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>in a band of well-to-do humans... Very sincere question. From my understanding, most bands were not well to do and specialization wasn't so common until rece

>in a band of well-to-do humans... Very sincere question. From my understanding, most bands were not well to do and specialization wasn't so common until recent history ( agrarian ages ). So in these instances wouldn't cognitive abilities be more generally valuable? Also, if you were a gathering type and needed to survive for a week away from your group the cognitive skills to recognize resources, weather, threats, etc as well as navigate back to your group would require a certain aptitude. Those without the aptitude would simply not return. Correct?

wizzwizz4 5y ago
> From my understanding, most bands were not well to do and specialization wasn't so common until recent history ( agrarian ages ). I don't know about ages, but in recent non-agrarian cultures (e.g. Buffalo-hunters in North America) there were often medical specialists. But if we're getting pedantic, individualism would also have been a lot lower; people tend to look out for each other when they live together. Your “memorisation skills improve survival” argument doesn't work all that well when the memorisation required is well within the ability of almost all modern humans, if that's what their lives are centred around. (How many pieces of trivia does the average person know about celebrities? And that's not even deliberately-learnt knowledge.) > Those without the aptitude would simply not return. Correct? Those without the aptitude wouldn't go on such an expedition in the first place, if they had any sense in them. You're trying hard to think of hypothetical scenarios where your hypothesis is true, and not hypothetical scenarios where your hypothesis is false. If I get to come up with loads of situations where my theory is true, I can justify any theory to myself. That's why scientists care so much about falsification.
- kokanator 5y ago
  I get what you are saying. So let's start with the hypothesis then. We must ask a question first to begin to create tests ( thought experiments in this case ). "Environment and/or society ( which is part of your environment ) apply selective pressures favoring cognitive abilities. These selections produce increased cognition in decedents indicating genetic influence in cognitive abilities." Human cognition has not remained stagnant over time. It has evolved. This evolution of cognition was driven by selective forces regardless of those forces being social or environmental or combination thereof. It is important to not confuse technology with our ability to think. However, there is a point where cognition allows for the advancement of knowledge and technology. Somehow we reached that point. To assume that once we reached this point, human cognition stopped evolving would be more elective than attempting to explore hypothetical situations as applied to our understandings of past peoples to help analyze the question. We know that we can force selection for intelligence in other mammals [0]( dogs in this thread ). We also know there are significant indications of intelligence related to genetics in humans [1]. ( the wikipedia names a number of caveats, however there remains significant evidence that a portion of intelligence is determined genetically ). The fact that societies advance to where the selective pressure for cognitive abilities reduces is recognized and not part of this argument. The argument is specifically regarding the selection for intelligence. It is also understood that IQ can be increased through training and society.[2] [0] https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA555235.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA555235.pdf [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    > To assume that once we reached this point, human cognition stopped evolving would be more elective than attempting to explore hypothetical situations as applied to our understandings of past peoples to help analyze the question. Evolution doesn't work that way. My criticism was with your assumption that such selection would differ markedly between populations. Also, IQ is not a suitable proxy for intelligence, if you want to make the conclusions you're making. It's an aggregate metric that takes into account things that aren't intelligence (e.g. certain aspects of culture); how do you know you're not detecting heritability of those? Any study that starts at IQ and ends with new conclusions about intelligence is probably wrong.

wizzwizz4 5y ago

> From my understanding, most bands were not well to do and specialization wasn't so common until recent history ( agrarian ages ). I don't know about ages, but in recent non-agrarian cultures (e.g. Buffalo-hunters in North America) there were often medical specialists. But if we're getting pedantic, individualism would also have been a lot lower; people tend to look out for each other when they live together. Your “memorisation skills improve survival” argument doesn't work all that well when the memorisation required is well within the ability of almost all modern humans, if that's what their lives are centred around. (How many pieces of trivia does the average person know about celebrities? And that's not even deliberately-learnt knowledge.) > Those without the aptitude would simply not return. Correct? Those without the aptitude wouldn't go on such an expedition in the first place, if they had any sense in them. You're trying hard to think of hypothetical scenarios where your hypothesis is true, and not hypothetical scenarios where your hypothesis is false. If I get to come up with loads of situations where my theory is true, I can justify any theory to myself. That's why scientists care so much about falsification.

kokanator 5y ago
I get what you are saying. So let's start with the hypothesis then. We must ask a question first to begin to create tests ( thought experiments in this case ). "Environment and/or society ( which is part of your environment ) apply selective pressures favoring cognitive abilities. These selections produce increased cognition in decedents indicating genetic influence in cognitive abilities." Human cognition has not remained stagnant over time. It has evolved. This evolution of cognition was driven by selective forces regardless of those forces being social or environmental or combination thereof. It is important to not confuse technology with our ability to think. However, there is a point where cognition allows for the advancement of knowledge and technology. Somehow we reached that point. To assume that once we reached this point, human cognition stopped evolving would be more elective than attempting to explore hypothetical situations as applied to our understandings of past peoples to help analyze the question. We know that we can force selection for intelligence in other mammals [0]( dogs in this thread ). We also know there are significant indications of intelligence related to genetics in humans [1]. ( the wikipedia names a number of caveats, however there remains significant evidence that a portion of intelligence is determined genetically ). The fact that societies advance to where the selective pressure for cognitive abilities reduces is recognized and not part of this argument. The argument is specifically regarding the selection for intelligence. It is also understood that IQ can be increased through training and society.[2] [0] https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA555235.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA555235.pdf [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  > To assume that once we reached this point, human cognition stopped evolving would be more elective than attempting to explore hypothetical situations as applied to our understandings of past peoples to help analyze the question. Evolution doesn't work that way. My criticism was with your assumption that such selection would differ markedly between populations. Also, IQ is not a suitable proxy for intelligence, if you want to make the conclusions you're making. It's an aggregate metric that takes into account things that aren't intelligence (e.g. certain aspects of culture); how do you know you're not detecting heritability of those? Any study that starts at IQ and ends with new conclusions about intelligence is probably wrong.