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> People may have had less access to information and technology, but that didn't make them any dumber than we are now. There's probably an aspect to people con

by RajT88 2y ago

> People may have had less access to information and technology, but that didn't make them any dumber than we are now. There's probably an aspect to people confusing "knowledge" with "brainpower". People in the past were just as good at figuring stuff out as we are today. We have the advantage of Millenia of stuff figured out and documented. So we know on average more about how the universe works than people in the distant past.

abakker 2y ago
I’d say it: we know that some people currently know more, but, the average person mostly knows something about what is known, rather than knowing it directly.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
WalterBright 2y ago
> People in the past were just as good at figuring stuff out as we are today. I seriously doubt that. My experience in college was not to learn facts and formulae, but to learn how to learn. I.e. training the mind. It's similar to athletes. The worst Olympic athlete today would blow away the best from a century ago. That's not because people are inherently stronger today, but because we know how to train much better.
- Eisenstein 2y ago
  But again, that is access to knowledge. How good would your college education have been if there was no library or textbooks? If you took the athletes today without their support team and sent them back in time two years before an Olympics event to compete on their own, I don't think it would be as big of a blowout as you suggest.
  - sethherr 2y ago
    It would be a huge blowout. We didn’t know how to train or eat and athletes smoked and drank substantially more. Meanwhile, the gear evolutions make significant difference. But take distance running - prior to 1954, nobody had done a sub 4 minute mile. After that was known to be possible multiple people sub 4 minute miled in the following decade. If you sent a top runner back a hundred years they would be able to run a sub 4 minute mile, even with 1920s equipment - and the world record in 1923 was 4:10
    - yread 2y ago
      > even with 1920s equipment Are you sure about that? Can you post a result where someone ran with leather shoes on asphalt?
      - hilux 2y ago
        Zola Budd, a woman, ran a barefoot mile in 4:17.57, which is about 10 seconds slower than the current women's WR. The men's mile WR is about 24 seconds faster than the women's. Presumably plenty of barefoot African dudes could run a mile a lot faster than Budd did. With the exception of the new "energy return" shoes, there's no evidence that shoes help runners run faster - probably the opposite.
    - kaffekaka 2y ago
      As far as I know the progression into sub 4 minute miles was quite linear and not some kind of sudden breach once everybody understood it was at all possible. The story of a sudden breach is perhaps more attractive though.
      - sethherr 2y ago
        From wikipedia's 4 minute mile article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-minute_mile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-minute_mile > The four-minute barrier was first broken on 6 May 1954 at Oxford University's Iffley Road Track, by British athlete Roger Bannister > On 21 June 1954, at an international meet at Turku, Finland, Australia's John Landy became the second man, after Bannister, to achieve a sub-four-minute mile. In 1955 Laszlo Tabori was the third person to break the 4 minute barrier. Then, in 1956, three runners broke the four-minute barrier in a single race. This matches what I described, multiple people attained it once it was understood to be possible. It was linear up to the 4 minute mark, but the point is that records that used to be impossible are now humdrum once achieved.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    Interesting that you mention textbooks. Most of my STEM classes in college did not have a textbook, or recommended a book that was kinda irrelevant to the direction the classes took. BTW, the discovery of the Scientific Method was a great leap forward in how to discover more knowledge.
    - Eisenstein 2y ago
      > Most of my STEM classes in college did not have a textbook, or recommended a book that was kinda irrelevant to the direction the classes took. So you went through classes with no written material? You listened to lecture, took notes, and then did assignments and passed tests with no documents to study? > BTW, the discovery of the Scientific Method was a great leap forward in how to discover more knowledge. The scientific method is a set of protocols that are followed in order to formalize evidence and prediction. Putting it into a set of words is important, but not required. Humans managed to sail across oceans and build wonders just fine without it.
      - nradov 2y ago
        Humans made gradual progress before the scientific method but it was slow and kind of random. If you look at the historical pace of innovation it tremendously accelerated after the scientific method became widespread.
        Eisenstein 2y ago
        > Humans made gradual progress before the scientific method When was 'before the scientific method' exactly? > it was slow and kind of random. I would argue it wasn't random at all -- it was directed towards human needs and desires as appropriate to the times. There was never a period where humans stopped using their intelligence and problem solving skills to improve their lives in whatever ways were available. > If you look at the historical pace of innovation it tremendously accelerated after the scientific method became widespread. When did it become widespread? Where did it spread to? Did those places all show a similar increase in innovation in the years after?
- Vegenoid 2y ago
  I think that it depends on what you mean by “people”. My hypothesis is that the average person today is better at learning than in the past, for the reasons you stated, but that there have been people as good at learning as the best today for quite a while. It seems hard to refute this when considering some of the great minds of the past, and the incredible discoveries they were able to make with far less tools and collaborators with which to make them. I also don’t think that brainpower/learning ability correspond as directly to training regimen as physical ability. We also don’t have as clear of an idea for what the “best” ways to increase learning ability are as for fitness. And of course our methods to quantify intelligence are much less objective than for fitness - partly because we separate fitness ability into different domains in a way that we tend not to for intelligence.
- nradov 2y ago
  In swimming, high school girls today routinely go faster than the best male Olympic athletes from 1924. In most sports, technique and equipment has improved along with training.

by RajT88 2y ago

abakker 2y ago

I’d say it: we know that some people currently know more, but, the average person mostly knows something about what is known, rather than knowing it directly.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

WalterBright 2y ago

> People in the past were just as good at figuring stuff out as we are today. I seriously doubt that. My experience in college was not to learn facts and formulae, but to learn how to learn. I.e. training the mind. It's similar to athletes. The worst Olympic athlete today would blow away the best from a century ago. That's not because people are inherently stronger today, but because we know how to train much better.

Eisenstein 2y ago
But again, that is access to knowledge. How good would your college education have been if there was no library or textbooks? If you took the athletes today without their support team and sent them back in time two years before an Olympics event to compete on their own, I don't think it would be as big of a blowout as you suggest.
- sethherr 2y ago
  It would be a huge blowout. We didn’t know how to train or eat and athletes smoked and drank substantially more. Meanwhile, the gear evolutions make significant difference. But take distance running - prior to 1954, nobody had done a sub 4 minute mile. After that was known to be possible multiple people sub 4 minute miled in the following decade. If you sent a top runner back a hundred years they would be able to run a sub 4 minute mile, even with 1920s equipment - and the world record in 1923 was 4:10
  - yread 2y ago
    > even with 1920s equipment Are you sure about that? Can you post a result where someone ran with leather shoes on asphalt?
    - hilux 2y ago
      Zola Budd, a woman, ran a barefoot mile in 4:17.57, which is about 10 seconds slower than the current women's WR. The men's mile WR is about 24 seconds faster than the women's. Presumably plenty of barefoot African dudes could run a mile a lot faster than Budd did. With the exception of the new "energy return" shoes, there's no evidence that shoes help runners run faster - probably the opposite.
  - kaffekaka 2y ago
    As far as I know the progression into sub 4 minute miles was quite linear and not some kind of sudden breach once everybody understood it was at all possible. The story of a sudden breach is perhaps more attractive though.
    - sethherr 2y ago
      From wikipedia's 4 minute mile article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-minute_mile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-minute_mile > The four-minute barrier was first broken on 6 May 1954 at Oxford University's Iffley Road Track, by British athlete Roger Bannister > On 21 June 1954, at an international meet at Turku, Finland, Australia's John Landy became the second man, after Bannister, to achieve a sub-four-minute mile. In 1955 Laszlo Tabori was the third person to break the 4 minute barrier. Then, in 1956, three runners broke the four-minute barrier in a single race. This matches what I described, multiple people attained it once it was understood to be possible. It was linear up to the 4 minute mark, but the point is that records that used to be impossible are now humdrum once achieved.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  Interesting that you mention textbooks. Most of my STEM classes in college did not have a textbook, or recommended a book that was kinda irrelevant to the direction the classes took. BTW, the discovery of the Scientific Method was a great leap forward in how to discover more knowledge.
  - Eisenstein 2y ago
    > Most of my STEM classes in college did not have a textbook, or recommended a book that was kinda irrelevant to the direction the classes took. So you went through classes with no written material? You listened to lecture, took notes, and then did assignments and passed tests with no documents to study? > BTW, the discovery of the Scientific Method was a great leap forward in how to discover more knowledge. The scientific method is a set of protocols that are followed in order to formalize evidence and prediction. Putting it into a set of words is important, but not required. Humans managed to sail across oceans and build wonders just fine without it.
    - nradov 2y ago
      Humans made gradual progress before the scientific method but it was slow and kind of random. If you look at the historical pace of innovation it tremendously accelerated after the scientific method became widespread.
      - Eisenstein 2y ago
        > Humans made gradual progress before the scientific method When was 'before the scientific method' exactly? > it was slow and kind of random. I would argue it wasn't random at all -- it was directed towards human needs and desires as appropriate to the times. There was never a period where humans stopped using their intelligence and problem solving skills to improve their lives in whatever ways were available. > If you look at the historical pace of innovation it tremendously accelerated after the scientific method became widespread. When did it become widespread? Where did it spread to? Did those places all show a similar increase in innovation in the years after?
Vegenoid 2y ago
I think that it depends on what you mean by “people”. My hypothesis is that the average person today is better at learning than in the past, for the reasons you stated, but that there have been people as good at learning as the best today for quite a while. It seems hard to refute this when considering some of the great minds of the past, and the incredible discoveries they were able to make with far less tools and collaborators with which to make them. I also don’t think that brainpower/learning ability correspond as directly to training regimen as physical ability. We also don’t have as clear of an idea for what the “best” ways to increase learning ability are as for fitness. And of course our methods to quantify intelligence are much less objective than for fitness - partly because we separate fitness ability into different domains in a way that we tend not to for intelligence.
nradov 2y ago
In swimming, high school girls today routinely go faster than the best male Olympic athletes from 1924. In most sports, technique and equipment has improved along with training.