6 ms·

Being the smartest person in the room almost always has advantages. Da Vinci was offered several times the opportunity to procreate (I think even his brother's

Being the smartest person in the room almost always has advantages. Da Vinci was offered several times the opportunity to procreate (I think even his brother's wife) just to grab some of that DNA. Probably Ramanujan is the most famous example we can point to - whilst not 13th C steppes, rural Victorian India is not a hotbed of education, yet people around him recognized his genius (at least relative to them) and gave him what opportunity they could. (No idea about the offers of sex however) Genius usually will out. For a fair society we need to worry about the rest of us. For a technologically prosperous society we need to ensure the few geniuses get a good education. Luckily for us, we don't know where the geniuses will be born, so we need to build a fair society, and then we will get the technological advances for free - so glad that's solved.

varjag 6y ago
survivorship bias
- Timpy 6y ago
  You're right this is survivorship bias, but I think it also illustrates that my premise is unfalsifiable. I'll try to restate it, keep in mind we are talking about evolution: There must have been people throughout history who where of such high intelligence that it impeded their ability to procreate, while their circumstances didn't allow their exceptional abilities to be realized, and they died in obscurity. High profile, high intelligence historical figures cannot be an example of this because their circumstances allowed their intelligence to be realized. In the best of circumstances, high intelligence can be exported from an individual and impact the entire culture, region, or even species (like a printing press). The meme can procreate without the individual procreating, and the impact of an individual like Leonardo da Vinci can permeate without him contributing DNA to the human experiment. Here's my speculation: Maybe a gene that's too smart could possibly be self-defeating, and it won't be replicated.
  - akiselev 6y ago
    Natural selection depends on environment, which changes all the time. A gene that is advantageous today might become fatal tomorrow so asking whether a gene is self defeating doesn't maker sense without specifying the environment. Floods, asteroids, droughts, fires, and so on are all random events that constantly change things up so only genes that are foundational to our biochemistry are immune to selective pressure - largely because most mutations in those genes are catastrophic or the genes are very redundant. Humans have a complex social environment on top of everything else so whether a gene is useful or not might depend on which ideology is in power, the predominant religion of the day, or hygiene etiquette.
    - Timpy 6y ago
      You're right, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Are there environments where genes that lend to intelligence do not thrive?
      - akiselev 6y ago
        Pol Pot's purges come to mind, where he exterminated intellectuals, the educated, anyone wearing glasses, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if there were pre-industrial revolution tribes/city-states that were wiped out because they became "too smart" - i.e. focusing so much on education that they neglect their military.
- andi999 6y ago
  Yes. Isnt it also said, that Mensa members (IQ needs to be 130+, if I remember correctly) do not correlate with success in life. It seems that probably conscientinousness is orthogonal to IQ and more important.
  - bencollier49 6y ago
    I think that joining an organisation which celebrates your (only?) positive feature is possibly indicative of a hidden variable which may correlate inversely with success in life... I'm not sure Mensa are an unbiased sample.
newsbinator 6y ago
There is something to this: most people (i.e. the majority but not all), when faced with intelligence beyond their own, get excited and interested automatically. This is good for intelligent kids and gives them a fighting chance. Those positive feelings aren't true of other evolutionary advantages in kids, like when people are faced with sociopathy beyond their own.

varjag 6y ago

survivorship bias

Timpy 6y ago
You're right this is survivorship bias, but I think it also illustrates that my premise is unfalsifiable. I'll try to restate it, keep in mind we are talking about evolution: There must have been people throughout history who where of such high intelligence that it impeded their ability to procreate, while their circumstances didn't allow their exceptional abilities to be realized, and they died in obscurity. High profile, high intelligence historical figures cannot be an example of this because their circumstances allowed their intelligence to be realized. In the best of circumstances, high intelligence can be exported from an individual and impact the entire culture, region, or even species (like a printing press). The meme can procreate without the individual procreating, and the impact of an individual like Leonardo da Vinci can permeate without him contributing DNA to the human experiment. Here's my speculation: Maybe a gene that's too smart could possibly be self-defeating, and it won't be replicated.
- akiselev 6y ago
  Natural selection depends on environment, which changes all the time. A gene that is advantageous today might become fatal tomorrow so asking whether a gene is self defeating doesn't maker sense without specifying the environment. Floods, asteroids, droughts, fires, and so on are all random events that constantly change things up so only genes that are foundational to our biochemistry are immune to selective pressure - largely because most mutations in those genes are catastrophic or the genes are very redundant. Humans have a complex social environment on top of everything else so whether a gene is useful or not might depend on which ideology is in power, the predominant religion of the day, or hygiene etiquette.
  - Timpy 6y ago
    You're right, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Are there environments where genes that lend to intelligence do not thrive?
    - akiselev 6y ago
      Pol Pot's purges come to mind, where he exterminated intellectuals, the educated, anyone wearing glasses, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if there were pre-industrial revolution tribes/city-states that were wiped out because they became "too smart" - i.e. focusing so much on education that they neglect their military.
andi999 6y ago
Yes. Isnt it also said, that Mensa members (IQ needs to be 130+, if I remember correctly) do not correlate with success in life. It seems that probably conscientinousness is orthogonal to IQ and more important.
- bencollier49 6y ago
  I think that joining an organisation which celebrates your (only?) positive feature is possibly indicative of a hidden variable which may correlate inversely with success in life... I'm not sure Mensa are an unbiased sample.

newsbinator 6y ago

There is something to this: most people (i.e. the majority but not all), when faced with intelligence beyond their own, get excited and interested automatically. This is good for intelligent kids and gives them a fighting chance. Those positive feelings aren't true of other evolutionary advantages in kids, like when people are faced with sociopathy beyond their own.