De-evolution

[lorin]

Ever since I ended my tenure with the government I've wondered if the human race is de-evolving. De-evolution is probably a misleading term but even
de-evolution is an evolution of a kind.

From the physical aspect I think it is more clear. Since the advent of glasses we reproduce more people with bad eyes. Vision declines. Eyes disappear.

Chemotherapy has enabled people with cancer to reproduce, thereby increasing the disease in our population.

But what about intellectual and cultural de-evolution? If those that never work, never read, are the ones that reproduce the most, then do we de-evolve intellectually. Does the gene pool decline? I'm not sure about this. Somehow it feels like I am espousing some Nazi doctrine though I can't quite pin it down.

www.independent.co.uk/news/science/huma ... 07101.html

Professor Gerald Crabtree, who heads a genetics laboratory at Stanford University in California, has put forward the iconoclastic idea that rather than getting cleverer, human intelligence peaked several thousand years ago and from then on there has been a slow decline in our intellectual and emotional abilities.

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.

[Cybrweez]

Yea, it peaked in Eden.

[SerScot]

This should explain everything:

Part 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icmRCixQrx8

Part 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8rhIZJAdd0

[lorin]

This should explain everything:

Part 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icmRCixQrx8

Part 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8rhIZJAdd0

missing part 3. Don't leave me hangin'

[SerScot]

Part 3 is irrelevant as it leads into the time travel plot where a modern person ends up in the wonderland that has evolved (or de-volved) in 500 years. Where marketing geniuses water plants with Gatorade becasuse "It's what plants want" and wonder why their crops are dieing.

[Cail]

Everything you need to know about combating this is here. Planned Parenthood began as an organization to facilitate the weeding out of "undesirables".

[Zarathustra]

As others (notably, TheFallen) pointed out in our homosexuality discussions, you can't think of an organism's adaptations as absolutely good/bad or beneficial/detrimental. You have to consider them in their context, their environment. Yes, humans are physically inferior (weaker muscles, less dense bones, less robust immune systems) to humans of the distant past. However, we're adapted to our environment, so it's a moot point.

I'm reading a book Peter suggested (why doesn't he ever post here?) called THE BEGINNING OF INFINITY, by David Deutsch. In it he points out that by the time modern humans came into being, they were already using tools and thus shaping their environment. The precursors to modern humans were already doing these things. So our biosphere has never entirely supported us. In fact, Deutsch points out that our biosphere can't support us, not without out direct intervention to alter it. Without shelter and clothing, most places on earth where humans now live would soon kill us. Without knowledge, most people would be helpless even in hospitable environments. And this has always been the case.

[SerScot]

Zara,

the Beginning of Infinity is a great book. Deutsch slaps the "spaceship Earth" thesis pretty hard.

[Vraith]

The precursors to modern humans were already doing these things. So our biosphere has never entirely supported us. In fact, Deutsch points out that our biosphere can't support us, not without out direct intervention to alter it.

I've heard that guy [the dumbing one, not Deutsch] before, making that devolution claim. Along with [actually part of] what you say there, the guy never seems to mention [maybe doesn't know] that agriculture is at LEAST as brain-challenging as hunting and gathering. [[I'd say it's quite a bit harder, to tell the truth...and I've got a bit of experience with both...I'd also say that gathering is kinda part of the farmer-brain, not the hunter-brain, but that's me]].

Also something missing in the OP I think is pretty important: Most of those anti-survival traits don't really go into affect on people until AFTER they're past the breeding stage. [[historically speaking]].
Now some things...like vaccines and anti-biotics...those are having an affect...cuz they prevent deaths that used to happen before breeding age. A LOT of deaths.
But were the things we're preventing really a good selection mechanism?
Is the fact that a child is vulnerable to, say, measles, an indication that they are a weak strain of human that SHOULD have died? Or just unlucky?
Cuz I have to say: there ARE no people, none at all, who aren't genetically weak/defective in one way or another. [you are also, all of you, and me too, mutants ].
Not to mention...I think I recall that there is an actual relationship between intelligence and near-sightedness, even if the mechanism is unknown?? So a lot more people with glasses means we have a lot more smart people...right??

[Zarathustra]

So a lot more people with glasses means we have a lot more smart people...right??

Only if you wear the thick black hipster frames.

[TheFallen]

When I saw the OP with this professor Crabtree's quoted article, much like Cail, I was expecting the spectre of eugenics to rear its ugly head. Frankly, I think Crabtree's talking crap.

Okay sure, the vast majority of us in the modern environment would be pretty useless if suddenly dropped into a primitive environment where we had to live by hunting/gathering. But so what? Why is that proof of a lessening of intelligence? If anything, the rise of society and civilisation has enabled our intelligence to focus on matters a little more profound and more useful in the long term than simply where the next meal is coming from. I also agree with Vraith that farming is an activity requiring a great deal more intelligence - at least in terms of long-term planning - than hunting/gathering, so if true, that in itself shoots down Crabtree's claim.

Where a case *could* be made for an overall "dumbing down" of average human intelligence - and let me make it perfectly clear, I wouldn't make this case - is under the presumption that intelligence is in some way hereditary, or alternatively, defined by the nurturing of the parents. Or both. Now, if less intelligent or less nurturing parents are in general having statistically significantly more offspring than smarter, more nurturing parents, then a case can be logically made that the ratio of less intelligent to more intelligent people is growing in favour of those more dumb.

Now I'm not sure I believe that's true, but IMO it's capable of holding a lot more water than what Prof Crabtree is wibbling on about.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

But what about intellectual and cultural de-evolution? If those that never work, never read, are the ones that reproduce the most, then do we de-evolve intellectually. Does the gene pool decline? I'm not sure about this. Somehow it feels like I am espousing some Nazi doctrine though I can't quite pin it down.

Culturally we may decline--a lack of artists, musicians, highly-trained scientists, etc--but intellectually no, we are not in a state of decline. Humans are, on average, neither significantly smarter nor dumber than our ancestors thousands of years ago. Some scientific advances in the past seem more significant than they really are because they were uncommon--when Pluto was discovered (and rightfully named a planet...and it should never have been downgraded) it made international news but astronomers are identifying new planets all the time now and you hardly ever hear about it.

It may appear that we are getting dumber because we let devices do so much work for us, but those technological advances have helped us continue the pace of advancement. In centuries past, mathematicians would spend weeks making meticulous calculations to prove or show something that can be done in less than a minute now.

This, of course, is a completely separate issue from people acting stupidly on purpose, which is a problem that will plague us until our species goes away.

[Zarathustra]

Even if individually humans are less intelligent than those in the past, we're collectively much smarter. We are forming a global "brain." Our systems of knowledge creation/transmission/memory--even something as simple as an alphabet--augment our native skills to the point that average brain power doesn't really matter.

TheFallen: hunting with spears requires a lot more intelligence than you'd expect. Early humans were experts in animal migration and behavior. Bringing down large prey took cooperation and strategy. Planting seeds and waiting for them to sprout is relatively easy compared to out-smarting faster/stronger animals. Mankind became such an efficient hunter, we were hunting species to extinction long before recorded history.

What agriculture did for us was to introduce enough surplus that systems of counting were invented, which led to math.

[Ananda]

Maybe Lorin is on to something. Is this proof?

www.damnyouautocorrect.com/78482/10-tim ... rect-wish/




and my favourite since it comes with logic and explanations

[lorin]

These are hysterical, Ananda!

[Vraith]

Even if individually humans are less intelligent than those in the past, we're collectively much smarter. We are forming a global "brain." Our systems of knowledge creation/transmission/memory--even something as simple as an alphabet--augment our native skills to the point that average brain power doesn't really matter.

TheFallen: hunting with spears requires a lot more intelligence than you'd expect. Early humans were experts in animal migration and behavior. Bringing down large prey took cooperation and strategy. Planting seeds and waiting for them to sprout is relatively easy compared to out-smarting faster/stronger animals. Mankind became such an efficient hunter, we were hunting species to extinction long before recorded history.

What agriculture did for us was to introduce enough surplus that systems of counting were invented, which led to math.

On the first...yea. I don't think we ARE individually getting dumber...but if we were, the rest you say seems true. As I said somewhere, if nothing else pure population means we're making more real geniuses, and even the tech we have now means we can leverage that genius. [[heh...give me a genius, an App, and a worldwideweb, and I shall create a new world!]]

On the second, I think you slightly overstate the hunting complexity/intelligence connection [[though no doubt it is part of it...no doubt at all, particularly because of the need to conceptualize spacial relations...nevertheless, is wiping out a game animal proof of efficient hunting and understanding? Or freaking stupid? Cuz in none of the cases I'm aware of did they wipe out the meat cuz they NEEDED more.]] and massively understate the knowledge and comprehension necessary for real agriculture.
After all, if agriculture is so easy, why is it that pretty much every species hunts and/or gathers...but only people can really do agriculture?

On a lighter note...Ananda, I make a habit of checking autocorrect and dumb text sites pretty regularly for the laughs like the ones you put here.
Also, I check the Darwin awards [which Hashi was talking about somewhere today or yesterday...I think this thread, but I'm too lazy to scroll right now.]

I'm starting to think being really clueless is a survival trait for all of us! Whenever the smarter/tougher ones start thinking about getting rid of the mediocre ones, the mediocre ones point at the truly clueless ones and get the elite folk something to laugh at! And the un-tough ones [especially SMART weaklings] pretend to be clueless cuz it gets the tough ones laughing and off their backs...and the smart-weak ones sneak off in the bushes with the best mates, cuz everyone knows everyone really MOST wants a mate who makes them laugh!

It's my new dating service/money maker app idea. Cuz those folk are making so many people LOL, they MUST be getting laid a LOT.

TANGENT WARNING [too late, tangent passed...and some of you are laughing. At least one or two. So I'm getting some tonight!!! ...sorry.

[Damelon]

lorin, I think the good professor is full of it, but another prof quoted in the article said it better:

However, other scientists remain sceptical. “At first sight this is a classic case of Arts Faculty science. Never mind the hypothesis, give me the data, and there aren’t any,” said Professor Steve Jones, a geneticist at University College London.

“I could just as well argue that mutations have reduced our aggression, our depression and our penis length but no journal would publish that. Why do they publish this?” Professor Jones said.

[Holsety]

Everything you need to know about combating this is here. Planned Parenthood began as an organization to facilitate the weeding out of "undesirables".

Planned Parenthood is still about weeding out children who aren't desired. It's just that the ultimate choice is made by the mother.

[Avatar]

I have days when I think we should be weeding them out. By my standards of course.

I don't know if I would call it devolution. There's no doubt in my mind that we're interfering with natural selection of course. We are and do and, as Z points out, having been trying to do so pretty much since we could.

But it's like those fancy pigeons people breed that could never survive in the wild. Remove the human intervention, and they're breed back to the original strain pretty damn quick.

Same would happen to us. It's a decline and fall type of situation...the "strong" survive, then civilisation starts protecting the "weak" the weak thrive, and potentially lead to the collapse of that civilisation, after which they all die out and the survivors start again.

Are people getting smarter or stupider? Simply put, it doesn't matter. Even civilisation is self-regulating at some point. If it all fails and breaks down, it just starts again.

Sucks to live while it is failing, but for all our complaints, we're not even near that stage yet. Not in our life times.

--A

[SerScot]

See using base 60 for time measurements is confusing.