You Really Want To Go Back?(1)
Do you remember as a teenager taking “intelligence tests,” the kind where you perhaps had to solve word math problems, like traveling from one city to the next at a particular speed, or know what a certain parable meant and even demonstrating an understanding of different geometric shapes?
These tests were popular among businesses as well and often used as part of the hiring process for new employees. Today we know these types of tests measure only a small fraction of what might constitute intelligence, let alone the egregious built-in bias that so many of these so called intelligence tests demonstrated.
I once had a colleague that genuinely believed human intelligence was regressing, returning to a former state so to speak. This is of course contrary to what we have usually been taught. Evolution has supposedly brought humankind forward, an advancement over millions of years. It seems to me the idea of human regression would certainly matter if true and possibly explain a great deal both individually and collectively today.
The Problem Proposed
It was around 2012 when a man by the name of Gerald Crabtree offered a controversial and provocative idea, which I learned about while taking a basic course in genetics (for non-geneticists). Crabtree, an American biochemist and professor of Developmental Biology, proposed that human intelligence and brain size likely peaked around 7,000 years ago and has been declining ever since.
According to Crabtree there are some 2,000 to 5,000 genes that are required for intellectual ability. But for the past 3,000 years or so we’ve had mutations that have been harmful to our intellectual or emotional stability.
Crabtree once said that, “A hunter-gatherer who did not correctly conceive a solution to providing food and shelter probably died, along with his or her progeny, whereas a modern Wall Street executive that made a similar conceptual mistake would receive a substantial bonus and be a more attractive mate.”
Needless to say, from the very beginning of Crabtree’s proposal there has been considerable disagreement and pushback. Among other things, many critics have suggested that what has really driven intelligence (humans and primates in general) is the complexity of “our social world.” Who should I mate with? Should I use the rock or the club? We’ll just tell them that Mars is their future and transhumanism their salvation….
But over the past twenty-three years since Crabtree (and others) proposed the idea that human intelligence has declined we’ve had a lot more research, social media and the Internet have exploded globally and fairly recently Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become part of the growing debate on what intelligence might mean for the average person in that “real” world most of us are supposed to be living in.
Intelligence tests themselves go back to the turn of the 20th century. We’ve come a long way in terms of understanding intelligence but we likely have a long way to go. Today, we believe intelligence has both an ability based component and an attitudinal component, meaning to what degree one fully deploys that identified ability. As well, what needs to be measured regarding intelligence is not only knowledge and abstract analytical skills but also creative, practical skills and wisdom.
We might, for example, identify that an individual has exceptional language skills, perhaps the ability to easily learn a new language. This is the “ability based” component of intelligence. Yet this same person might also demonstrate no particular interest in learning a new language for any number or reasons, what we call the “attitudinal” component.
What about creativity? Maybe you really excel when it comes to creating new ideas, what is sometime referred to as divergent thinking. These ideas could spring up from anywhere, from carpentry to race car driving to cooking something never seen before. This is the “ability.”
But unfortunately you perhaps live in a society that frowns upon divergent thinking or differences. The “attitudinal” component might never manifest itself. On the other hand, possibly your parents encouraged this creative drive when you were young. So what might occur? For that matter what might not occur?
Then there is wisdom. This one is in short supply it seems to me … er, my bias. You might have considerable ability in getting people to work together for the common good. But perhaps the attitudinal component is absent. After all, you could be living in Putin’s Russia or the Iranian theocracy and the “common good” is not a desired trait to explore. In fact, it could be a dangerous quality for you to reveal in this particular situation.
The Way We Are?
I came across an article on BuzzFeed entitled, This High School Counselor Shared the Alarming ‘Lack of Basic Knowledge’ Among Their Students. What caught my attention were the observations this high school counselor made about these students and the examples offered, everything from “I don’t know my zip code” to “How do I check my email” or “islands float away, like Japan,” to what does the word “continent” mean?
It’s easy to take this with a grain of salt as the article presents no specifics as to where these students come from or their backgrounds in general. But this story does, however, raise more pertinent questions today about our human intelligence and the direction it may or may not be going.
As research continues there are “trends” that have come up suggesting that perhaps human cognitive abilities may be declining, across all age groups, while attention spans are getting shorter, problem-solving skills could be weakening and reasoning skills declining. Is this essentially true and why might it be the case? If so, can it be reversed?
Sifting Through Data and Tumbling Into Rabbit Holes
Intelligence, in terms of what it means and of course—who has it—is a fraught subject to say the least. What you learn quickly is that there are so many pseudoscientific web sites full of misleading information and dubious conclusions. Seemingly an endless supply of individuals and organizations have particular agendas that they’re anxious to push forward, regardless of anything that represents accuracy, due diligence or truth.
Of course now in the United States, with our imperfect democratic republic and our Constitution under attack, it surely behooves us to know just what do we know … or think we know, and of course how to go about finding out. Yeah, I believe it’s going to matter a great deal to all of us and not simply to those that may be the authorities and specialists on the subject.
I Think Therefore….
Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher wrote in 1784 that, “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his nonage.” He went on to say that this nonage was not caused by “lack of intelligence, but lack of determination and courage to use that intelligence without an other’s guidance.”
Historians refer to Western Europe in the 18th century as the Age of Enlightenment. Kant and others like him believed that man was mature enough to “understand his own nature and the natural world by the methods of science. It was paternalistic authority that was not needed.” Well how has this worked out for the past 225 years?
Considering Some Indicators: For Those That Like the Numbers
Adults face decline in literacy and numeracy
State of learning and equity in education globally
Efficient, helpful or distracting
Reading for pleasure: All signs show a slump
What’s Evolution Got To Do With It
So how well can you remember your friends’ telephone numbers or business associates or your doctor’s office, if you don’t have your cell phone available? What about today’s date? Is it the use it or lose it syndrome?
The Greek philosopher Plato wrote The Phaedrus around 370 BC. In it he imagined a conversation between Socrates and a person named Phaedrus. It represented a discussion and a debate on many topics but Socrates brought up the matter of writing. He remarked that writing destroys “memory and weakens the mind.”
Socrates raised the possibility with Phaedrus that when people have acquired the means to write and read the thoughts of others, they would rely less upon the collection of their own memories.
An interesting article on intelligence I read recently did not come from a scientific journal or academic treatise, but from the magazine Salon. The piece asked whether or not we could be offloading mental tasks to Artificial Intelligence (AI). Might this be making us stupid? More about this in the following weeks.
Do we stop working out altogether and leave the heavy lifting to someone else or do we still make the decision to exercise perhaps a couple times a week? AI in and of itself may or may not be the problem, but could our overreliance on it or—offloading—as the article states be nudging us in the direction of mental dimness.
PS. In Europe in the 18th century a German doctor suggested a “valuable” therapeutic drug, enthusiastically supported by his followers. It was made from a “maiden’s teardrop and crushed bedbugs.” Today in the U.S. Ivermectin, the animal-deworming medication is being proposed, by ardent believers, to combat everything from Alzheimer’s disease to carpel tunnel syndrome, crow’s feet and bee stings. TO BE CONTINUED
The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you: they are unique manifestations of the human spirit. (Wade Davis, Cultural Anthropologist)
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