Thoughts on Intelligence

[jamesq]

Is it safe to come out with another big post so soon?

Intelligence is the topic of the day. I've been thinking about it a lot lately.

I forget sometimes, just how smart all my friends are. I think of them as "average". I mentioned this to spookiemonkie2 today on the way to the airport and he reminded me that people tend to hang out with others around the same IQ. Of course I think of them as average - I'm using myself as the base point! He went on to mention that University students "average" about 115 IQ (and that's a conservative estimate - it's likely to be higher).

Another reason I sometimes forget this is because not everyone has the same interests. I might judge a person less smart them me when really, they just don't know as much about computers. My Mom knew nothing about computers but she had a whip-sharp mind.

I had a nice chat with somejauntypolka this afternoon. It dawned on me just how smart she was. It's not that I ever thought of her as dumb (I haven't) but that it just hadn't occurred to me before in the same way that it had for chris9871, who's so smart it's a little scary. Is he smarter then me? Probably, he's also has a slightly narrower focus. Think of it as having two bell curves. chris9871 peaks higher, but the area under each curve is the same.

Knowing you're smart can lead to misplaced arrogance. I try not to go down that path, though it is tempting. Two things I remember hearing from other "smart" people keep me humble: "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich" was one that a professor of mine said. I'm smart but I'm not successful. Perseverance is probably a better predictor of wealth then IQ is.

The second was one arrogant SOB who said "I have a 140 IQ. That means talking to normal people is as frustrating to me as it is for normal people to talk to retards". Rarely have I wanted to pimp slap someone more then I did then. I worked in retail for a few years before my current job, I talked to a lot of people. Admittedly, some of them were as thick as pig shit, but the vast majority was not. Most people were perfectly reasonable and able to understand whatever I had to say professionally. The difference between 60 and 100 is a qualitative one. The difference between 100 and 140 was only quantitative.

Smart people can be pretty dense sometimes too. God knows I prove that every day. I also have a crackpot theory that smart people are more susceptible to neurosis then normal or dumb people are. It's crackpot because I have only anecdotal evidence of it, and my therapist has poo-pooed it when I brought it up once.

Intelligence seems to be inherited. It's why I'm confident that garething and hadriel's daughter K will turn out OK. both parents are smart, so she'll be too. As she gets older I see her own intelligence growing. I'm glad for her, but it is making it more and more difficult to tease her - her sarcasm and BS detectors are so well tuned that it's hard to pull anything on her.

Are we getting dumber? Education level seems to correlate with intelligence. For women, education correlates inversely with children (plainly put, highly educated women have less kids). Put those together and you have a recipe for this.

I think it could happen, but not to this extent. Two reason: First, there is a lower limit for intelligence such that people don't survive. The Darwin Awards are an example. Second, intelligence is sexually selected for, much like peacock feathers are.

Can we make ourselves smarter? In an evolutionary sense I mean? Probably, but there are a couple of obstacles to overcome. Our skulls are about as big as they can get without us killing all mother's in labor. Also we might be becoming autistic.

The autistic idea is one a coworker presented to me. Basically his hypothesis is that really smart people are having children with each other, whereas in the past they didn't have the opportunity (communities were small enough that you simply might not meet someone as smart as you if you're way out on the edge of the bell curve). Modern society allows us to meet and interact with people on the other side of the planet. You can literally pick someone just like you when dating wheras in times past you might compromise on some traits. Isolate enough oddball traits and you might start breaking things. Highly advanced mental abilities combined with mental handicaps is the result and isn't that just a description of an Autistic savant?

We've only been smart a short time in evolutionary terms. The Human Brain is still pretty buggy. Once we've debugged it some then we can work on increasing capacity.

Comments

The Line Between Genius and Insanity

[http://users.livejournal.com/-grog-/]

Is said to be very thin indeed.

I'm not sure I buy the "Autistic Savant" line of evolution as a logical outcome. It feels intuitively flawed somehow. (But, I'm not a neurobiologist, either ... so what do I know?)

My guess is that in the short term, you will see the human brain become denser, and more heavily utilized rather than increasing in volume. (For precisely the biological challenge you mentioned earlier)

We know that neurons are already shared across multiple intersections, and fire at different intensities. That leaves the door open for quite a bit of change over the coming millenia, without necessarily changing the physiology all that dramatically.

The question is whether such a change would be advantageous in some fashion significant enough to evolution that it would propagate. Or, has our ability to compensate for nature with technology become so broad already that we have effectively diluted out any chance for evolutionary change to survive? (By preserving everybody) {and no, I'm not advocating eugenics!}

[petranef.livejournal.com]

For women, education correlates inversely with children (plainly put, highly educated women have less kids).

Doesn't that do with what I was saying the other day? Women educate themselves right out of the dating pool.

Second, intelligence is sexually selected for, much like peacock feathers are.

Um, no. Stupid people have more children, therefore intelligence is not selected for - at least not in this society we've made.

[jamesq]

Once again I've failed to make my point as clearly as I'd like. It's not so much that intelligence is selected for as Neoteny, which is an indicator of intelligence, is. David Brin speculates on it here, which is where I first heard about it. It's a little long, but well worth reading.

And besides, modern birth control - a mechanism not available for most of human evolution - is what is fueling this decline in births among educated women. In the past women had kids until they couldn't anymore, regardless of education. This negative correlation is strictly a modern phenomenom.

As I've contended for years, the solution to the world-wide population explosion is to make education universal to both genders world-wide. When we have achieved this goal, the population will peak and then begin a slow decline. The decline will level off at the point where the global economy cannot sustain universal education. Hopefully the world can support that "steady state" level of population. I have my doubts.

hmmmm

[spookiemonkie2.livejournal.com]

On the topic of Autistic savants it is important to note that they make up a very small portion of the Autistic society. The group of disorders you are talking about are Pervasive Developmental Disorders. I pulled out the DSM - IV to show how Autistic students classified, I cannot remember the numbers for the savant population but it is small.

Autistic Disorder

A. A total of six (or more) items from (1), (2), and (3), with at least two from (1), and one each from (2) and (3):

(1) qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:
(a) marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures to regulate social interaction
(b) failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
(c) a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (e.g., by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest)
(d) lack of social or emotional reciprocity

(2) qualitative impairments in communication as manifested by at least one of the following:
(a) delay in, or total lack of, the development of spoken language (not accompanied by an attempt to compensate through alternative modes of communication such as gesture or mime)
(b) in individuals with adequate speech, marked impairment in the ability to initiate or sustain a conversation with others
(c) stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language
(d) lack of varied, spontaneous make-believe play or social imitative play appropriate to developmental level

(3) restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:
(a) encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus
(b) apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals
(c) stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g., hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)
(d) persistent preoccupation with parts of objects

B. Delays or abnormal functioning in at least one of the following areas, with onset prior to age 3 years: (1) social interaction, (2) language as used in social communication, or (3) symbolic or imaginative play.

As you can see Autism is more of a behavior/emotional disorder. That being said there is a study that is causing a lot of waves in psychology, that is looking at if savants make better scientists than rest of us. The study is going over poorly to say the least.

As for intelligence it is climbing, as test for it most be renormed every ten years. So at least for the foreseeable future people are getting smarter on avg.

Intelligence and IQ

[nosarious.livejournal.com]

I've always had problems with the term Intelligence Quotient and the amount of reliance people put on it. A person who can survive and prosper in the downtown core of the streets of Brooklyn may have a low IQ due to schooling, but he would probably survive better than a student from Berkley in the same area.

Intelligence depends on circumstances and society that a person grows up with. There are too many variables to effectively condense it to one value. (and yeah, I have never taken an IQ test. Ask Troy how well I did with the tests for that course we took to get into SAIT oh so long ago)

Sociology

[nosarious.livejournal.com]

I had the fortune to take a Sociology course a long time ago, and it dealt with some of the results of surveys in Canada back in the 60's. It was concerned with showing us how to read the results and interpret them (a dangerous occupation depending on how you want to interpret the results)

One part dealt with Feminism and Choice. The choice being when to have children, and the fact that modern science has allowed women to delay the birth of their children. I say 'women' here but it is really only successful women who have that choice and can act upon it. Most women may exercise the choice but it is rarely their occupations that is a concern to them in this fashion.

Along with choice, though, comes the peril that people will not be able to complete that choice. You may not have enough money. You may not have the right partner. You may not have the time, once you become successful enough.

Choices can be a two edged sword.

For the most part, however, there will always be a need for those who are at the lower end of the intelligence scale, however you interpret it. I remember a series of SciFi books that dealt with people at a young age being recognized for the role in society which best suited their particular aptitude.

On the other topic, though, education can only give you the tools. It cannot make you more capable without the drive to succeed. A decline in the methodology and respect students have for school (and a certain lack of respect by teachers as well, to a certain degree) means that there are fewer people who are reaching the workforce with the tools to succeed and make a livign with excess cash to support their choices.

There are too many variables to blame one thing or another on the misdirections the world as a whole is taking. I would like to blame housing prices and the cost of land on part of it, but older countries have more expensive markets, and they seem to survive, so that obviously isn't the only variable in the equation.

Re: hmmmm

[jamesq]

The Flynn effect of increasing IQs may be leveling off. i.e. it can't go on forever and in some countries the rise in IQ described by the Flynn Effect has stopped. This would mean that we're not getting smarter so much as people are maximizing their inherent potential. This could be nutritional/environmental/educational.