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Posted on 05/01/2013 12:06:27 PM PDT by fishtank
Is Mankind Getting Dumber? by Brian Thomas, M.S. *
Do today’s children have lower I.Q.’s than yesterday’s? Yes, according to measurements of intellectual and emotional strength gathered from different countries and contexts. The results show the same basic decline and resist the notion that public or other forms of education are to blame. Could the cause instead lie within?
Stanford University professor Gerald Crabtree thinks so. He published a pair of essays in the journal Trends in Genetics, citing new discoveries that show why the human intellect is “surprisingly fragile.”1 This biblical creation-friendly notion didn’t sit well with the authors of a rebuttal paper, who countered that the human intellect is “robust.”2 What lies at the heart of this disagreement—bad science or bad assumptions?
Crabtree identified two fundamental processes as the main culprits. First, human intelligence uses neurons, and these cells can only function properly if their genes stay in top shape. Second, these genes are susceptible to degradation. This loss of organization occurs continually as mutations slowly, irreversibly garble genes, and the resulting errors pile up and are not corrected.
Our brains use 2,000 to 5,000 so-called Intellectual Deficiency (ID) genes, according to Crabtree’s estimate. Geneticists routinely identify specific mutations in ID genes as the causes of various types of mental retardation and similar intellectual syndromes that arise during imperfections in brain development.3 Proper human intelligence requires at least one clean copy of every ID gene.4 Like a missing wooden slat in a very long rope bridge, a mutant ID gene challenges the brain to carefully “step over” the gap on its way to developing the biological infrastructure for healthy intelligence.
Each new generation accrues about 60 new mutations to the gene-coding DNA regions of the human genome. Crabtree applied this rate to calculate that “every 20-50 generations we should sustain a mutation in one copy of one of our many ID genes.” As a result, “in the past 3000 years then (~120 generations), each of us should have accumulated at the very least 2.5-6 mutations in ID genes.” Accordingly, the human intellect “perhaps reached a peak 2000-6000 years ago.”1
This appears to confirm three lessons that can be drawn from the Bible. First, Adam and Eve’s brains were originally “very good.” Second, we had our best brains about 6,000 years ago. Third, humanity has suffered genetic degradation since then under the Curse.5,6
Some who wish to reject Scripture work hard to find ways to excuse Bible-confirming data from their own field of genetics. The authors of the technical rebuttal argued that Crabtree overestimated the true number of ID genes, but they did not offer data supporting an alternative number, nor did they explain why fewer ID genes should cancel Crabtree’s conclusion. The rebuttal team also rejected the idea that ID genes are susceptible to mutational buildup on the basis of “genetic theories regarding the evolutionary dynamics of deleterious mutations” and on the results of a computer model that illustrated how genes can increase in number assuming hypothetical evolution-friendly parameters.2
Both Crabtree and his detractors tried to extrapolate some set of numbers to make conclusions about the unobservable past. The rebuttal authors who resist the genetic-decay principle hand-picked numbers that support evolutionary history. Crabtree instead used numbers collected from real-world studies. And those studies present an ever-clearer case for a human race that was very good at the start, but is steadily falling apart.
References
Crabtree, G. R. 2013. Our Fragile Intellect. Part I. Trends in Genetics. 29 (1): 1-3.
Kalinka, A. T., I. Kelava, and E. Lewitus. 2013. Our Robust Intellect. Trends in Genetics. 29 (3): 125-127. One example is mental retardation caused by mutations in “Aristaless–related, homeobox” protein, expressed in developing nervous tissue. See Strømme, P. et al. 2002. Mutations in the human ortholog of Aristaless cause X-linked mental retardation and epilepsy. Nature Genetics. 30 (4): 441-445.
Generally, each parent supplies one copy of each gene, totaling two copies for each person. Brain cells that inherit one clean and one mutant copy of an ID gene often access the clean copy and sequester the mutated copy.
Tomkins, J. Genetics Research Confirms Biblical Timeline. Creation Science Update. Posted on icr. org January 9, 2013, accessed February 28, 2013.
Thomas, B. 2012. Human Mutation Clock Confirms Creation. Acts & Facts. 41 (11): 17.
* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.
Cite this article: Thomas, B. 2013. Is Mankind Getting Dumber? Acts & Facts. 42 (5): 17.
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That unpossible!
Rather drastically conflicts with the extremely well-documented Flynn Effect, the cause of which is unknown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho!
Brawndo: It has what plants crave!
I was just going to say, “In Before the Idiocracy References.”
Looks like the smart ones are on welfare or working for the government..
First 5 minutes of that movie are priceless.
The very thing that makes us less brutal — the compassionate society — also removes the Survival of the Fittest genetic-enhancement method. This means that until we once again become savage. violent creatures, we will deteriorate as a species.
Is mankind getting dumber? Considering this guy is the most powerful man in the world, by the free choice of enough living, non-fictional voters to put him within the margin of fraud, I'm not sure why anyone would be unsure. We're getting dumber very quickly. I hope and pray that we will learn from our terrible mistakes, but I don't see any positive signs.
Is mankind getting dumber?
Let’s see. In 1984 the American people re-elected Ronald Reagan. In 2012 the American people re-elected Barack Obama.
I’d say that indicates a rather dramatic drop in intelligence in just over a quarter-century.
Everyone at the White house is and they supposed to be edimucated.
About five years ago I came up with the hypothesis to explain the election of Obama... That the Earth had wandered into a zone of our galaxy that, due to some local magnetic/radiation anomaly, represses part of the electrical flow in the human brain. I dubbed it, The Stupid Zone.
Now I find out, I may have been at least partly right...
I’m positive at least 47% are...IMO.
” I dubbed it, The Stupid Zone.”
Stupid......it’s not just the Republicans in the House & Senate anymore.
Our first President was George Washington. Our current President is Barack Obama. You figure it out.
It’s not about the race, it’s about the culture that race embraces.
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