Yes absolutely (and i was afraid to say it out loud).
But now, we have also to explain why it did not so much apply in the past millennias … or tens of past millenias. (again, i am afraid to say it … don’t want a shitstorm)
if you got married before 2000 and had a decent job. especially if both did. having kids seemed like a thing to do. past 2000 anyone smart had to contend that the world of their kids adulthood did not seem like it would be great.
Yes, i agree, and many other lemmy users said similar things about : “why it does apply recently” …
Yet, it’s more interesting to look at why in the past centuries or millennias there was quite a strong selection pressure favoring intelligence.
During those past times, life for humans was much more competitive, so that any major deficiencies, including in intelligence, physical strength, mental strength or whatever important survival characteristics, meant death.
Similarly, in any living species, would it be plants, animal or other, if you remove survival pressures, you rapidly, in just a few generations, diverge into completely different life forms.
Since selection pressures have drastically decreased in many rich countries, for maybe 50 to 100 years now, their populations are on this unsustainable path (in my educated opinion).
Comments from other users were close to what i am saying here, but never so bluntly.
P.S. : @otp@sh.itjust.works this comment is of the type for which i would expect to be, as you said : “regularly get called out on”.
Up to this point, i have read most comments inside this post and race or racism was nowhere mention. Yet there have been studies to measure its influence on intelligence … humm … is that a topic that you wish to develop here ? Why ? Do you believe it is useful ? Or do you agree with me that it is a waste of our time ?
You might want to look into some studies done on those studies – there are IQ tests that historically (and sometimes presently) had culturally-ingrained aspects to their questions that made it hard for minorities and newcomers to answer properly. E.g., IQ tests with questions about baseball that assume the test-taker knows how many innings are in a game, how many outs/balls/strikes to get a player out, etc.
Some selection pressure seems to be returning. anti mask (during a pandemic), anti vax, homeopathy. some folks seem to want to or have their kids die early.
Such a nightmare… i suppose we can describe this as :
(hypothesis #1) : Stupidity increasing up to a breaking point where it’s no longer sustainable and kids start to die again.
(h #2) : this increase in stupidity is not necessarily genetic … it can be from other (social …) causes.
(h #3) : selection pressure can also act on social behaviors.
Disclaimer : i’m not working in this field : this has no scientific value.
The massive lowering of the bar of “good enough to stay alive”. Life expectancy was consistantly in the 30s up until the 1870s. Simply having kids was life threatening… doing so while malnourished even more so.
Natural selection favors traits that increase the odds of having offspring, as well as those that avoid death before having offspring. Avoiding death is a lot easier than it used to be.
For what it’s worth the average life expectancy was 30-something. That didn’t mean that everyone, or even the mostly everyone, just dropped dead at 30.
It did, however, involve an awful lot of people dying in childhood. Often due to diseases that these days we’ve almost stamped out, but now antivax morons are working hard on bringing back!
Yeah, I at least assumed that was understood with just “expectancy”, obviously people live longer than expectations, and some die unexpectedly young. Key point is if you were given a mission where you must become a baby, and carry on life until you have 6 kids reach the age of 18. But you could chose what time to be born in (but not pick location, class or race), the lowest difficulty mode of that game would almost certainly be after 1950s… and prior to the 1800s would be viewed as very hard mode.
If you have an idea that you regularly get called out on, you should probably say it and be willing to truly listen to what people are saying about it…lol
Yes absolutely (and i was afraid to say it out loud).
But now, we have also to explain why it did not so much apply in the past millennias … or tens of past millenias. (again, i am afraid to say it … don’t want a shitstorm)
if you got married before 2000 and had a decent job. especially if both did. having kids seemed like a thing to do. past 2000 anyone smart had to contend that the world of their kids adulthood did not seem like it would be great.
Yes, i agree, and many other lemmy users said similar things about : “why it does apply recently” …
Yet, it’s more interesting to look at why in the past centuries or millennias there was quite a strong selection pressure favoring intelligence.
During those past times, life for humans was much more competitive, so that any major deficiencies, including in intelligence, physical strength, mental strength or whatever important survival characteristics, meant death.
Similarly, in any living species, would it be plants, animal or other, if you remove survival pressures, you rapidly, in just a few generations, diverge into completely different life forms.
Since selection pressures have drastically decreased in many rich countries, for maybe 50 to 100 years now, their populations are on this unsustainable path (in my educated opinion).
Comments from other users were close to what i am saying here, but never so bluntly.
P.S. : @otp@sh.itjust.works this comment is of the type for which i would expect to be, as you said : “regularly get called out on”.
Well, I’m not seeing anyone calling you out yet. But maybe you made it sound more racist before, or something? Lol
Up to this point, i have read most comments inside this post and race or racism was nowhere mention. Yet there have been studies to measure its influence on intelligence … humm … is that a topic that you wish to develop here ? Why ? Do you believe it is useful ? Or do you agree with me that it is a waste of our time ?
Lol ok, yeah, that’s probably what it was.
You might want to look into some studies done on those studies – there are IQ tests that historically (and sometimes presently) had culturally-ingrained aspects to their questions that made it hard for minorities and newcomers to answer properly. E.g., IQ tests with questions about baseball that assume the test-taker knows how many innings are in a game, how many outs/balls/strikes to get a player out, etc.
Wikipedia seems to have a lot to say on it, including some of the criticisms.
But generally speaking you’re probably looking at what’s mostly a correlation, not a direct causation.
Bad questions, so, useless IQ tests … all this quite a bit sad, yes.
Some selection pressure seems to be returning. anti mask (during a pandemic), anti vax, homeopathy. some folks seem to want to or have their kids die early.
Such a nightmare… i suppose we can describe this as :
(hypothesis #1) : Stupidity increasing up to a breaking point where it’s no longer sustainable and kids start to die again.
(h #2) : this increase in stupidity is not necessarily genetic … it can be from other (social …) causes.
(h #3) : selection pressure can also act on social behaviors.
Disclaimer : i’m not working in this field : this has no scientific value.
Measles outbreaks are coming back, lol
“lol” … ok, laughing to avoid crying.
The massive lowering of the bar of “good enough to stay alive”. Life expectancy was consistantly in the 30s up until the 1870s. Simply having kids was life threatening… doing so while malnourished even more so.
Natural selection favors traits that increase the odds of having offspring, as well as those that avoid death before having offspring. Avoiding death is a lot easier than it used to be.
For what it’s worth the average life expectancy was 30-something. That didn’t mean that everyone, or even the mostly everyone, just dropped dead at 30.
It did, however, involve an awful lot of people dying in childhood. Often due to diseases that these days we’ve almost stamped out, but now antivax morons are working hard on bringing back!
Yeah, I at least assumed that was understood with just “expectancy”, obviously people live longer than expectations, and some die unexpectedly young. Key point is if you were given a mission where you must become a baby, and carry on life until you have 6 kids reach the age of 18. But you could chose what time to be born in (but not pick location, class or race), the lowest difficulty mode of that game would almost certainly be after 1950s… and prior to the 1800s would be viewed as very hard mode.
Yes. Thanks for stating these hard facts.
Part of the answer is that mortality rates were far higher 150 years ago. A couple might have 5 children but only 2 survive to adulthood.
Because i agree with this, i encourage you to push this idea further to its conclusion.
If you have an idea that you regularly get called out on, you should probably say it and be willing to truly listen to what people are saying about it…lol
i did it often enough. Now someone else did it for me and I’m very happy they did.
P.S. : Often it’s not my ideas but the harsh direct way i express them 😆