Some questions are easy to answer.
Posted on 11/13/2012 3:24:37 PM PST by BenLurkin
That's because a series of mutations affecting the estimated 5,000 genes controlling human intellect have crept into our DNA, says Gerald Crabtree, a geneticist at Stanford University, whose findings were published in the journal Trends in Genetics. And modern society allows people to focus on becoming an expert in one thing — we no longer need a wide breadth of knowledge or even cognitive ability in order to thrive.
"I would wager that if an average citizen from Athens of 1000 BC were to suddenly appear among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companies, with a good memory, a broad range of ideas, and a clear-sighted view of important issues," Crabtree writes.
"Intelligence doesn't play as significant a selection in our present, supportive wonderful society," he says. Humans no longer (or rarely) die because they were unable to outwit a predator. Humans were much more likely to die due to "lack of judgment" thousands of years ago, he says.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
This ain’t nuttin’...just wait until marijuana is legalized.
Anyone happen to notice the last 2 Presidential elections?
Well, this country has elected Obama twice now, and surveys have revealed broad support for him from around the world as well!!!! So maybe I choked on my gum as I was walking today, but overall.........how could we humans possibly be getting dumber!!!!!!! Fourward!!!!!!!!!!!
Some questions are easy to answer.
1000 BC hell, I’d wager that if a person born 150 years ago were to miraculously appear among us he’d make most of the public school educated in this country seem more fit for a primate exhibit in a zoo than voters in a self governing representative republic.
No it does not, humans have always been stupid, it is amazing we didn’t die out tens of thousands of years ago.
Remove nature and you get complacency. The culture of today is accelerating this with their hand out mentality.
Presidents are definitely getting dumber.
In the 1950s Nobel Prize winner Shockley showed that birthrate is inversely related to IQ. The higher the IQ, the lower the birthrate.
I think the dims are happy with this trend.
Any Freeper women who would like to help me breed a new generation of highly intelligent conservatives should be aware that I am single....and at least part of darth is biological!
Pure tripe. If our predecessors were so intelligent, why didn’t they figure out that the Earth orbits the sun? What about something as simple as E=MC2? Where are the airplanes? The automobiles? Heck, even a freakin’ steamboat?!? How about a microchip, or even a simple diode?
Lasers?!!—Eight O’clock, day one!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oRl7NbhrzM
I thought not.
Cheers!
Mrs. Lurkin has letters written by one of her ancestors during the Civil War. Mind you, this was a young man who had been raised on a farm, but his diction, grammer and pensmanship is superior to that of most of today’s college students.
Yep. A lot of dumb people out there with smart phones.
Well you beat me to it. I don’t know about humans in general, but American voters seem to be....
We are sure not getting smarter.
Emphatically: YES!
Just watch drivers on the roads as well as the video proof from youtube..
“And I’m like, Whoa!”
He obviously has never seen any of the ancient graffiti written on the walls of places like Pompeii. Here are some of the nastier bits. NSFW unless you are an archeologist.
http://io9.com/5929627/the-graffiti-of-pompeii-was-downright-raunchy-and-absolutely-hilarious
Otherwise, when Saddam ruled Iraq, the place was still littered with a vast number of Babylonian mud tablets used as correspondence between cities, which the Iraqis picked up and sold off for cash during the embargo.
Among other messages:
A teenage girl complaining that men are no damn good, and that they only want one thing.
A bill collector’s third warning message along with a note to the authorities in a nearby town that the guy was a deadbeat.
A student complaining to his parents that he needed more money, as all his peers had better clothes and stuff.
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