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Thank you for the interesting hypotheses regarding the evolution of intelligence. I have a somewhat different take and would like to share: Some of the most in
by nopinsight 8y ago
Thank you for the interesting hypotheses regarding the evolution of intelligence. I have a somewhat different take and would like to share:
Some of the most intelligent people in history including renowned philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians did not seem to focus on using their intelligence to acquire as much power or wealth as possible. They seemed to enjoy contemplating more universal and deeper questions than immersing themselves too much on worldly matters. A majority of powerful people did seem to have above or well-above average intelligence but they were probably not in the same league, intelligence-wise, as those famous thinkers. Their other traits were also important to their rise to power.
Environment and population intelligence likely have co-evolved and very high intelligence did not confer much advantage over an above average one for most common professions before the 21st century. The technology and level of economy-of-scale available in the past meant that social graciousness and other personality traits could have been better predictors of career and economic success than intelligence above a certain point.
To have a great engineering or scientific career developing some of our increasingly advanced technologies, very high intelligence seems to present certain advantages over a more balanced group of traits. So a shift in global technological landscape could also mean that the optimal collection of population intelligence and other traits change as well.
As concrete examples, the founders of the largest American tech empires all seem to have/had an IQ at least 3-4 SD above mean based on their academic records.
PS. Your 1) seems possible in some cases and I would add that traits like non-extreme autism-spectrum condition may not be a handicap, but rather an advantage, in a certain environment and career path.
- ramraj07 8y agoWhile I used IQ as a proxy for intelligence, intelligence is obviously still poorly (or conveniently restrictively) defined. But surely some form of "being smarter" would have been advantageous at any point in time in a society? It's not just science and engineering that needs intelligence right? Oddly enough this reminds me of a clip from the show Young Sheldon where the twins display extremely different, yet equally admoyable manifestations of intelligence: https://youtu.be/nvQkKS75M2o https://youtu.be/nvQkKS75M2o
- nopinsight 8y agoI agree that “being smarter” or above average intelligence helps with a whole host of stuff besides science and engineering, including business and social skills, all other things being equal. My point above was regarding the difference between say 2SD above mean vs 4SD. It did not help much and perhaps hurt in a few ways, like getting bored more easily, to have a +4SD IQ in the past. Most businesses and jobs were not very complicated. So having a +2SD intelligence could be optimal in the past in most parts of the world. Work at today’s multinationals and globe-spanning empires, in many fields, benefit a lot more from +4SD intelligence and the stimulation from complexity helps mitigate some of the drawbacks. The optimal level for career success in many regions/careers might have shifted to +3SD or even +4SD instead.
- yesenadam 8y agoSome of the most intelligent people in history including renowned philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians did not seem to focus on using their intelligence to acquire as much power or wealth as possible. More significantly, they tend to not have children. "Men of the highest genius who were childless include Newton, Faraday, and Mendel; Vivaldi, Handel, and Beethoven; Gibbon, Macaulay, and Carlyle; Plato, Aquinas, Bacon, Locke, Leibniz, Hume, Kant and Mill. Anyone who thinks he can frame a list of comparable individuals who had on the average enough children to counter-balance the childlessness of these, is welcome to try; but he will not succeed. ...Just below the very highest level, and average number of children is again far below the average for people of no intellectual or artistic distinction. And it is, again, spectacularly depressed by the huge contribution of the childless: Copernicus, Swift, Adam Smith, Samuel Johnson, Haydn, Dalton, Francis Galton himself - to mention a few examples at random." (David Stove, Darwinian Fairytales)
- nradov 8y agoOne wonders whether those geniuses were actually childless, or if they perhaps sired some unacknowledged children?