The Decline of Intelligence in Modern Humans

L'éléphant

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.

pfirefry

Studies suggest that we are gradually becoming less intelligent — L'éléphant

How do these studies define and measure intelligence?

L'éléphant

↪pfirefry

Sorry, I made an edit above. Please read my OP again. Thanks.

L'éléphant

How do these studies define and measure intelligence? — pfirefry

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 Storm

↪L'éléphant

I hope you are right about this. Look how much trouble and misery humans have caused just by being Sapien. Some brain cell loss may just the ticket to slow us down. :wink:

L'éléphant

I hope you are right about this. Look how much trouble and misery humans have caused just by being Sapien. Some brain cell loss may just the ticket to slow us down. :wink: — Tom Storm

Tom, now that you said that, we can look at philosophy to know that misery is actually a modern problem. But, good point. lol.

Banno

Studies suggest... — L'éléphant

What studies. Without that your post is vapid.

The Flynn Effect

I call bullshit.

T Clark

Studies suggest that we are gradually becoming less intelligent. — L'éléphant

What studies. Without that your post is vapid.
The Flynn Effect — 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

L'éléphant

What studies. Without that your post is vapid. — Banno

Here's one.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2011.0099

Here's a link to the Wikipedia article on the Flynn Effect. — T Clark

You guys should wean yourselves from IQ and Wikipedia.

L'éléphant

Here's another article:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-smart-early-humans-brain-imaging-answers-180963176/

Outlander

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. — L'éléphant

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.

Should we adjust our thinking about intelligence and redefine what it is today? — L'éléphant

Maybe but, naw...

We can't use technology today to argue that we're smarter. — L'éléphant

Oh but we can use it to argue that we're dumber. As Trump would say "bing bing bong".

There's a measure for that that has nothing to do with the intelligence we are talking about here. — L'éléphant

I would hope so, seeing as you've neglected to include any details of it.

Banno

Studies suggest that we are gradually becoming less intelligent. — L'éléphant

Here's one.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2011.0099 — L'éléphant

That study is about whether language was a result of tools making or gesturing. It does not support your thesis.

Banno

↪L'éléphant

Nor does that one. These articles are about the association between increased intelligence, tool making and language. There is nothing about a decrease in intelligence since the Palaeolithic.

L'éléphant

↪Banno

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.

Banno

↪L'éléphant

Still calling bullshit. You have presented no evidence whatsoever. The very study you cite uses comparisons in brain anatomy that show the increase in complexity over time you wish to deny.

L'éléphant

In case some of you don't know the relevance of learning curve theory:

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.

Banno

↪L'éléphant

How does this support your contention that studies suggest that we are gradually becoming less intelligent?

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.

L'éléphant

↪Banno

Banno, sometimes talking to you incites the murderous self in me.

Did you read the links I provided?

Banno

Banno, sometimes talking to you incites the murderous self in me. — L'éléphant

it's what I do.

Did you read the links I provided? — L'éléphant

Yes. You've tried to infer more than they will allow.

Jamal

Unless the OP can cite evidence for the primary claims, this thread is a non-starter. I'm tempted to just close it.

The study and article linked to in later posts do not "suggest we are becoming less intelligent".

Agent Smith

Between luck/Fortuna and IQ/Sapientia, which plays a bigger role in survival?

Chance favors the prepared mind. — Louise Pasteur

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. — Lowell Edmunds (Chance and Intelligence in Thucydides)

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.

unenlightened

↪jamalrob

One could cite this thread as evidence for its thesis. *runs away giggling foolishly.*

Jamal

↪unenlightened

Paleolithic philosophy forums may have been just as stupid as far as we know from the little evidence we have.

Cornwell1

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. — Outlander

Exponentially smaller? What do you mean? Your stuff about the whale is far from the truth.

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. — Agent Smith

So the dogma goes...

Deleted User

↪L'éléphant

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 <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/115/26/6674" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://www.pnas.org/content/115/26/6674</a> . Either way, there's not enough research to go on just yet. This topic is premature.

Cornwell1

and secondly we live in far more complex societies, which presumably are more difficult to navigate. — Banno

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.

Philosophim

Lets disregard the fact that the studies you cited do not back your claim. What would it take to show your claim has any merit?

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.

L'éléphant

Unless the OP can cite evidence for the primary claims, this thread is a non-starter. I'm tempted to just close it. — jamalrob

You can close it if you're tempted. No sweat.

↪jamalrob
One could cite this thread as evidence for its thesis. *runs away giggling foolishly.* — unenlightened

Right. Compared to your boring threads? Sorry, just kidding. *giggles*

Second, we would likely need detailed brain scans to compare brain development. — 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.

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 — Garrett Travers

Okay, for the sake of discussion, how does this increase compare to the learning curve theory?

Joshs

There is another way to understand the Flyn effect. We have to begin by asking what it is that improves such things as nutitition. We can also ask what it is that leads to a progressive increase in life expectancy, taller humans and the continuing breaking of records in Olympic sports. The answer of course is that our knowledge of biology , physiology and medicine has improved over the centuries, changing our physiology in all of these ways.
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.

Baden

↪L'éléphant

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...)

god must be atheist

Studies suggest that we are gradually becoming less intelligent — L'éléphant

please cite the studies. Otherwise please withdraw this statement.

The Decline of Intelligence in Modern Humans

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