the reason people are becoming dumber is because less intelligence is needed to survive nowadays.
Sure! It took extraordinary intelligence to make the technological advances we have today (cars, computers, etc.)
It does NOT, however, take much intelligence to operate these things. Anyone who has spent any amount of time on the road can attest to this fact.
Computers are becoming more "user-friendly." In other words, you don't really need to know anything about the inner workings of the computer in order to use it.
Humans used to have to track and hunt to survive. Later, they had to sow seeds and till and whatnot and harvest in the right manner, in the right season. If you screwed up... YOU STARVED.
Nowadays, all you have to do is whine the loudest and suck up as much as you can to get ahead.
The declining intelligence is not a genetic issue, it's an issue of atrophy. We aren't using are brains, so they become weak and stupid.
Just because someone doesn't have the same interests as you doesn't make them less intelligent.
People value different things not because they are incapable of understanding, but simply because they are interested in other subjects.
People can be as smart as a whip in math, science, astronomy, physics (whatever you deem important) and absolutely stupid when it comes to common sense and people skills.
We are all made differently. One person is not better or more intelligent than another because we all have different gifts.
Exactly!
All I can say is that T-Un1t is gonna learn his lesson the hard way when he gets out in the real world and chooses to call people stupid because they dont take interests in the way that he feels they should.
Must be tough sitting in a high school classroom and typing on the computer when he should be taking interests in the studies he listed instead.
People who claim they are smarter than others usually do so to compensate for lack of other things...including intelligence.
Of course thats just my opinion....I could be wrong. (Dennis Miller)
"You might be the toughest little whacker. . .but in my world, you're about as worrisome as a cloudy day." (Dutch Dooley)
When I was in uni I read a book by Dr Howard Gardner about a theory of "multiple" intelligence. It was outdated when I read it, there were seven types of intelligence outlined, I believe, but the theory has been revised since and I think it's now 9.
The seven types I read about were linguistic, logical (maths and stuff), kinesthetic (movement), spatial, musical, interpersonal and intrapersonal. There's also one about nature now... and... something like spiritual. I forget the last one... But each one is different to the other, but looking at them, who here can say they excel at each of them?
Though I don't think the theory is conclusive or perfect, I did think it was a great way to think about intelligence, rather than thinking "okay, that dude plays football or basketball or whatever, he's an idiot." But honestly, I don't couldn't move and maneuver like a footballer or basketballer does, and it's not because I'm not fit or nubile.
"I'm for it so we can put Nuclear power plants up there, and then beam the power back to earth on a laser beam." ~ Whidden
[quote] the reason people are becoming dumber is because less intelligence is needed to survive nowadays.[/quote
I suppose I could understand how you got that.
People in the past had alot more mental capacity than we did... or at least that was my impression of the educated ones. Of course... more than 90% of the world during the 19th centuray wasn't educated but being educated is different than being smart, I understand.
... or maybe it's the books I'm reading and the my own personal conclusions...
It is folly to punish your neighbor by fire when you live next door.
Publilius Syrus
Good points, Twisted Wizard and Dekka00. People are very adaptable and adjust to the surroundings they find themselves in or build for themselves. Creating a society in which everyone is expected to be able to survive means everything needs to be made simple and easy to do. If we expect everyone to get a job and survive in this society, jobs need to be suited to the disabled and the low IQ as well as having jobs for the physical Adonis and Aphrodite types and the super genius types. And when we go home after work all our household items work easily and effortlessly.
I actually clicked the link to the Neo-Eugenics site and it looks no different than Eugenics did in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Still every bit as racist and controlling of human behavior as before.
I really see this as an excuse for certain men who think they are superior to spread their seed far and wide, regardless of the receiving women's opinion on the subject. It harkens back to fuedal Europe when the lords bedded the bride before a marraige could be consumated. There was a belief that royal blood and lordly blood was better than peasant blood. So they did their duty of spreading the better blood by bedding all the virgins.
Of course there was also the tradition of the eldest son being heir to whatever fortunes these marraiges accumulated at the death of the father. So even the bastard children of the upper class ended up better off than peasant children over the long run, proving their belief system to be valid. That the law of inheritance was what created the disparity was apparently lost on the intellectual giants of the time.
Becker, I think you IQ information is hilarious at the end where university professors are in the top 3% of IQ. If it is true, it remains hilarious but also frightening.
Asian-American, this just proves what IQ tests are testing for is people who think like and share the same values as the professors who create the tests in the first place. That they may have children that will test better on their tests and may share their values and goals is not a surprise. That they should have a higher duty to spread their seed among the populous like the lords of old is absurd. People have different values and goals and desires so they obviously dedicate their intellectual abilities to different things. That their values are not the rigorous pursuit of a PhD at a university only disappoints those who gain from having university students. The university professor who create IQ tests. The IQ test is an advertisement for others who share the values and goals of professors to come to university and spend money to be taught how to carry on the tradition. I could also point out that higher family economic status relates to higher test scores but that makes the whole system sound too similar to fuedalism.
This statement is highly fallacious. Genetic structure is not something immutable. Once you inherit something, changes can be made by environmental causes that can affect your genetic makeup and passed on to subsequent generations.
03-30-2005 06:22 PM
