RE: Is the human species getting smarter?

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Rule -> RE: Is the human species getting smarter? (9/17/2007 11:01:34 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: philosophy ..and i thought your last reply was funny.... [:D] It is good that you have a sense of humour. quote: ORIGINAL: philosophy Have i ever had an original thought? How the hell would you know? I notice that you do not say that you ever did. The emotional load is an indication that my suspicion was on the mark. You could have simply told me - and still may - that I erred in my suspicion, and I would have accepted that data, but you did not. quote: ORIGINAL: philosophy i suspect that even if i were to prove you wrong in your long distance diagnosis of my capability you would still cling to your bizare hypothesis, albeit with a few caveats. When the one-eyed man in the country of the blind tells his fellow tribesmen that each of them has a blue feathered parrot on his or her head, I am sure that they will consider it a bizare hypothesis. quote: ORIGINAL: philosophy As for the idea that, because i don't agree with you that proves you correct is arrogant in the extreme.....and seriously mitigates against the idea that you are a supergenius. Real supergeniuses don't treat data as if it were irrelevant...they are capable of admitting when their hypothesis is wrong. I know that I am correct. You lack the ability to recognize that. That proves my point if my suspicion was correct. I asked you for data, but you did not provide it. What relevancy has lacking data? I usually am able in pertinent cases to recognize that the interpretations and hypotheses of other people are wrong. New data and infrequently the comments of more knowledgable experts in the concerned field may indeed cause me to reject or revise my interpretation; it does not happen often, but there are some examples.

Estring -> RE: Is the human species getting smarter? (9/17/2007 11:06:27 AM)
yess we r weigh smartre nwodaaz.

Stephann -> RE: Is the human species getting smarter? (9/18/2007 2:46:18 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: samboct Stephann Hunting solo is bloody dangerous? Nonsense- most of what humans hunt is game like squirrels, birds, fish, or rabbits. Are you suggesting a "killer rabbit"? Even today, fur trappers in Canada still go out solo There aren't many predators out there that have humans on the menu, and the few that do haven't had them as a steady diet for a long time. The dangerous things out there are insects, snakes, and viruses- and my money's on the bushman to be cautious about all of the above- since that's how he's lasted so long. In Africa, the largest mammals to be worried about are Cape Buffalo (because they're used in farming, and occasionally get annoyed) and hippos- who like chomping on boats for the hell of it. Lion attacks are rare. Most hunting these days is solo, because there's a lot more small game than larger game available. You only need to be in a group for bigger game- things like deer, elk, moose, etc. While I agree with you that making money is a very useful survival trait in today's society (and one which I wish I had a bit more of), it's got absolutely nothing to do with surviving in the wilderness. A closer example is a video game player. Take a video game artiste who wracks up lots of points playing "Survirorman" versus someone who actually does it? The person who does something tends to win- a lot. Book learning is a useful predictor for book learning- it's not a damn bit of good of predicting real world success. Sam Try and survive on one or two rabbits a day; you'll be lucky to get 1000 calories [;)] Stephan

Aswad -> RE: Is the human species getting smarter? (9/18/2007 5:10:50 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: CheekyHalfWit I would have to say Smarter, humans are no long inbreeding quite as much. Inbreeding raises intelligence in the long run. The Ashkenazi Jews are a prime example of this; they have the highest average intelligence thanks to long years of inbreeding. It tends to create more unviable offspring and more excellent offspring, with fewer average. With some natural selection, that significantly raises the average, and eliminates most of the problematic genes over time. The problems are purely short-term. Health, al-Aswad.

luckydog1 -> RE: Is the human species getting smarter? (9/18/2007 11:38:30 AM)
Hunting (or even hiking/camping)solo can be very dangerous. Simply breaking your ankle in a solo surival situation can kill you. A simple scratch can give you a staph infection. In the modern world one can usually call for help, in a survivor situation there is no one to call. To the caveman/stockbroker debate. If you put the caveman in its own enviroment, it would win hands down, no question. Otherwise it would depend on the paticulars, and either could win depending on the situation. Also what period is the caveman from, has it learned how to start a fire? Does the stockbroker climb mountains and hike/camp? or is he 200lbs over weight and wheezes when it has to walk to the refridgerator. Are they just grabbed at random with no warning and dropped somewhere. If you just dropped an african caveman with out the knowledge of fire in the artic in the winter, it would surley die, and have no idea what it was facing. A stockbroker would at least have an idea that he was in the artic, and a clue of how to build a fire, even if just from watchng tv. Also the point about the caveman depending on its tribe/clan is very true. It is quite likley that the stockbroker is a total bastard, and doesn't have friends, nor any real need for others(emotionally), where as the cave man certainly would feel very lonley with out his people. The emotional component of survival is very important. The Chris Mcandles movie is coming out( I forgot the title 'Into the wild" I think, Sean Penn directed it). There is a real life example of an uper class fool who tried to survive on his own. He could have saved himself easily; The bus had been driven to where it was, he was literally less than 8 miles from the nearest home, 20 miles from a bar, and had airplanes flying overhead constantly, he just didn't have any will to.

samboct -> RE: Is the human species getting smarter? (9/20/2007 7:04:40 AM)
Stephan- well, I need to lose weight anyhow. And I'm too slow to catch a rabbit- I'd probably starve. "Inbreeding raises intelligence in the long run." Absolute nonsense. Let's look at some heavily inbred species- chickens, cows, beagles, etc. None of these animals would survive in the wild very long any more. Your point of view on the Ashkenazi omits things like Tey-Sachs disease which has been around for centuries, and the fact that the dumb Jews got killed off on a semi-regular basis. Plus, they were forbidden to own land, so they became highly literate and made themselves into merchant classes- hence better educated and informed than their neighbors. This often meant life- but to invoke inbreeding when natural selection provides a straightforward explanation is silly. The reason that monogamy doesn't work (no species has been found to be monogamous) is that natural selection has given a very strong push to adding genes to the breeding pool whenever possible., even at high cost- expulsion from the tribe or family if discovered, death of offspring, etc. If inbreeding would be a survival trait, monogamy and incest would be far more common in nature. Sam

Sinergy -> RE: Is the human species getting smarter? (9/20/2007 7:16:38 AM)
From a longitudinal perspective, Aswad is correct in his statement that inbreeding will tend to make higher iqs. This is due to the combination of increased genetic errors causing more outliers. For example, if 1000 people breed they might have 2 genetic outliers. One bad, one good. The good genetic outlier (high intelligence, for example) tends over millenia to survive and flourish, whereas the other one tends to die out. If 1000 people inbreed, they might have 4 genetic outliers, two bad, two good because genetic alleles match up with their genetically similar relatives. The bad die out, the good survive and breed with each other, and the trait becomes established in the bloodline. Do not take this to mean I want to bang my sister, but from a statistical and pure genetic's perspective, Aswad is spot on, regardless of how socially distasteful the idea is. Sinergy p.s. Regarding things which are bred by humans for certain factors, it is humans who screwed up dogs by inbreeding for traits that would not survive long in the wild, as well as inbreeding while taking away the balancing forces of natural selection. It is an unfair comparison.

samboct -> RE: Is the human species getting smarter? (9/20/2007 9:01:52 AM)
OK- then how about the cheetah as an example of inbreeding? A bunch of years ago, Scientific American published an article showing these cats are on the way out due to the fact that there are maybe 50 distinct genetic pairs out there- basically all cheetahs are first cousins at a minimum. Also- what humans describe as intelligence (book smarts, IQ smarts) doesn't correlate to success in mating or breeding. Being a jerk is a successful mating strategy, as is the ability to make money- neither of which correlate to intelligence very well. (OK, hi IQ, bragging about it, and being a jerk do seem to correlate, but I digress.) Most mutations are deleterious- that's why there are so many miscarriages. Hence, your example of 4 outliers is off- most of the outliers will prove to be fatal, and you might have one successful mutation in 100 or so. Odds are not good for reproductive success, hence, nature discourages this practice. Practical example- if inbreeding would lead to higher IQs, royalty or other snooty families should be pretty smart compared to the rest of us. Somehow, I don't think so. Look at our current president who probably can trace back his ancestry to relatively few families. Also- the example of Jewish inbreeding also doesn't allow for all the pogroms where there were lots of Mongols, Tartars etc, killing, looting and raping. It's possible that the Ashkenazi Jews genes are actually more diverse than other communities, not less. Sam

Satyr6406 -> RE: Is the human species getting smarter? (9/20/2007 9:05:49 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: samboct Practical example- if inbreeding would lead to higher IQs, royalty or other snooty families should be pretty smart compared to the rest of us. Somehow, I don't think so. Look at our current president who probably can trace back his ancestry to relatively few families. Sam Eddie Izzard said, years ago: "Prince Charles. The Royal Family: Proof that it's a bad idea for cousins to marry!" Peace and comfort, Michael

Sinergy -> RE: Is the human species getting smarter? (9/20/2007 10:58:27 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: samboct OK- then how about the cheetah as an example of inbreeding? A bunch of years ago, Scientific American published an article showing these cats are on the way out due to the fact that there are maybe 50 distinct genetic pairs out there- basically all cheetahs are first cousins at a minimum. Cheetahs are not dying out because of inbreeding. They will not breed or go into heat in captivity, they require many miles of open grassland before they will even try to breed. Humans have taken away all their territory. The blood line is genetically "dead" in the sense that it is unlikely they will engender enough diversity in the bloodline to allow it to survive if the conditions changed so it was possible for them to start breeding again. Depopulate Africa and leave them to their own devices, and a resurgance of cheetahs could theoretically happen. It just is not likely. quote: Also- what humans describe as intelligence (book smarts, IQ smarts) doesn't correlate to success in mating or breeding. Being a jerk is a successful mating strategy, as is the ability to make money- neither of which correlate to intelligence very well. (OK, hi IQ, bragging about it, and being a jerk do seem to correlate, but I digress.) And your point would be? Perhaps being a jerk is inherited from one's children, uh, I mean parents. quote: Most mutations are deleterious- that's why there are so many miscarriages. Hence, your example of 4 outliers is off- most of the outliers will prove to be fatal, and you might have one successful mutation in 100 or so. Odds are not good for reproductive success, hence, nature discourages this practice. This is true. But not all mutations are deleterious, and given millenia of breeding time, the few good ones improve the bloodline. quote: Also- the example of Jewish inbreeding also doesn't allow for all the pogroms where there were lots of Mongols, Tartars etc, killing, looting and raping. It's possible that the Ashkenazi Jews genes are actually more diverse than other communities, not less. Sam Aswad's point was on specific traits, not general genetic diversity. Now that you mention it, I read somewhere that 1 in 3 people on the planet can trace ancestry back to Genghis Khan. Sinergy

samboct -> RE: Is the human species getting smarter? (9/20/2007 11:59:53 AM)
Sinergy We're actually pretty close on most points but vary on interpretation- "Cheetahs are not dying out because of inbreeding. They will not breed or go into heat in captivity, they require many miles of open grassland before they will even try to breed. Humans have taken away all their territory." Some of us would call this maladaptive trait an example of a lack of genetic diversity. In other words, cheetahs with more genetic diversity might figure out how to mate even if things feel a little crowded to them. However, since they've all got the same genes, they all think alike. Same comment on the giant pandas -mean, nasty stupid animals that can't figure out how to screw and only want to eat one type of plant. Nature has wiped out far more species than humans, we give ourselves way too much credit. AFAIK- we don't know the genetic makeup of the Ashkenazis across the population- it's kinda silly to say they're smart because of inbreeding, only to find out they're pretty genetically diverse. Sam

luckydog1 -> RE: Is the human species getting smarter? (9/20/2007 12:26:08 PM)
Is there any sort of evidence that Ashkenazi Jews have the highest intellignece? Sinergy actually Aswads calim about the Ashkenazi Jews, was based on their alledged lack of genetic diversity. That because they were inbred they were the smartest.

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