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> 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

> 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.
      - hollerith 2y ago
        There was so much violence 50,000 years ago that maybe humans started out with twice as many neurons as was optimal for genetic fitness and in case blows to the head didn't do the job, then starting in the individual's 20s the body naturally started killing off neurons. I.e., what if heads were as big as they were 50,000 years ago to prevent blows to the head from driving IQ low enough to seriously interfere with survival and that on average by the time the average individual reached the age of 35 or 45, half of the volume of the cranium was cerebro-spinal fluid? And if violence didn't have that result, then the body produced that result on its own (because again neurons are so energetically expensive)? If that is the case, then we would expect medical researchers to have uncovered evidence of a pre-programmed neuron-pruning process and in fact we have papers with titles like, "Could Alzheimer’s disease be a maladaptation of an evolutionary survival pathway mediated by intracerebral fructose and uric acid metabolism?" which postulates that the body perceives certain kinds of diets as a sign that famine is likely soon and responds to that sign by killing off neurons to make it more likely that the individual will survive the famine. Note that people's cognitive abilities start to decline in their 20s (even now when famine is much more rare) and ther decline is so rapid that by the age of 40 it is very rare for any individual to contribute at the highest level in certain endeavors such as research math, theoretical physics, video game competitions and such. Again: although we cannot have any high degree of confidence because the matter is very complicated, there are reasons to suspect that high IQ bears higher dividends nowadays in helping a person achieve a satisfying and successful life than it did 50,000 years ago in helping a person survive and raise healthy children.
emmelaich 2y ago
It doesn't help much though. Aristotle was smart but he knew fuck all about disease and infection.

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.
    - hollerith 2y ago
      There was so much violence 50,000 years ago that maybe humans started out with twice as many neurons as was optimal for genetic fitness and in case blows to the head didn't do the job, then starting in the individual's 20s the body naturally started killing off neurons. I.e., what if heads were as big as they were 50,000 years ago to prevent blows to the head from driving IQ low enough to seriously interfere with survival and that on average by the time the average individual reached the age of 35 or 45, half of the volume of the cranium was cerebro-spinal fluid? And if violence didn't have that result, then the body produced that result on its own (because again neurons are so energetically expensive)? If that is the case, then we would expect medical researchers to have uncovered evidence of a pre-programmed neuron-pruning process and in fact we have papers with titles like, "Could Alzheimer’s disease be a maladaptation of an evolutionary survival pathway mediated by intracerebral fructose and uric acid metabolism?" which postulates that the body perceives certain kinds of diets as a sign that famine is likely soon and responds to that sign by killing off neurons to make it more likely that the individual will survive the famine. Note that people's cognitive abilities start to decline in their 20s (even now when famine is much more rare) and ther decline is so rapid that by the age of 40 it is very rare for any individual to contribute at the highest level in certain endeavors such as research math, theoretical physics, video game competitions and such. Again: although we cannot have any high degree of confidence because the matter is very complicated, there are reasons to suspect that high IQ bears higher dividends nowadays in helping a person achieve a satisfying and successful life than it did 50,000 years ago in helping a person survive and raise healthy children.

emmelaich 2y ago

It doesn't help much though. Aristotle was smart but he knew fuck all about disease and infection.