The link between genetic inheritance and "IQ" has been used by many as a way of ranking individuals in a hierarchy of "intelligence," and then utilizing that "knowledge" to form social or political policies. But modern anthropology has advanced to the level of recognizing that genetic inheritance plays only a subordinate role in the advancement of human creativity, ingenuity, and progress. The basic source of human progress is to be found in the cultural ability of human groups to absorb knowledge from the previous generation, and pass on this knowledge to succeeding generations. From generation to generation human societies have absorbed and often supplemented their modes of behavior, thus achieving higher levels of social cohesion and individual performance. This anthropological knowledge is explained in Joseph Henrich's book "The Secret of Our Success."
Interesting. I agree with you that selective pressures work much faster than most people realize. I even mention it in my book “From Poverty to Progress.”
I am skeptical, however, that a slightly lower number of people over 130 IQ will lead to lower rates of innovation. Very few people over 130 innovate anything of historical importance.
The common phenomena of simultaneous innovation by different people at the same time suggests that innovations are waiting to happen, and it is somewhat of a coincidence who gets the job done. I believe there will be plenty of people over 130 for the foreseeable future.
Now if we had a 20-30% drop, that might be a completely different story. I hope that we never get to that.
Who said "slightly lower"? A loss of 15 IQ points would be a disaster for the right-tail distribution simply due to the meagre distribution at the tail ends.
The 15 point thing doesn't come from Bronski, but from Dutton et al. Going by the -0.6 estimate that Bronski gives still means there would be a 50% or so reduction in the number of people above 130, leading to that much lower levels of innovation. Something mentioned in the above article.
"The common phenomena of simultaneous innovation by different people at the same time suggests that innovations are waiting to happen"
How does this suggest anything? How does the fact that something can be discovered by two different people mean having a higher number of people above 130 wouldn't be important?
"and it is somewhat of a coincidence who gets the job done"
What?? How is this a coincidence. If so, you may as well say IQ doesn't matter and it's a "coincidence". This doesn't follow. Having fewer people above 130 would mean fewer people to staff important institutions, fewer brilliant teachers, fewer brilliant parents to produce chance genius offspring, fewer of anything that is good for innovation to happen. Imagine if the number of academics in the world suddenly halved, would you still nonchalantly say it wouldn't matter?
If anything, your above "simultaneous innovation" caveat is a support for the notion that having more people above a given threshold for IQ would allow for spontaneous developments to occur more quickly.
Hi, Joseph. I am not writing on the topic of the post.
Recently I tried to open the links you referred to on twitter (about the dysgenia of female sexual selection):
https://sociobiology.org/post/2
https://exousiology.org/static/media/dysgenics.de77198910064cfa4de8.pdf
But in fact, both links turn out to be non-working. What happened? Did you delete the articles? I would really like to read them.
To appreciate how much our knowledge has been distorted by the propaganda approved by the capitalist class, see the essay:
https://jmiller803.substack.com/p/the-subordination-of-the-social-sciences
The link between genetic inheritance and "IQ" has been used by many as a way of ranking individuals in a hierarchy of "intelligence," and then utilizing that "knowledge" to form social or political policies. But modern anthropology has advanced to the level of recognizing that genetic inheritance plays only a subordinate role in the advancement of human creativity, ingenuity, and progress. The basic source of human progress is to be found in the cultural ability of human groups to absorb knowledge from the previous generation, and pass on this knowledge to succeeding generations. From generation to generation human societies have absorbed and often supplemented their modes of behavior, thus achieving higher levels of social cohesion and individual performance. This anthropological knowledge is explained in Joseph Henrich's book "The Secret of Our Success."
--https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Our-Success-Evolution-Domesticating/dp/0691166854
Is the genes stupid, see Sean Last and Alt-Hype, whites tha dropped high school have a 89 IQ average while blacks who have it 90
Interesting. I agree with you that selective pressures work much faster than most people realize. I even mention it in my book “From Poverty to Progress.”
I am skeptical, however, that a slightly lower number of people over 130 IQ will lead to lower rates of innovation. Very few people over 130 innovate anything of historical importance.
The common phenomena of simultaneous innovation by different people at the same time suggests that innovations are waiting to happen, and it is somewhat of a coincidence who gets the job done. I believe there will be plenty of people over 130 for the foreseeable future.
Now if we had a 20-30% drop, that might be a completely different story. I hope that we never get to that.
Who said "slightly lower"? A loss of 15 IQ points would be a disaster for the right-tail distribution simply due to the meagre distribution at the tail ends.
The article said:
"That means after 100 to 120 years (about 5 generations), the mean IQ will drop 3 points due to selection pressure."
That is not 15 points.
The 15 point thing doesn't come from Bronski, but from Dutton et al. Going by the -0.6 estimate that Bronski gives still means there would be a 50% or so reduction in the number of people above 130, leading to that much lower levels of innovation. Something mentioned in the above article.
"The common phenomena of simultaneous innovation by different people at the same time suggests that innovations are waiting to happen"
How does this suggest anything? How does the fact that something can be discovered by two different people mean having a higher number of people above 130 wouldn't be important?
"and it is somewhat of a coincidence who gets the job done"
What?? How is this a coincidence. If so, you may as well say IQ doesn't matter and it's a "coincidence". This doesn't follow. Having fewer people above 130 would mean fewer people to staff important institutions, fewer brilliant teachers, fewer brilliant parents to produce chance genius offspring, fewer of anything that is good for innovation to happen. Imagine if the number of academics in the world suddenly halved, would you still nonchalantly say it wouldn't matter?
If anything, your above "simultaneous innovation" caveat is a support for the notion that having more people above a given threshold for IQ would allow for spontaneous developments to occur more quickly.