Leading Geneticist: Humans Getting Dumber

[Pearl]

Originally Posted by BVS

If I had to guess, this is a little closer to what I would imagine IH was trying to get at...


Different social circles measure intelligence in different ways. Some will measure you by the books that you've read, others by the historical facts you know, some by if you can do math in your head, and some by if you know how to frame a house or rebuild a carburetor.

Framing a house and rebuilding a carburetor often require great problem solving skills in addition to manual skills, and if I were to guess I think he was saying that these skills are often underestimated when it comes to IQ.

I get the impression that many people lump intelligence of all kinds together. Ever knew someone who seems really bright but then does something very stupid, baffling everyone around them? I may have good analyzing and communication skills, but when it comes to anything related to math, I am the complete opposite (seriously, my SAT scores reflect that). I'm pretty sure I have dyscalculia - math dyslexia - although I've never been tested for it. I guess to some, I have only limited smarts.

[Cactus Annie]

Originally Posted by BVS

By igniting a type of fuel and using the energy produced from the expansion of gas.


By pushing power, an allotted time, and then start.



Because it's plugged in.


So did you prove something about IQ? Or did you just prove that questions when asked a certain way have multiple answers.

You never fail to make me laugh. You're a natural comedian

[INDY500]

If humans are getting dumber it's because of television and an education system infested by Leftism.

[Jive Turkey]

Originally Posted by INDY500

If humans are getting dumber it's because of television and an education system infested by Leftism.

hahahahaahaha.
What a fucking joke this guy is

[Kieran McConville]

flat tax.

[BVS]

Originally Posted by INDY500

If humans are getting dumber it's because of television and an education system infested by Leftism.

You try too hard.

But some of the posts I've seen in here might just be proving the thread's point.

[anitram]

Originally Posted by INDY500

If humans are getting dumber it's because of television

Yes, typically it's the liberal elites who plop their fat asses down in front of the television to watch Honey Boo Boo.

[IWasBored]

No, shows like that are being aired by the liberal media in a conspiratorial attempt to make America stupid.

[Vlad n U 2]

Originally Posted by INDY500

If humans are getting dumber it's because of television and an education system infested by Leftism.

I didn't know that 'Leftism' was, at the very least, centre-right.

[The Sad Punk]

Originally Posted by INDY500

If humans are getting dumber it's because of television and an education system infested by Leftism.

This is even dumber than some of the shit in Idiocracy.

[Galeongirl]

Yeah, because the lefties are evil apparently.


No but really, I think it's more something along the lines where higher educated people are more responsible, thus use more protection so they have less unwanted pregnancies, and because of their usually busier careers and longer times in university and such, they start later with children. While the lower educated people have higher rates of teenage pregnancies, and commonly start earlier with children and have more of them. So the 'dumb' genes procreate at a higher pace, and with our glorious healthcare stupidity doesn't kill as easily as back in the days where you'd get eaten by a sabre tooth tiger, thus evolutonary speaking our generations are getting dumber.

[IWasBored]

Originally Posted by Pearl

I get the impression that many people lump intelligence of all kinds together. Ever knew someone who seems really bright but then does something very stupid, baffling everyone around them? I may have good analyzing and communication skills, but when it comes to anything related to math, I am the complete opposite (seriously, my SAT scores reflect that). I'm pretty sure I have dyscalculia - math dyslexia - although I've never been tested for it. I guess to some, I have only limited smarts.

Also, dumb and uneducated are not the same thing.

[IWasBored]

Originally Posted by Galeongirl

with our glorious healthcare stupidity doesn't kill as easily as back in the days where you'd get eaten by a sabre tooth tiger, thus evolutonary speaking our generations are getting dumber.

Sometimes I think that in this respect, Darwin is spinning in his grave.

[Kieran McConville]

Species breed to the mean.

Something to keep in mind, no pun intended.

[Jive Turkey]

Originally Posted by Galeongirl

Yeah, because the lefties are evil apparently.


No but really, I think it's more something along the lines where higher educated people are more responsible, thus use more protection so they have less unwanted pregnancies, and because of their usually busier careers and longer times in university and such, they start later with children. While the lower educated people have higher rates of teenage pregnancies, and commonly start earlier with children and have more of them. So the 'dumb' genes procreate at a higher pace, and with our glorious healthcare stupidity doesn't kill as easily as back in the days where you'd get eaten by a sabre tooth tiger, thus evolutonary speaking our generations are getting dumber.

The benefit for the genes of the smarter people is that, unlike the cells in the rest of the body, telomeres in the sperm cells grow longer with age. By waiting later in life to reproduce, the offspring will have chromosomes with longer telomere 'caps' than had they been conceived earlier. Telomeres erode throughout life during mitosis, so starting out with longer telomeres can mean a longer life span. At least the smart people will outlive the dumb ones.

(this is partly tongue in cheek. I think it was irvine who pointed out earlier than intelligence wasn't necessarily inherited that way.)

[Jive Turkey]

Originally Posted by Galeongirl

with our glorious healthcare stupidity doesn't kill as easily as back in the days where you'd get eaten by a sabre tooth tiger, thus evolutonary speaking our generations are getting dumber.

Originally Posted by IWasBored

Sometimes I think that in this respect, Darwin is spinning in his grave.

Well, when you start applying this logic with the handicapped, mentally retarded, blind, sick, etc, things get a little uncomfortable.
Darwin would have had no problem with any of this. He wasn't interested in a 'Darwinian Society', as aren't virtually all evolutionary biologists

[IWasBored]

Originally Posted by Jive Turkey

Well, when you start applying this logic with the handicapped, mentally retarded, blind, sick, etc, things get a little uncomfortable.
Darwin would have had no problem with any of this. He wasn't interested in a 'Darwinian Society', as aren't virtually all evolutionary biologists

Right. It wasn't to be taken entirely seriously, and it also applied more toward the persistently vegetative and otherwise terminal patients who (and it's always the extremely religious families, big surprise) still expect everything to be done to prolong their bed-bound, non- verbal states. Otherwise you're bordering a little too closely to...genetic cleansing? Is that a name for it? And that's where things get creepy. The majority of evolutionary biologists out there aren't insane, irrational human beings with theses that are half origin of the species, half mien kampf. That would be ridiculous for so many reasons.

[Cactus Annie]

I loved that film Idiocracy

[Jive Turkey]

Originally Posted by IWasBored

Right. It wasn't to be taken entirely seriously, and it also applied more toward the persistently vegetative and otherwise terminal patients who (and it's always the extremely religious families, big surprise) still expect everything to be done to prolong their bed-bound, non- verbal states. Otherwise you're bordering a little too closely to...genetic cleansing? Is that a name for it? And that's where things get creepy. The majority of evolutionary biologists out there aren't insane, irrational human beings with theses that are half origin of the species, half mien kampf. That would be ridiculous for so many reasons.

Eugenics

[IWasBored]

There we go. Sorry, my vocabulary decreases by about 60% when I haven't had coffee yet.