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> I would speculate that for many generations, evolution did not care much about your IQ. In the past few hundred years, with modern culture, IQ began to matter

> I would speculate that for many generations, evolution did not care much about your IQ. In the past few hundred years, with modern culture, IQ began to matter more. False. Human beings are not strong, fast, agile, or robust in comparison to other animals. Human beings don't have horns, tusks, fangs, claws, or venom. In a 1-on-1 fight with many animals with no weapons, we die. Humans specialized in intelligence with big brains and endurance with a sophisticated cooling system. Humans had to be smart and highly skilled to survive. Place Arnold Kling anywhere on planet Earth 50,000 years ago and he would quickly die because he doesn't have the skill set or the smarts to survive. He can't hunt, track, fish, make stone tools, skin animals, make clothes, build a shelter. He might not even know how to start a fire or find water.

hollerith 2y ago
You havent refuted grandparent: what you write is true, but it is also true that IQ started to matter more a few hundred years ago. Moreover, when people lived as you describe, they frequently endured famine, and brain tissue has very high metabolic demands, so there was selection pressure to keep brain mass low.
- peutetre 2y ago
  It can't matter more when the alternative is death.
  - hollerith 2y ago
    Imagine how many died of infections 50,000 years ago. High IQ is not able to help you avoid infection when you have no hope of ever learning that microscopic living things stuck to the trace amounts of lipids on your friend's hands can give you an infection, that soap is easy to make from fat and wood ashes and that your friend's washing his hands with soap will force the invisible living things to lose their hold and fall off his hands. This is an example of the principle that our current culture has vastly more potent knowledge than culture used to have, which makes IQ much more important because IQ is required for a person to acquire knowledge and apply it correctly to fitness-enhancing ends. Kling is basically correct IMHO in believing that the reason stupid people exist is because during the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, IQ was important for the reasons you list, but not as important as it is today.
    - peutetre 2y ago
      > High IQ is not able to help you avoid infection Of course it can. You learn what can happen when you get cut. You learn what happens when you don't cook your food properly. You apply your smarts to avoid those situations. You're making the case for IQ always mattering.
      - hollerith 2y ago
        I notice that you haven't responded to my pointing out that high neuron count can under conditions of calorie shortage cause a person to starve to death when he would've survived if he had had fewer neurons particularly because of the high amount of energy a neuron requires just to keep on living compared to other kinds of cells.
        peutetre 2y ago
        Neuron count hasn't increased in the last 50,000 years. Human brains have been getting smaller: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220503-why-human-brains-were-bigger-3000-years-ago https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220503-why-human-brains... https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-human-brain-has-been-getting-smaller-since-the-stone-age https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-human-brai... Da Vinci was smarter than you. Hannibal was smarter than you. Themistocles was smarter than you.
        hollerith 2y ago
        The first sentence in the OP is, "He is asking from an evolutionary perspective why it is that stupid people exist." From the evolutionary perspective, pointing out people that lived within the last 3000 years (after ag had been invented and human culture had 7,000 years to adapt to ag) is not a refutation of my assertion of calorie scarcity in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA).
        peutetre 2y ago
        50,000 years ago brains were bigger and, despite the fact that bigger brains cost more to run, they survived. Why? Because they were smart. The human species needs to be smart to survive. It doesn't survive any other way. IQ has always mattered. Arnold Kling is wrong. You are also wrong.
defrost 2y ago
> Place Arnold Kling anywhere on planet Earth 50,000 years ago and he would quickly die Maybe, maybe not - perhaps he lands near other humans and has good non verbal social skills. More to the point though; Place _baby_ Arnold Kling anywhere on planet Earth 50,000 years ago with a human family ... his odds are much better, fast learner and that.
- peutetre 2y ago
  > his odds are much better, fast learner and that. So.. evolution always did care about his IQ.
emmelaich 2y ago
But you don't have to be very smart to outsmart other animals. For instance you don't need mathematics.
- peutetre 2y ago
  > But you don't have to be very smart to outsmart other animals. Of course you do. You are not competitive with a cave lion. You are slow and weak. Your hearing is poor. Your sense of smell is poor. Your night vision is poor. You will die. > For instance you don't need mathematics. Of course you do. If three lions enter a cave and only two come out, you need the memory and the mathematics to work out that there's still one in there. If you don't count right you will die.
  - emmelaich 2y ago
    You don't encounter many cave lions, and probably never alone. Your sight, hearing and sense of smell aren't really that bad compared to animals and probably better in many cases. WRT your mathematics that isn't exactly genius level counting.
    - peutetre 2y ago
      > Your sight, hearing and sense of smell aren't really that bad compared to animals and probably better in many cases. False. They are not better. Lion senses are authentically superhuman. > WRT your mathematics that isn't exactly genius level counting. Of course it is. The concept of zero is nontrivial. Neither you nor Arnold Kling have thought any of this through very clearly. You would both become lion scat with high efficiency.
      - emmelaich 2y ago
        You seem very animated about this. I suspect you dislike Kling. Anyway > The concept of zero is nontrivial Is knowing that "there are no lions" equivalent to fully appreciating the concept of zero?

hollerith 2y ago

You havent refuted grandparent: what you write is true, but it is also true that IQ started to matter more a few hundred years ago. Moreover, when people lived as you describe, they frequently endured famine, and brain tissue has very high metabolic demands, so there was selection pressure to keep brain mass low.

peutetre 2y ago
It can't matter more when the alternative is death.
- hollerith 2y ago
  Imagine how many died of infections 50,000 years ago. High IQ is not able to help you avoid infection when you have no hope of ever learning that microscopic living things stuck to the trace amounts of lipids on your friend's hands can give you an infection, that soap is easy to make from fat and wood ashes and that your friend's washing his hands with soap will force the invisible living things to lose their hold and fall off his hands. This is an example of the principle that our current culture has vastly more potent knowledge than culture used to have, which makes IQ much more important because IQ is required for a person to acquire knowledge and apply it correctly to fitness-enhancing ends. Kling is basically correct IMHO in believing that the reason stupid people exist is because during the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, IQ was important for the reasons you list, but not as important as it is today.
  - peutetre 2y ago
    > High IQ is not able to help you avoid infection Of course it can. You learn what can happen when you get cut. You learn what happens when you don't cook your food properly. You apply your smarts to avoid those situations. You're making the case for IQ always mattering.
    - hollerith 2y ago
      I notice that you haven't responded to my pointing out that high neuron count can under conditions of calorie shortage cause a person to starve to death when he would've survived if he had had fewer neurons particularly because of the high amount of energy a neuron requires just to keep on living compared to other kinds of cells.
      - peutetre 2y ago
        Neuron count hasn't increased in the last 50,000 years. Human brains have been getting smaller: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220503-why-human-brains-were-bigger-3000-years-ago https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220503-why-human-brains... https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-human-brain-has-been-getting-smaller-since-the-stone-age https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-human-brai... Da Vinci was smarter than you. Hannibal was smarter than you. Themistocles was smarter than you.
        hollerith 2y ago
        The first sentence in the OP is, "He is asking from an evolutionary perspective why it is that stupid people exist." From the evolutionary perspective, pointing out people that lived within the last 3000 years (after ag had been invented and human culture had 7,000 years to adapt to ag) is not a refutation of my assertion of calorie scarcity in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA).
        peutetre 2y ago
        50,000 years ago brains were bigger and, despite the fact that bigger brains cost more to run, they survived. Why? Because they were smart. The human species needs to be smart to survive. It doesn't survive any other way. IQ has always mattered. Arnold Kling is wrong. You are also wrong.

defrost 2y ago

> Place Arnold Kling anywhere on planet Earth 50,000 years ago and he would quickly die Maybe, maybe not - perhaps he lands near other humans and has good non verbal social skills. More to the point though; Place _baby_ Arnold Kling anywhere on planet Earth 50,000 years ago with a human family ... his odds are much better, fast learner and that.

peutetre 2y ago
> his odds are much better, fast learner and that. So.. evolution always did care about his IQ.

emmelaich 2y ago

But you don't have to be very smart to outsmart other animals. For instance you don't need mathematics.

peutetre 2y ago
> But you don't have to be very smart to outsmart other animals. Of course you do. You are not competitive with a cave lion. You are slow and weak. Your hearing is poor. Your sense of smell is poor. Your night vision is poor. You will die. > For instance you don't need mathematics. Of course you do. If three lions enter a cave and only two come out, you need the memory and the mathematics to work out that there's still one in there. If you don't count right you will die.
- emmelaich 2y ago
  You don't encounter many cave lions, and probably never alone. Your sight, hearing and sense of smell aren't really that bad compared to animals and probably better in many cases. WRT your mathematics that isn't exactly genius level counting.
  - peutetre 2y ago
    > Your sight, hearing and sense of smell aren't really that bad compared to animals and probably better in many cases. False. They are not better. Lion senses are authentically superhuman. > WRT your mathematics that isn't exactly genius level counting. Of course it is. The concept of zero is nontrivial. Neither you nor Arnold Kling have thought any of this through very clearly. You would both become lion scat with high efficiency.
    - emmelaich 2y ago
      You seem very animated about this. I suspect you dislike Kling. Anyway > The concept of zero is nontrivial Is knowing that "there are no lions" equivalent to fully appreciating the concept of zero?