowledge from one generation to the next is what allows us to get by with possibly less intellect than before. Yet... even the professor's projections are limited in their implications, since a certain base amount of intellect is necessary for navigating the complexities of the modern world. Life in a highly industrialized society is considerably more demanding of certain abilities than life in a primitive tribal community. Granted, the less technological a society is, the more individuals must rely on survival skills. A lot of this goes back to the 8 intelligences idea. Colloquially, we often analogize intelligence with IQ, but honestly, this is only one facet of intelligence. The other 7 forms include naturalistic (survival skills), musical, linguistic, interpersonal (social skills), intrapersonal (mental health and understanding yourself), kinesthetic (physical agility), and spatial (visual art and architecture) intelligences. IQ is usually referred to as mathematical/logical intelligence. That being said, there have not been any technological advances that would cause a significant decrease in musical, linguistic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, or spatial intelligences. Linguistic and interpersonal intelligences are, in particular, just as important today as they were back then.
