Did humans evolve into separate races that differ in mental traits?

[hypervalent_iodine]

!

Moderator Note

The conversation about who is or is not racist stops now. It is not productive, nor is it on topic. If you disagree with someone's points, then do so by discussing the science, not the person. Any more posts along these lines will be removed.

[sethoflagos]

 

145 is 4 SDs from a mean of 85 which is a number i got from averaging two different sources for genetic african IQ. I thought that is what you wanted to measure? But doesn't an IQ of 130 have a rarity of 1/44? Where are you getting the 30,000 from? 160 is 4 sd from a mean of 100 which is 1/30,000, is the rarity the same in it's percentile no matter what the mean is?

 

4sd is 60 IQ points above the mean IQ of the population under discussion. In a population with mean IQ of 100, 130 is not so very rare and should be exceeded by one individual in 44. But in a population with a mean IQ of 70, individuals with 130+ scores should occur nearly a thousand times as infrequently.

 

For myself, accounting for the phenomenon of rare high intelligence within a population is the major challenge any theory of intelligence has to address. If it was purely a matter of combinations of alleles, then the mere existence of exceptional individuals implies that those alleles must be present in the genome. They may only occur with low frequency, but they must be present and therefore available to increase in frequency through evolutionary selection processes when survival demands intelligence. So even in this purely inheritance based view, we have to call on environmental conditions to explain low frequency distribution of particular alleles. And once we admit that, then the wedge is in the crack. Genetics and environment must act dynamically in concert. Higher frequency expression of high intelligence within any population is under environmental control and is therefore plastic, not immutable.

[meLothedestroyerofworlds]

 

4sd is 60 IQ points above the mean IQ of the population under discussion. In a population with mean IQ of 100, 130 is not so very rare and should be exceeded by one individual in 44. But in a population with a mean IQ of 70, individuals with 130+ scores should occur nearly a thousand times as infrequently.

 

For myself, accounting for the phenomenon of rare high intelligence within a population is the major challenge any theory of intelligence has to address. If it was purely a matter of combinations of alleles, then the mere existence of exceptional individuals implies that those alleles must be present in the genome. They may only occur with low frequency, but they must be present and therefore available to increase in frequency through evolutionary selection processes when survival demands intelligence. So even in this purely inheritance based view, we have to call on environmental conditions to explain low frequency distribution of particular alleles. And once we admit that, then the wedge is in the crack. Genetics and environment must act dynamically in concert. Higher frequency expression of high intelligence within any population is under environmental control and is therefore plastic, not immutable.

I agree but that's the same thing as saying evolution is driven by environment. If the environment changes radically then a population usually undergoes bottlenecks to adapt to said change. Plasiticity is just a reaction of gene expression to new Environments as well, which is what we could be seeing with these patterns. Either way blacks have much higher IQ's than previously thought, but this doesn't disprove genetic influence, it just further specifies where the underlying issues are.

[sethoflagos]

I agree but that's the same thing as saying evolution is driven by environment. If the environment changes radically then a population usually undergoes bottlenecks to adapt to said change. Plasiticity is just a reaction of gene expression to new Environments as well, which is what we could be seeing with these patterns. Either way blacks have much higher IQ's than previously thought, but this doesn't disprove genetic influence, it just further specifies where the underlying issues are.

 

Which blacks? And why the need to assign a single number that is only ever a partial description of the attributes of a single individual, to a population (however you define that population) whose long-term survival is at least in part influenced by its genetic diversity?

 

Actually, I don't believe that there are any points here upon which we disagree at a fundamental level. I do believe however that that your concepts (and the words you use to define them) are way too loosely defined and generalised to aid any deep understanding.

 

Although I have no particular aversion to the word 'black' (my wife would identify with it), it's rather like the word 'fish'. From our point of view, it includes both the previously mentioned three-spined stickleback and the whale shark. An evolutionist whale shark however, may point out with sound justification that from his point of view, we are some kind of terrestrial stickleback.

 

The broader you generalise your definition of a population, the more genetically diverse that population becomes, and the more exceptions there are for a generalised theory to account for.

 

To put this back on topic, have any alleles favouring high intelligence either been lost or never acquired by 'Africans' as a whole? If that is your proposition then you're going to have to come up with something far more solid than some flimsy, subjective correlation to demonstrate it. It only takes one African of exceptional intelligence by global standards, to suggest that the proposition has no meaningful value.

 

Contrast this to a demonstrably evolutionary genetic trend - the emergence of the sickle-cell trait within African populations in response to malaria. Positive selection for a trait with many negative side effects in return for 90% protection against cerebral malaria demonstrates a number of things: not only the huge influence of malaria on African populations, but a clear causal route and mechanism that is altogether lacking in proposition of the OP. Btw cerebral malaria does some seriously nasty damage to your IQ.

[Memammal]

I have not read the entire thread. Has anyone brought up Kyle R Skottke's paper on The Evolution of Human Intelligence (Increasing Importance of Domain-Specific Intelligence in the Modern Environment)? It is a rather short and concise paper and worth a read. Here are some key excerpts:

 

 

• INTRODUCTION: Human intelligence has evolved steadily over the course of thousands of generations without drastic change in the environment. However, the challenges we face in modern society have forced the independent domain of intelligence to assume the roles that other domains would have played in the primitive environment in which we evolved. There are clear genetic links that predispose people to have a larger cerebral cortex, allowing them to better deal with the challenges of the expanded work load modern life puts on our intelligence domain. Evolution has not yet had a chance to catch up to the rapid progress we have made as a society and might not due to human circumvention of natural selection. General intelligence (g) can be described as the ability of an individual to acquire and apply knowledge. Many studies have shown that g is at least 50 percent heritable and thus, can be passed down from generation to generation (DiLalla, 2000). Evolution is the concept that the gene expression of organisms changes over time. It is clear that human intelligence has changed since the emergence of the very first hominids. While there are several genetic explanations for this change, with several genes directly involved in g, there are also environmental and migrational factors that have influenced human intelligence. The migration of people to all areas of the earth along with the industrialization of modern society has abstracted modern man from our ancestors. Since our environments are abstracted, a greater importance has been placed on cognitive ability and intelligence to allow us to function in modern society.
• The independent domain theory states that general intelligence is only one of several psychological mechanisms, along with mate selection, the cheater detection molecule, and the face recognition module that have evolved. It is important to note that in this model, general intelligence is defined as the ability to use deductive logic and abstract thought.
• Genetic analysis also supports the field independent model. One finding, "concerning specific cognitive abilities is that multivariate genetic analyses indicate that the same genetic factors largely influence different abilities" (Plomin 1999). This refers to the fact that genes involved in verbal ability are also linked to spatial ability and other cognitive abilities. Therefore, the psychological mechanism of general intelligence is not divided into smaller groups based on specific cognitive action; rather that it is a category that encompasses all cognitive ability. This supports the field independent model because the psychological mechanisms of mate selection and cheater detection are not cognitive fields, but are more hard wired gut feelings. Multivariate genetic analysis also discredits the field dependent theory because the analysis shows that verbal and spatial abilities are tied to the same genetic factors, whereas in field dependent theory, they are separate categories under g.
• Reverse engineering in the context of evolution, is the attempt to infer the ancestral conditions, called the environment of evolutionary adaptation, that would have made certain genetically inherited behavior-inducing modules increase their bearers' reproductive success (David, 2002). It has been inferred that prehistoric man originated in Africa based on archeological evidence. In this primitive environment, there would have been certain physiological traits that would have been more favorable to the bearer of the trait.
• The consistency of the Pleistocene epoch would have promoted evolution in a specific direction without much deviation. One key aspect of this era was that more children were being born than were supportable by the environment. There had not been the advent of modern agriculture to mass produce food, and there was no domestication of animals. It is primarily because of this aspect of the Pleistocene epoch that evolution was able to shape the human race through natural selection. Since only some of the population was able to survive and reproduce each generation, it follows that the individuals best suited to the environment would survive and pass on their traits, since most traits are at least 50 percent heritable.
• However, in the past 1000 years, we have come a long way from our roots in Africa. Since we live in an environment that is far abstracted from the African savannah, even the simplest of things that we take for granted relies on our function of g. Changes have been made so rapidly in society that the natural selection mechanism of evolution has not had a chance to catch up to the progress we have made technologically. Thus, the part of the brain that is able to process abstract thought is used to help us navigate and cope with our "foreign" environments. There is no physiological mechanism for humans to know how to operate an elevator or how to travel through a city filled with skyscrapers, which is why g has become increasingly important over the past millennia; we have further developed g through our dependence on it. A study was done which supports the idea that intelligence can develop over time. Newborn chicks which have small brains are able to correctly perceive partially occluded objects as one object. However, human babies were likely to perceive it as two separate objects (Langer, 2004). This study demonstrates that intelligence develops over time, and if intelligence can develop over time in one individual, it is possible for intelligence to develop over time for an entire population. Since intelligence can develop and because popular views on intelligence and types of intelligence are changing, there has also been increased pressure to revise methods of testing intelligence; for which the most common measure is currently modifications of the Wechsler intelligence test (Esters, 1999).
• ...intelligence is not dimorphic, there is a broad range of intelligence and there are several genes that govern g. These multiple-gene systems are often referred to as quantitative trait loci (QTLs), which can, contribute interchangeably and additively like probabilistic risk factors (Plomin, 1999).
• The physical size of specific regions of the brain can have tremendous effects on an individual's g. One gene that was linked to the smaller brain size in the microcephaly patients was named microcephalin.
• QTL studies have isolated insulin-like growth factor-2 receptor (IGF2R) as a gene on chromosome 6 which is linked to intelligence because it has, "been shown to be especially active in brain regions most involved in learning and memory" (Plomin, 1999, p. 789). Of the two alleles that are possible, it was found that a group of children with high IQ had twice the frequency of one allele as compared to the group of children with low IQ. More studies are needed to show the direct role that this gene plays in determining intelligence, but it is important to note that genes determining intelligence do exist and can be passed on to offspring.
• It is a long established fact that the neocortex is not only the newest portion of the brain to have developed, but has also gotten bigger over time (Emery & Clayton, 2004). The dorsal thalamus is another region of the brain which functions as a relay or gateway into the cortex. A study was conducted by K. K. Glendenning in which the dorsal thalamus of placental mammals was examined for the presence of g-aminodecarboxylase immunoreactive neurons. The presence of more of these neurons results in the increased uptake of GABA, a type of neurotransmitter which acts to slow activity in the brain. It was found that the systematic increase in inhibitory receptors in the dorsal thalamus of placental mammals is correlated with the increase in the development of the cortex of placental mammals (Glendenning, 1998). Using the findings of this experiment in conjunction with the changing environments man has found himself in since the origin of Homo sapiens, it can be reasoned that evolution has favored individuals with the ability to better regulate their brain activity (Fischman, 1993). The ability to regulate the brain is a clear advantage when living in groups. If an individual was not able to control primal urges and behave in accordance with the social norms of the times, whether prehistoric or modern, this individual would be exiled from the group. Although being exiled from the group does not sound like a terribly important thing in modern society, it would have been devastating to prehistoric man. If early humans were exiled, they had little chance of reproduction and their own chances of survival were dramatically decreased (Kamil, 2004)... The fact that most people now posses this trait of increased sensitivity to GABA suggests that it is such an important trait that it has evolved and remained a favorable trait over several millennia. This would mean that early humans who possessed less regulational control over their brains would be ostracized and would not pass their genes to the next generation, resulting in the trait for lower GABA sensitivity fading away.
• CONCLUSION: ...since we have removed ourselves from the "native" landscape and challenges of Africa, we have become more dependent on the psychological mechanism of general intelligence than previously in the history of mankind. While there have been definite changes in the brain that account for increased intelligence of humans over apes and other mammals such as the presence of more GABA receptors and brain growth genes, much of the intelligence that we use is partially due to environmental factors. Since we are removed from the environment in which we evolved, the g region of the brain is forced to account for much more than it would otherwise have to... Although thousands of years have passed since mankind migrated from Africa and populated the vast expanses of the world, there has been insufficient time for evolution to take effect and modify us to better fit our new environments.

[bering strait]

sethoflagos

Which blacks? And why the need to assign a single number that is only ever a partial description of the attributes of a single individual, to a population (however you define that population) whose long-term survival is at least in part influenced by its genetic diversity?

Actually, I don't believe that there are any points here upon which we disagree at a fundamental level. I do believe however that that your concepts (and the words you use to define them) are way too loosely defined and generalised to aid any deep understanding.

Although I have no particular aversion to the word 'black' (my wife would identify with it), it's rather like the word 'fish'. From our point of view, it includes both the previously mentioned three-spined stickleback and the whale shark. An evolutionist whale shark however, may point out with sound justification that from his point of view, we are some kind of terrestrial stickleback. The broader you generalise your definition of a population, the more genetically diverse that population becomes, and the more exceptions there are for a generalised theory to account for.

To put this back on topic, have any alleles favouring high intelligence either been lost or never acquired by 'Africans' as a whole? If that is your proposition then you're going to have to come up with something far more solid than some flimsy, subjective correlation to demonstrate it.

It only takes one African of exceptional intelligence by global standards, to suggest that the proposition has no meaningful value."...":

/END sethofLagis

 

 

 

Bering Strait

That would be False/Ludicrous... again.

IQ by Race is Expressed in AVERAGES. Every Race has a Right side of the Bell Curve with "exceptional" (for their race) IQs.

A single 'Black' man (or 10/100) with a 130 IQ does NOT ruin that concept of average IQ!

There are just VERY many Fewer with 130 IQs than other races.

There goes the last 10 of your posts.

 

ie, For the 4 'Races' of scores of charts can be found by.... Googling!. Hark!

and Take your pick!

This isn't some unusual 'racist' idea! These ARE the numbers.

https://www.google.com/search?q=race+iq&espv=2&biw=1280&bih=593&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjAw_y9y5nQAhWELSYKHaEeB68Q_AUIBygC

 

ie

Graphic from WIKIPEDIA

This is America/Mixed Black, vs Hispanic, vs White vs Asian

Most omit sub-Saharan Black, as it is Embarrassing with a peak at 70 instead of 85.

But I can post those too.

The controversial 70 is considered Borderline Retarded by IQ researchers, and would lead to a difficult to govern Mess... and SO sub-Sahara IS!

 

 

So your "one-man" theory is Absurd!

ALL races have some 'elite', just there are much fewer at the higher numbers for some, and many more at Lower numbers.

You thought higher IQ meant ALL whites are Smarter than ALL Blacks, etc. (thus 'one man')

You had No concept of averages/Overlapping curves.

 

Put into a real world example:

YOU believed that those of us who advocate Race difference thought, ie, Barack Obama ('one man') was dumber than ALL 200 million White Americans!!!

That is tantamount to YOUR concept.

Not even Stormfronters/NO One believes that. It's beyond absurd.

In fact, he's probably Smarter than 80% of White Americans.

And yet that has NOTHING to do with AVERAGE IQ difference.

 

As far as the word "Black", they are distinguished by Both Race and IQ Researchers.

American 'Blacks' are an Admixture of Two Races: Euro/White (app 20%) and sub-Saharan Black.

Ergo! American Blacks have, ON AVERAGE, 85 IQs, midway between the white 100, and sub-Saharan 70!

Just what one would expect from an interbred Mix!

The Short Version is this:

NE Asian - - - 106

White - - - - - - - 100

American Black 85

sub-Saharan -- - 70

 

The above is all Basic/Beginner stuff for a Race/IQ discussion.

It's been posted previously/early in this string, in fact, in more detail.

Most know what we are talking about.

Thanks to those others who (are watching this in 'amazement') for your indulgence to get up to speed/basics here.

/End Bering strait

 

 

 

Edited November 8, 2016 by bering strait

[sethoflagos]

I have not read the entire thread. Has anyone brought up Kyle R Skottke's paper on The Evolution of Human Intelligence (Increasing Importance of Domain-Specific Intelligence in the Modern Environment)? It is a rather short and concise paper and worth a read. Here are some key excerpts:

 

 

Interesting viewpoints.

 

I don't know whether this holds true in SA but one cultural difference that struck me when I first moved out here is that when there was a problem to be solved, the European instinct was to wander off to a quiet corner and start jotting down thoughts on paper, while the immediate response of the Nigerians would be to call for a communal discussion.

 

Very strange at first. But it got me thinking.

 

Maybe it's possible to make good judgment calls consistently not just through the capabilities of your own genes but by pooling resources with your neighbours. That is, the 'clever' genes that guide you in acting intelligently don't necessarily have to be inside your own body - they might be inside someone else's. This approach would allow different individuals within the community to specialise in developing the thought processes that came naturally to them - instinctive, experience based, visual, spiritual, deductive or whatever, and not waste individual resources on developing faculties that came more naturally to others.

 

The common requirement for such a process is that all parties must have strong oral communication skills. I'm not sure I've ever met an African who wasn't fluent in at least two languages, which certainly puts me to shame. Perhaps this might also shed some light on why written language in sub-saharan Africa was typically surrounded in taboo and often strictly restricted to the village doctors and post-menopausal women

 

Incidently. has anyone picked up on the correlation between geographic mean IQ and the complexity of the traditional writing system. Is it purely a coincidence that the highest mean scores are amongst those populations who traditionally use pictogrammes?

Edited November 8, 2016 by sethoflagos

[meLothedestroyerofworlds]

 

Which blacks? And why the need to assign a single number that is only ever a partial description of the attributes of a single individual, to a population (however you define that population) whose long-term survival is at least in part influenced by its genetic diversity?

 

Actually, I don't believe that there are any points here upon which we disagree at a fundamental level. I do believe however that that your concepts (and the words you use to define them) are way too loosely defined and generalised to aid any deep understanding.

 

Although I have no particular aversion to the word 'black' (my wife would identify with it), it's rather like the word 'fish'. From our point of view, it includes both the previously mentioned three-spined stickleback and the whale shark. An evolutionist whale shark however, may point out with sound justification that from his point of view, we are some kind of terrestrial stickleback.

 

The broader you generalise your definition of a population, the more genetically diverse that population becomes, and the more exceptions there are for a generalised theory to account for.

 

To put this back on topic, have any alleles favouring high intelligence either been lost or never acquired by 'Africans' as a whole? If that is your proposition then you're going to have to come up with something far more solid than some flimsy, subjective correlation to demonstrate it. It only takes one African of exceptional intelligence by global standards, to suggest that the proposition has no meaningful value.

 

Contrast this to a demonstrably evolutionary genetic trend - the emergence of the sickle-cell trait within African populations in response to malaria. Positive selection for a trait with many negative side effects in return for 90% protection against cerebral malaria demonstrates a number of things: not only the huge influence of malaria on African populations, but a clear causal route and mechanism that is altogether lacking in proposition of the OP. Btw cerebral malaria does some seriously nasty damage to your IQ.

 

It's just averages dude. It almost seems like redundant logic. We are measuring averages because human variation has considerable overlap. It does have meaningful value, because the lower IQ populations tend to gravitate to specific climatic zones. It could be something like epigenetics where african's genes for intelligence are suppressed by subpar environmental conditions. Much is speculation at this point, However I may be able to give an accurate mathematical "model" to go by. Like we were doing earlier it may be important to establish and actual Performance and genetic IQ for African populations and then compare it to the scores of African elites/self selected immigrants. I speculate myself that the discrepancies we see are due to agriculture and the industrial revolution.

 

 

• While there have been definite changes in the brain that account for increased intelligence of humans over apes and other mammals such as the presence of more GABA receptors and brain growth genes, much of the intelligence that we use is partially due to environmental factors. Since we are removed from the environment in which we evolved, the g region of the brain is forced to account for much more than it would otherwise have to... Although thousands of years have passed since mankind migrated from Africa and populated the vast expanses of the world, there has been insufficient time for evolution to take effect and modify us to better fit our new environments.

 

Doesn't that seem contradictory? If there has been increasing pressure for g shouldn't that mean we are evolving to have higher IQ's? Especially sense the flynn effect has shown our IQ have been increasing every decade or so. How do they know it hasn't had that much time to evolve as a beneficial trait? our mutation rate has sped up by a lot since 40,000 years ago.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

 

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/evolution/selection/acceleration/accel_story_2007.html

 

I don't know whether this holds true in SA but one cultural difference that struck me when I first moved out here is that when there was a problem to be solved, the European instinct was to wander off to a quiet corner and start jotting down thoughts on paper, while the immediate response of the Nigerians would be to call for a communal discussion.

 

Maybe it's possible to make good judgment calls consistently not just through the capabilities of your own genes but by pooling resources with your neighbours. That is, the 'clever' genes that guide you in acting intelligently don't necessarily have to be inside your own body - they might be inside someone else's. This approach would allow different individuals within the community to specialise in developing the thought processes that came naturally to them - instinctive, experience based, visual, spiritual, deductive or whatever, and not waste individual resources on developing faculties that came more naturally to others.

 

The common requirement for such a process is that all parties must have strong oral communication skills. I'm not sure I've ever met an African who wasn't fluent in at least two languages, which certainly puts me to shame. Perhaps this might also shed some light on why written language in sub-saharan Africa was typically surrounded in taboo and often strictly restricted to the village doctors and post-menopausal women

 

Incidently. has anyone picked up on the correlation between geographic mean IQ and the complexity of the traditional writing system. Is it purely a coincidence that the highest mean scores are amongst those populations who traditionally use pictogrammes?

 

What kind of implication do you think the organizational patterns you saw had?Maybe that was the trade off. Africans have been observed as being more outgoing and social than whites or east asians, so they were able to rely on social safety nets while eurasian hominids with their smaller populations had to rely more on an individual efficiency in g? Africans do in fact have a proportionately larger verbal IQ. Sometimes I wonder if writing displays the same dysgenic side effect as calculators. African IQ is a highly interesting subject.

Edited November 9, 2016 by meLothedestroyerofworlds

[sethoflagos]

 

 

 

What kind of implication do you think the organizational patterns you saw had?

 

It told me that one culture that is barely 500 years old and in denial of its own particular self-generated social problems, has no business telling distant cultures of which it has no understanding, and which have survived every trial that the last 50,000+ years has thrown at them, that they don't have what it takes to be biologically successful.

 

Our feeble inbred lines are only ever one virus strain away from obliteration.

[meLothedestroyerofworlds]

 

It told me that one culture that is barely 500 years old and in denial of its own particular self-generated social problems, has no business telling distant cultures of which it has no understanding, and which have survived every trial that the last 50,000+ years has thrown at them, that they don't have what it takes to be biologically successful.

 

Our feeble inbred lines are only ever one virus strain away from obliteration.

I meant with how each group had its varying preferences on how to accomplish a task through problem solving. g =/= biological successful outcomes, evolution has it's trade offs like I said before. While g is the ability to adapt to any situation using all abstract problem solving methods but that doesn't necessarily mean evolution will always select fr bigger/more complex brains Sometimes it's easier to generate mutations for thicker fur than to generate ones for increased brain size. Eurasians may be less diverse genetically but their higher g allows them to invent different kinds of medicine to prevent such outbreaks.

Edited November 9, 2016 by meLothedestroyerofworlds

[sethoflagos]

I'm sorry, Mel. For a while back there I thought you were receptive to different perspectives on this issue.

 

Now you're simply using 'g' as a substitute euphemism for IQ I guess due to IQ's bad publicity.

 

I've really said all (probably more than all) that I had to say on the matter.

 

Toodle pip.

[Memammal]

I don't know whether this holds true in SA but one cultural difference that struck me when I first moved out here is that when there was a problem to be solved, the European instinct was to wander off to a quiet corner and start jotting down thoughts on paper, while the immediate response of the Nigerians would be to call for a communal discussion.

Yes, it is called an indaba.

 

Maybe it's possible to make good judgment calls consistently not just through the capabilities of your own genes but by pooling resources with your neighbours. That is, the 'clever' genes that guide you in acting intelligently don't necessarily have to be inside your own body - they might be inside someone else's. This approach would allow different individuals within the community to specialise in developing the thought processes that came naturally to them - instinctive, experience based, visual, spiritual, deductive or whatever, and not waste individual resources on developing faculties that came more naturally to others.

This is indeed one of the points that the paper that I referenced conveyed...and also the different challenges that are being posed by our modern (business) environment and how our cognitive ability (read the plasticity thereof) and intelligence had to develop ("...the challenges we face in modern society have forced the independent domain of intelligence to assume the roles that other domains would have played in the primitive environment in which we evolved..​. the g region of the brain is forced to account for much more than it would otherwise have to").

 

Doesn't that seem contradictory? If there has been increasing pressure for g shouldn't that mean we are evolving to have higher IQ's? Especially sense the flynn effect has shown our IQ have been increasing every decade or so. How do they know it hasn't had that much time to evolve as a beneficial trait? our mutation rate has sped up by a lot since 40,000 years ago.

The paper does not deal with the Flynn effect per se, but it points to the development of (multiple types of) intelligence in order to cope with our changing environment. "(Langer, 2004). This study demonstrates that intelligence develops over time, and if intelligence can develop over time in one individual, it is possible for intelligence to develop over time for an entire population. Since intelligence can develop and because popular views on intelligence and types of intelligence are changing, there has also been increased pressure to revise methods of testing intelligence..."

 

Also the writer was arguing that there was no real stress w.r.t. survival in the past thousands of years, so evolution of our species would have stagnated to a large extent. The challenges that the new environments brought did not really pose a threat i.t.o. survival, just a change in how we utilise (and develop) our inherent intelligence to cope better with abstract reasoning ("Since our environments are abstracted, a greater importance has been placed on cognitive ability and intelligence to allow us to function in modern society... Thus, the part of the brain that is able to process abstract thought is used to help us navigate and cope with our "foreign" environments.")

 

Have a look at the peer commentaries though, which touched on the point that you raised. Even the peer commentaries seem to confirm that a) any "recent changes" would have been mostly environmentally driven and in the way we utilise the various types of intelligence and b) evolutionary adaptation will take considerable time.

 

The paper does not touch on any relationship between race and intelligence brought about by evolution; per implication it becomes a moot point due to its underlying message.

Edited November 9, 2016 by Memammal

[sethoflagos]

Yes, it is called an indaba.

 

 

 

When someone gets around to researching the balance between instinctive first guess and deductive reasoning skills for individuals with exceptionally high IQ scores, I suspect they may be surprised by the results (particularly if they're from the western academic tradition).

 

But it may lead to a some understanding of the role of shamanism, religious ecstasy, psychotropic drug use, yogic meditation, and that nasty little link with schizophrenia. And why these practices with very ancient roots should not be dismissed as lightly as they usually are.

 

Instinctive response is a very fast acting process. If only we could harness and train it.........

[Ophiolite]

Instinctive response is a very fast acting process. If only we could harness and train it.........

Harnessing it is straightforward. Training it is unnecessary. Just accept it.

[meLothedestroyerofworlds]

I'm sorry, Mel. For a while back there I thought you were receptive to different perspectives on this issue.

 

Now you're simply using 'g' as a substitute euphemism for IQ I guess due to IQ's bad publicity.

 

I've really said all (probably more than all) that I had to say on the matter.

 

Toodle pip.

I don't know how you got that impression. g is just general ability which correlates .7-.8(i think) to IQ. I'm sorry I dissapointed you, your reaction is illogical in my opinion but i accept it.

 

The paper does not deal with the Flynn effect per se, but it points to the development of (multiple types of) intelligence in order to cope with our changing environment. "(Langer, 2004). This study demonstrates that intelligence develops over time, and if intelligence can develop over time in one individual, it is possible for intelligence to develop over time for an entire population. Since intelligence can develop and because popular views on intelligence and types of intelligence are changing, there has also been increased pressure to revise methods of testing intelligence..."

 

Also the writer was arguing that there was no real stress w.r.t. survival in the past thousands of years, so evolution of our species would have stagnated to a large extent. The challenges that the new environments brought did not really pose a threat i.t.o. survival, just a change in how we utilise (and develop) our inherent intelligence to cope better with abstract reasoning ("Since our environments are abstracted, a greater importance has been placed on cognitive ability and intelligence to allow us to function in modern society... Thus, the part of the brain that is able to process abstract thought is used to help us navigate and cope with our "foreign" environments.")

 

Have a look at the peer commentaries though, which touched on the point that you raised. Even the peer commentaries seem to confirm that a) any "recent changes" would have been mostly environmentally driven and in the way we utilise the various types of intelligence and b) evolutionary adaptation will take considerable time.

 

The paper does not touch on any relationship between race and intelligence brought about by evolution; per implication it becomes a moot point due to its underlying message.

 

Here you can learn more about the flynn effect: https://pumpkinperson.com/2016/09/29/an-analysis-of-the-flynn-effect/

 

 

"They lived in a World where life depended on solving actual problems, so they couldn’t relate to tests that required them to solve imaginary problems, just to prove they had problem solving ability. But those of us who have been socialized by decades of schooling and educated parents, are quite used to imaginary problems and are quite willing to take them seriously.

But I would call this mere test sophistication. I would not say that training people to solve hypothetical problems has increased real intelligence, because real intelligence, by definition, is the ability to solve real problems. Problems that are not real, are technically not even problems.

Of course to measure one’s ability to solve all types of problems, test makers must create hypothetical problems, but if a test-taker can’t interpret hypothetical situations as actual problems, then he is not necessarily lacking in intelligence, but rather is untestable via hypothetical questions. Such a person could only be tested if we made those hypothetical problems real, like we do when we test animals. We don’t ask a monkey how he would use the bamboo sticks to get the banana, we deny him the banana until he figures out how to get it. We make the hypothetical real, since it’s the only way he’ll take the test."

 

 

Sorry I'd prefer data over peer commentaries. What makes you think there was no selective pressures for intelligence in early society? I just showed you our mutation rate was speeding up, but You're simply speculating that the recent changes are environmental. All evolution is a reflection of its respective environment. They share a dynamic relation. Lactose tolerance, literacy, disease, all recent mutations that affected intelligence in some way.

[Memammal]

Here you can learn more about the flynn effect: https://pumpkinperson.com/2016/09/29/an-analysis-of-the-flynn-effect/

I am well aware of the flynn effect and the controversies surrounding it.

 

Sorry I'd prefer data over peer commentaries. What makes you think there was no selective pressures for intelligence in early society? I just showed you our mutation rate was speeding up, but You're simply speculating that the recent changes are environmental. All evolution is a reflection of its respective environment. They share a dynamic relation. Lactose tolerance, literacy, disease, all recent mutations that affected intelligence in some way.

Take it up with the Skottke. The paper principally relied on a number of cited studies, rather than the peer reviews. The underlying conclusion of the paper is that humanity as a species pretty much have had a homogenous collective intellectual potential/capacity (sum total of the various types of intelligence) since initial evolutionary adaptations (i.t.o. intelligence) have stagnated many thousands of years ago. Hereditary transfer is a given. Certain genetic deviations/markers have been identified that could play a role. But overall this intellectual potential/capacity just gets better developed, or better utilised, by individuals and/or by populations depending on changing environmental circumstances.

[imatfaal]

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Moderator Note

 

I think this thread has run its useful course. The thread is now repeating arguments and rehashing old discussion, in the absence of the bitter exchanges and insults which have characterised this thread this might be acceptable, but in a thread which requires regular moderator action due to rules breaches we are not willing to just wait for the next flame/infraction.

 

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