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 ...
Not Sure is that you?
Exactly.
The trend in developed and developing nations is UP. This is largely a function of better nutrition and less childhood disease.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
The Flynn effect is the substantial and long-sustained increase in intelligence test scores measured in many parts of the world from roughly 1930 to the present day. When intelligence quotient (IQ) tests are initially standardized using a sample of test-takers, by convention the average of the test results is set to 100 and their standard deviation is set to 15 or 16 IQ points. When IQ tests are revised, they are again standardized using a new sample of test-takers, usually born more recently than the first. Again, the average result is set to 100. However, when the new test subjects take the older tests, in almost every case their average scores are significantly above 100.
Improved nutrition is another possible explanation. Today’s average adult from an industrialized nation is taller than a comparable adult of a century ago. That increase of stature, likely the result of general improvements of nutrition and health, has been at a rate of more than a centimeter per decade. Available data suggest that these gains have been accompanied by analogous increases of head size, and by an increase in the average size of the brain.
I have two long letters written by one of my great-grandfathers during the war in 1861 and '62. He was a farmer turned Confederate soldier. His writing is the same as you describe in your wife's ancestor's letters. It is a real eye opener.
“It’s got what plants crave.”
Common sense is not common.
That answers the question. The knowledge is just deeper, not wider.
Hell,we've probably absorbed more by the time we are five years old than any Athenians did in a generation.
Yeah, but what about those smart phones, eh? Who the heck makes these things? We make a big deal about Newton and Einstein, but what about "Moore's Law", which essentially predicted and predicts the exponential growth in the power of Silicon technology. How can this be? How can you predict such a rule which has lasted now for decades? I mean, WHO ARE THESE GUYS?
................uh...................what was the question again?
I stopped buying new smart phones when they got smarter than me.
They not coming out the ghettos rapping or hip hopping.
Of course, the ancient Greeks did figure out that the earth orbits the sun, and well before that Homer described intricate mechanical contrivances depicting entire scenes of human activity ( Iliad 18. ) This chapter also introduces the word “automaton” to the modern age in reference to “tripod” lampstands which move by themselves in response to the wishes of the god.
In a way, it’s more astounding that they thought of these things when they were still so far from actually producing them.
True in some ways. The advent of books meant that we no longer had to keep a large amount of facts in memory.
In modern society, where class and social status is determined by profession and income, not by birthright and caste (as in medieval times for example) smart marries smart and not-smart marries not-smart. But the not-smart couples tend to birth more babies. So ...
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