Yeah. Anyhow, my original point has to do with attempts to breed humans for intelligence. Humans have been evolving for greater intelligence for a very long time now, any free easy gains already been made. You could probably get larger brain volume rather easily with birth by caesarian only, but that doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.
Humans have been evolving for greater intelligence for a very long time now, any free easy gains already been made.
I don’t know. It may or may not be true, but it doesn’t look obvious to me.
The issue is that “evolving for greater intelligence” competes with other things like “evolving for greater strength” or “evolving for greater alpha-ness” or maybe even simply “evolving to survive famines”.
Because of TANSTAAFL greater intelligence comes at a cost (as a trivial example, the human brain consumes a LOT of energy) and the trade-offs the evolution makes are appropriate for the then-current environment. And our current environment is markedly different (there’s your drastic change) from the one in which modern humans actually evolved.
It is quite possible that some trade-offs which held down the growth of intelligence are no longer operational and humans can/will continue to evolve towards even higher IQ.
Practically, of course, the point is moot as evolution is very very slow and humans will self-modify much more rapidly than evolution could provide any noticeable gains.
It is quite possible that some trade-offs which held down the growth of intelligence are no longer operational and humans can/will continue to evolve towards even higher IQ.
Maybe, but as you say, it would come at potential cost. E.g. gain of a few points but you won’t survive famine, that doesn’t sound very good.
Or much more insidiously, gains on an IQ test, at the expense of ability to form/organize/use complex background knowledge (IQ tests are designed to be minimally affected by extra background knowledge).
Practically, of course, the point is moot as evolution is very very slow and humans will self-modify much more rapidly than evolution could provide any noticeable gains.
Yeah, either that, or the civilization goes kaput and it’s back to all-natural selection.
Yeah. Anyhow, my original point has to do with attempts to breed humans for intelligence. Humans have been evolving for greater intelligence for a very long time now, any free easy gains already been made. You could probably get larger brain volume rather easily with birth by caesarian only, but that doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.
I don’t know. It may or may not be true, but it doesn’t look obvious to me.
The issue is that “evolving for greater intelligence” competes with other things like “evolving for greater strength” or “evolving for greater alpha-ness” or maybe even simply “evolving to survive famines”.
Because of TANSTAAFL greater intelligence comes at a cost (as a trivial example, the human brain consumes a LOT of energy) and the trade-offs the evolution makes are appropriate for the then-current environment. And our current environment is markedly different (there’s your drastic change) from the one in which modern humans actually evolved.
It is quite possible that some trade-offs which held down the growth of intelligence are no longer operational and humans can/will continue to evolve towards even higher IQ.
Practically, of course, the point is moot as evolution is very very slow and humans will self-modify much more rapidly than evolution could provide any noticeable gains.
Maybe, but as you say, it would come at potential cost. E.g. gain of a few points but you won’t survive famine, that doesn’t sound very good.
Or much more insidiously, gains on an IQ test, at the expense of ability to form/organize/use complex background knowledge (IQ tests are designed to be minimally affected by extra background knowledge).
Yeah, either that, or the civilization goes kaput and it’s back to all-natural selection.