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> the opposite actually [1] This is a much more controversial view than as suggested in the comment -- specifically there is very little data backing up the hy

> the opposite actually [1] This is a much more controversial view than as suggested in the comment -- specifically there is very little data backing up the hypothesis that intelligence is decreasing. This is compounded by the fact that we really don't have great tools for measuring intelligence or a deep understanding of how it develops and manifests in humans. IMO the jury is still out on the general direction human intelligence is moving, but realistically if you are concerned the best thing you can do is improve environmental factors and educational access.

dclowd9901 4y ago
There is 1) survival of the fittest and 2) random genetic mutation. To accept the theory of revolution, we accept these two premises. Without fitness being an aspect of survival, I’m curious what counter arguments there are out there to the position that we really are always getting dumber. I’ll avoid the easy target of anecdotal evidence.
- CPLX 4y ago
  It’s not really survival of the fittest, since fittest is a tautology. It’s basically survival of the survivors. Or, in other words, we are definitely selecting for and against certain kinds of intelligence differently now than thousands of years ago. The better or worse element is a judgment call. But definitely different.
  - dclowd9901 4y ago
    Sure, but this seems more of an observation at the micro level. At the macro level, general positives (intelligence, strength, health) would generally mean more selection in their favor _overall_ wouldn’t it?
- after_care 4y ago
  1. IQ tests are actually showing higher scores over time. About 90 years of data on this. 2. We do not have genetic data to show that these mutations are happening. This is theory only without empirical data. 3. There's a lot of debate over the role of genetics and intelligence. It's very possible that our understanding and implementation of childhood development has a larger impact on intelligence than these presumed random mutations. 4. Intelligent people are more likely to pair with other intelligent people, so maybe there is still selection effect for intelligence. This effect could be increases as world travel means a greater geographic range for potential mates.
  - kovek 4y ago
    > It's very possible that our understanding and implementation of childhood development has a larger impact on intelligence than these presumed random mutations. Bones from burial sites of past hunter-gatherer societies are associated with larger jaws and mouths, while bones retrieved from former farming cultures have decreased jaw size. [0] I believe jaw development has effects on mental health. Thus, I think our non-genetic changes do happen to affect our mental capabilities. There must be other factors than jaw size that do so. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_jaw_shrinkage?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_jaw_shrinkage?wprov=sfti...
    - rubidium 4y ago
      Yes and cranial measurements determine intelligence too… Come on people. We’ve been down this road before. It’s not good.
      - xyzzyz 4y ago
        Cranial capacity doesn’t determine intelligence, just as height doesn’t determine basketball ability. Nevertheless, good basketball players tend to be tall, and intelligent people tend to have large cranial capacity. These are well documented correlations, with multiple studies observing those.
      - inglor_cz 4y ago
        So, does evolution and biology stop at the neck somehow? Or if it does not, are we better off staying ignorant than trying to discover some knowledge, however fractional and incomplete? I don't believe in either.
      - contingencies 4y ago
        The Turing test is like saying planes don't fly unless they can fool birds into thinking they're birds. - Peter Norvig, via https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup IMHO other intelligence tests are the same - they tend to measure familiarity with established systems of rationality and response within a given culture only. Here's a thought experiment. Imagine a student who can't read, or who can't read the language the test is written in, or are an elementary learner of that language. They would tend to score poorly. All communication is like this, not just written tests. But the logical basis upon which rationality is measured within said tests is also a language, and its drawbacks exactly parallel that of language itself. Perhaps what IQ and similar metrics are really measuring is cultural indoctrination and familiarity as a highly tangential proxy to the basic cognitive abilities which they actually purport to grade.
- gumby 4y ago
  The definition of “fitness” is context (environment) dependent. Intelligence (more than say 2s out) might not have any special advantage at the moment. I have no opinion on this topic, merely pointing out the mechanism.
- robwwilliams 4y ago
  And off we go on a wild HN tangent on human intelligence.
  - BarryMilo 4y ago
    I have a bachelor's in psychology and almost all the comments I read are wildly speculative if not outright debunked. For some reason people think being smart means they are qualified to talk about intelligence. It does not.
  - dclowd9901 4y ago
    How is this a helpful comment?
- dalbasal 4y ago
  Evolution can't be tested like this, imo. You can't reason about what where it will lead and assume that this is where it's leading.
- imtringued 4y ago
  I don't know why people harp on about intelligence. There are plenty stories about ugly ducklings. If you are in the wrong place (geographically, socially) and time your intelligence can mean very little. If intelligence were some super drug every life form and human would evolve to maximize it. As an extreme example, Koalas evolved to have extremely energy efficient brains that are as small as possible. Having a powerful "CPU" is worth very little when it is mostly empty and idle most of the time. We send our kids to the program loader (school) for 12 years for a reason. It takes a lot of effort to get the most out of our brains. People aren't getting dumber. They are getting more isolated and out of touch with the old way of living that was considered the only way 500 years ago. A lot more people are living a lifestyle that used to be associated with aristocracy. More children are being sheltered from the outside world.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago
  >There is 1) survival of the fittest and 2) random genetic mutation. There is 1) survival of the fittest and 2) random genetic mutation and 3) survival of the luckiest. You could be part of the fittest, most well-evolved tribe of people on the planet that gets hit by a meteor which completely obliterates your entire lineage, while a much less "fit" group of people on the other side of the world soldiers on. These survivors didn't survive the meteor strike because of any inherent strengths or benefits of evolution or genetic mutation, but they are the only ones left out of sheer chance.
stjohnswarts 4y ago
I would say just given the sheer number of people these days that we are more likely to get the tippy top of intelligence than say 3500 years ago. Just by the law of large numbers. Maybe I'm just less smart than the Minoans though and my devolving mind should shut up about such things :)
Ekaros 4y ago
I would say that we are or were close to average peak. Just due to access to sufficient number of calories. In many parts of West that really wasn't true in relatively recent past like beginning of last century.
- dalbasal 4y ago
  That may be true, but is tangential to parent's point. The point was that smart people existed, not that the median or average intelligence was higher. It's about how their geniuses compared to ours, not how our average Joe compares to theirs.

dclowd9901 4y ago

There is 1) survival of the fittest and 2) random genetic mutation. To accept the theory of revolution, we accept these two premises. Without fitness being an aspect of survival, I’m curious what counter arguments there are out there to the position that we really are always getting dumber. I’ll avoid the easy target of anecdotal evidence.

CPLX 4y ago
It’s not really survival of the fittest, since fittest is a tautology. It’s basically survival of the survivors. Or, in other words, we are definitely selecting for and against certain kinds of intelligence differently now than thousands of years ago. The better or worse element is a judgment call. But definitely different.
- dclowd9901 4y ago
  Sure, but this seems more of an observation at the micro level. At the macro level, general positives (intelligence, strength, health) would generally mean more selection in their favor _overall_ wouldn’t it?
after_care 4y ago
1. IQ tests are actually showing higher scores over time. About 90 years of data on this. 2. We do not have genetic data to show that these mutations are happening. This is theory only without empirical data. 3. There's a lot of debate over the role of genetics and intelligence. It's very possible that our understanding and implementation of childhood development has a larger impact on intelligence than these presumed random mutations. 4. Intelligent people are more likely to pair with other intelligent people, so maybe there is still selection effect for intelligence. This effect could be increases as world travel means a greater geographic range for potential mates.
- kovek 4y ago
  > It's very possible that our understanding and implementation of childhood development has a larger impact on intelligence than these presumed random mutations. Bones from burial sites of past hunter-gatherer societies are associated with larger jaws and mouths, while bones retrieved from former farming cultures have decreased jaw size. [0] I believe jaw development has effects on mental health. Thus, I think our non-genetic changes do happen to affect our mental capabilities. There must be other factors than jaw size that do so. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_jaw_shrinkage?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_jaw_shrinkage?wprov=sfti...
  - rubidium 4y ago
    Yes and cranial measurements determine intelligence too… Come on people. We’ve been down this road before. It’s not good.
    - xyzzyz 4y ago
      Cranial capacity doesn’t determine intelligence, just as height doesn’t determine basketball ability. Nevertheless, good basketball players tend to be tall, and intelligent people tend to have large cranial capacity. These are well documented correlations, with multiple studies observing those.
    - inglor_cz 4y ago
      So, does evolution and biology stop at the neck somehow? Or if it does not, are we better off staying ignorant than trying to discover some knowledge, however fractional and incomplete? I don't believe in either.
    - contingencies 4y ago
      The Turing test is like saying planes don't fly unless they can fool birds into thinking they're birds. - Peter Norvig, via https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup IMHO other intelligence tests are the same - they tend to measure familiarity with established systems of rationality and response within a given culture only. Here's a thought experiment. Imagine a student who can't read, or who can't read the language the test is written in, or are an elementary learner of that language. They would tend to score poorly. All communication is like this, not just written tests. But the logical basis upon which rationality is measured within said tests is also a language, and its drawbacks exactly parallel that of language itself. Perhaps what IQ and similar metrics are really measuring is cultural indoctrination and familiarity as a highly tangential proxy to the basic cognitive abilities which they actually purport to grade.
gumby 4y ago
The definition of “fitness” is context (environment) dependent. Intelligence (more than say 2s out) might not have any special advantage at the moment. I have no opinion on this topic, merely pointing out the mechanism.
robwwilliams 4y ago
And off we go on a wild HN tangent on human intelligence.
- BarryMilo 4y ago
  I have a bachelor's in psychology and almost all the comments I read are wildly speculative if not outright debunked. For some reason people think being smart means they are qualified to talk about intelligence. It does not.
- dclowd9901 4y ago
  How is this a helpful comment?
dalbasal 4y ago
Evolution can't be tested like this, imo. You can't reason about what where it will lead and assume that this is where it's leading.
imtringued 4y ago
I don't know why people harp on about intelligence. There are plenty stories about ugly ducklings. If you are in the wrong place (geographically, socially) and time your intelligence can mean very little. If intelligence were some super drug every life form and human would evolve to maximize it. As an extreme example, Koalas evolved to have extremely energy efficient brains that are as small as possible. Having a powerful "CPU" is worth very little when it is mostly empty and idle most of the time. We send our kids to the program loader (school) for 12 years for a reason. It takes a lot of effort to get the most out of our brains. People aren't getting dumber. They are getting more isolated and out of touch with the old way of living that was considered the only way 500 years ago. A lot more people are living a lifestyle that used to be associated with aristocracy. More children are being sheltered from the outside world.
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
>There is 1) survival of the fittest and 2) random genetic mutation. There is 1) survival of the fittest and 2) random genetic mutation and 3) survival of the luckiest. You could be part of the fittest, most well-evolved tribe of people on the planet that gets hit by a meteor which completely obliterates your entire lineage, while a much less "fit" group of people on the other side of the world soldiers on. These survivors didn't survive the meteor strike because of any inherent strengths or benefits of evolution or genetic mutation, but they are the only ones left out of sheer chance.

stjohnswarts 4y ago

I would say just given the sheer number of people these days that we are more likely to get the tippy top of intelligence than say 3500 years ago. Just by the law of large numbers. Maybe I'm just less smart than the Minoans though and my devolving mind should shut up about such things :)

Ekaros 4y ago

I would say that we are or were close to average peak. Just due to access to sufficient number of calories. In many parts of West that really wasn't true in relatively recent past like beginning of last century.

dalbasal 4y ago
That may be true, but is tangential to parent's point. The point was that smart people existed, not that the median or average intelligence was higher. It's about how their geniuses compared to ours, not how our average Joe compares to theirs.