22 replies to this topic

[rvdvaart]

For those of you who haven't seen it, here is a little preview:





The basic theory behind the movie is that in todays society, people with lower IQ's breed faster than people with higher IQ's. So in several generations, the movie claims the average IQ of Americans will go down and that in 500 years, society will be dumbed down so much that we will basically have a nation of idiots (which I guess isn't that far from the truth even today).

But here is where I'm confused. The Flynn Effect says the average IQ keeps increasing in each successive generation. So which theory is the most plausible?

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Flynn_effect

Edited by rvdvaart, 26 August 2010 - 03:08 AM.

[PWAIN]

I think is is reasonable plausible. The Flynn effect appears to have peaked in several places around the world and even be in decline in certain areas.

The Flynn effect is most probably the result of better nutrition, better upbringing and better education services. This however has a limit and appears to be slowing down. Underlying IQ capability has probably been going down for some time but was hidden by these improvements that allowed us to get the most IQ out of people.

Sadly, I honestly cannot dispute the reality of the Idiocracy concept. Certainly where I live, lower IQ individuals are rewarded higher than their higher IQ counterparts. A earthmover driver can easily earn two to three times as much as an office worker and probably on a par with a doctor, engineer or scientist. It has got so bad that I find myself debating the worth of sending my children to University.

Government policy here is also very much geared to help those on lower incomes where many of the lower IQ individuals see this as an opportunity to procreate:)......

Perhaps the remaining high IQ individuals will live on an island paradise somewhere. I can only hope.

[robomoon]

A higher IQ is good if others have a lower one, right? Yet, you should not take IQ as the only criterium for better breeding. DNA and healthy lifestyle are always a factor too. So an intact nuclear and mitochondric DNA, a good gene expression - together with the right lifestyle, and bang, you got an intelligent child becoming an intelligent adult.

Here are two articles about genetic research that will lead to a better understanding where the gene pool for procreative intelligence in humans can be worsened without consideration of the IQ in children and their parents.

Gene Hunting. National Institute of Mental Health. Upd. 30-Aug-05 http://bipolar.about...ihmhuntgene.htm

Gene linked with mental illness shapes brain region, researchers find. UT Southwestern Medical Center. 7-Nov-06 http://www.eurekaler...c-glw110706.php

Edited by robomoon, 26 August 2010 - 08:02 PM.

[e Volution]

I don't think so. It's a bit of a crude idea which I do not think is rooted in any rigorous evolutionary theory. Intelligent people tend to mate with other intelligent people so I don't think there will be this watering down of the gene pool akin to how the movie describes.

Check this out (not all relevant but some on IQ and awesome video anyway):


I do however like the saying that the world's population is growing exponentially but global intelligence is static

Edited by e Volution, 27 August 2010 - 05:48 AM.

[Ghostrider]

I don't think so. It's a bit of a crude idea which I do not think is rooted in any rigorous evolutionary theory. Intelligent people tend to mate with other intelligent people so I don't think there will be this watering down of the gene pool akin to how the movie describes.

Check this out (not all relevant but some on IQ and awesome video anyway):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIDLIwlzkgY

I do however like the saying that the world's population is growing exponentially but global intelligence is static

I see this a bit different. The difference is between capability and applied capability. If you took Lance Armstrong, put him in space for 5 years and forced him to eat the average American diet while there, with no exercise, upon his return to earth he wouldn't be winning any races despite his genetics. If you put a species in an environment where survival becomes easier, the species will devolve over time. With the evolutionary forces which permitted only the stronger individuals to propagate into the next generation removed, the weaker species (speaking about the society today -- not necessarily genetically weaker, but culturally weaker) will catch up. Look at what's happening around the world, more educated people are choosing not to have children. Less educated people behave like animals. But I don't think their genetics are holding them back (hardware) so much as their culture (operating system). That 1984 in the video above reminded me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmRJ649ICPU&playnext=1&list=PL893896E660E5BFEC&index=20

Edited by Ghostrider, 25 November 2010 - 07:19 AM.

[Logan]

There are plenty of very intelligent and well educated people having children where I live, but I live in a much higher than average and incredibly affluent area. I don't think it is the less intelligent that are more likely to have children, it's the poor and the hispanic that are more likely to have children.

This idiocracy effect is a bunch of bullocks.

[nowayout]

This may have been going on for a long time.

The human brain was 15-20 percent larger 30,000 years ago.

Times article

There is no rule of evolution that causes intelligence to increase with time. The brain is very resource-intensive. If conditions allow people to survive on less brainpower, it will be an evolutionary advantage for brain size to decrease. This has happened to various species that were domesticated, and as a result lost brain size and intelligence. Consider wolves to dogs.

If I may offer a theory - when humans started agriculture and living together in towns and cities, with the support systems that come with them, we needed to rely less on our wits for survival than we did as hunter-gatherers. In effect, we domesticated ourselves, and it became advantageous for our brains to shrink to conserve resources in a more crowded environment. So our brains shrunk. A lot.

And by the way, we in the U.S. already live in an idiocracy, and have for some time.

Edited by viveutvivas, 27 November 2010 - 12:00 AM.

[Lassus]

Sometimes i wonder about this.

Theres a negative correlation between social class and number of offspring (broadly speaking), and a definite positive correlation between social class and iq.

Im not an expert by any means, but from what ive read ive kind of come away concluding that theres probably an excess of people with below average iqs stuck in a reproductive pattern that only made sense in another era, that era being the one before the discovery/invention of antibiotics and vaccines.

Before around 1940 child mortality was high, and the ratio of births to surviving children (that is, children who survived long enough to have kids of their own) was high as well. These comparatively high child mortality rates were mostly due to infectious diseases. So, it kinda made sense to have lots of children back then, preferably starting at an early age (life expectancy wasnt that great either).

Considering iq score graphs follow a bell curve (normal distribution, meh), with most of the population having a so called average iq, and only a handful particularly smart or dumb individuals as outliers, one has to wonder how those on the left half of the graph (those with below average iq) are reproducing compared to those on the right side of the graph.

If members of upper social classes tend to have fewer children, and to postpone child birth (both things having a lot to do with higher educational levels and pursuit of interests other than child rearing during most of their fertile years), whilst members of lower social classes tend to perpetuate a vicious circle of multiple births, teenage pregnancy, low educational levels, and poverty, and we are to take iq into account as an inheritable trait, i think one could extrapolate the fact that perhaps truly gifted people might not be as willing to have, lets say, 10 children, as opposed to those on the other end of the iq spectrum.


Theres a lot of other factors to take into account of course. Off the top of my head: access to contraceptive methods, social concientousness on an individual level, how both of those things relate to iq and social status, particular cultural factors, welfare state policies, etc.
They may all be involved in determining reproductive patterns on a societal level, and may relate to iq and socioeconomic status heavily.

So, you have a slim fraction of gifted people, most of them belonging to upper classes, and a large chunk of average people; the question is: have those on the below average 50% been having more children than those on the above average 50%? Or, have those on the low iq extreme of society been having an above average number of children?

Child mortality dropped considerably after WW2 (from 10% to around 1% i think), on account of antibiotics and vaccines (and basic sanitary measures, of course). But did a shift in reproductive patterns follow amongst those most likely to benefit from this (poor people; both because they tend to have an above average number of children and because they constitute the most numerous social class in most countries)?

The masses get antibiotics and no effective means of contraception during a significant stretch of the 20th century.
What are the consequences from a global average iq level perspective? Did the Flynn effect mask this phenomenon to an extent?

I mean, with increasing educational and wealth levels things seem to reach a plateau, even in third world countries, with most people adopting a sub - replacement fertility rate similar to that of western democracies (well, some first world countries anyway). So, it isnt really about where we are going from here on with this, but more about, what it all means in this early 21st century world of ours. In particular if you happen not to find yourself in the bulky part of the iq scores bell curve (or the misfortunate lower extreme).
I live in a developing country and i sometimes wonder about all of this.


Yeah, this is a very politically incorrect topic.

Some links:

http://charltonteach...-facts-and.html

http://www.demograph...ol18/5/18-5.pdf

http://www.csulb.edu...acd/HUMNAT3.PDF

Edited by Lassus, 27 November 2010 - 11:43 PM.

[Athanasios]

I tend to think this worry is not new and we have not sunk into idiocracy yet. Two things that made me not so worried about this problem:

The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency. - Al E.

The second, is that the way technology is going, a smaller minority can do tremendous amount more good than they could in the past.

There are plenty of really smart people. Tech is allowing us to utilize this 'resource' even more. This has made me reformulate the problem a bit differently:

The gap between intelligent and capable people vs. those that lack or never work to utilize their strengths may grow with tech and resource availability. On the other hand, everyone's capabilities will be lifted and lower hanging fruit is much easier to offer. The problem would occur in an ever increasing gap. I don't know if there is much evidence of this, and if there is, how much a problem it would create.

The other issue is similar to the nuclear bomb fears.

Anyway, that has been my evolution of thought on the matter.

Edited by Athanasios, 28 November 2010 - 02:13 AM.

[niner]

Idiocracy is a hilarious movie. Like these things usually are, it's a commentary on the present day, not a prediction of the future. As Lassus noted, there is a broad negative correlation between class/IQ and number of offspring. That correlation is not sufficiently strong, and is not likely to be sufficiently long-lived to result in an IQ suppression as large as is seen in the movie. It probably does lower the average intelligence of the developed world to some degree, so in that regard the movie is plausible, but the effect is exaggerated (a lot) for comedy. Various factors might come into play to alter the current dynamic. In an age of economic pressure, it becomes increasingly unlikely that people will be allowed to procreate endlessly without an ability to support their children. Sound like some sort of fascist dystopia? Well, the alternative would be raising taxes, and we couldn't have that, could we?

We will probably have neural implants and various forms of gene therapy that will substantially alter our IQ long before the 26th century in which Idiocracy is set.

[firespin]

We will probably have neural implants and various forms of gene therapy that will substantially alter our IQ long before the 26th century in which Idiocracy is set.

I agree, thanks to nearby future tech and biotechnology, idiocracy will not occur because science will raise everyone's intelligence/IQ and abilities, and there will be a increase of resources thanks to science as well.

Edited by firespin, 28 November 2010 - 06:22 AM.

[Delta Gamma]

We will probably have neural implants and various forms of gene therapy that will substantially alter our IQ long before the 26th century in which Idiocracy is set.

I agree, thanks to nearby future tech and biotechnology, idiocracy will not occur because science will raise everyone's intelligence/IQ and abilities, and there will be a increase of resources thanks to science as well.

I believe that this is a strong option. Also, there is the fact that only the western world tends to have the kind of lower IQ favoring social climate the movie addresses. I think that in developing nations there is significant pressure to produce high IQ children (see China and India for example). I'd be interested to see the IQ trends in China in 2 or 3 generations to see what kind of pressure the one child policy had.

Thoughts?

[maxwatt]

IF you want to breed long-lived mice, you don't let them reproduce until late in life. That is what is happening with educated people in western cultures. A few generations of this, we should have a cohort of extra-intelligent long-lived people. Speciation can occur in populations that do not interbreed. As long as the less-intelligent are useful, they will reproduce. War has been a useful if unintentional means of controlling the less intelligent population. Two regions where people tend to test higher in IQ are also regions with constant war and conflict: western Europe and the highlands of NEw Guinea.

Other trends: Already, in the more rural areas, an experienced operator of earth moving equipment makes more than the average college grad. It does not require what we usually measure as intelligence, but it does require good hand-eye coordination and an intuitive grasp of practical physics. Such traits may be selected for yet not reflected in intelligence measures.

Since the invention of agriculture, brain size and presumably intelligence has been decreasing world-wide. A counter-trend began about 500 years ago, first in western Europe, but I expect it is spreading; certain genes that mediate increased frontal lobe size have been spreading in the general population, and brain size has been increasing in that region. The frontal lobes mediate social interactions and long-term planning. It's a rather curious data-point.

[nowayout]

Since the invention of agriculture, brain size and presumably intelligence has been decreasing world-wide. A counter-trend began about 500 years ago, first in western Europe, but I expect it is spreading; certain genes that mediate increased frontal lobe size have been spreading in the general population, and brain size has been increasing in that region. The frontal lobes mediate social interactions and long-term planning. It's a rather curious data-point.

Could you please expand on this, with a reference if you could?

[nowayout]

I tend to think this worry is not new and we have not sunk into idiocracy yet.

Have you looked up from your computer screen lately? Consider politics and elections in the U.S. We are already there. Humanity does not have an average intelligence to stop killing ourselves and the world with our pollutants. I rest my case.

Edited by viveutvivas, 28 November 2010 - 05:56 PM.

[Athanasios]

Have you looked up from your computer screen lately? Consider politics and elections in the U.S. We are already there. Humanity does not have an average intelligence to stop killing ourselves and the world with our pollutants. I rest my case.

Popular culture does not equal reality. Lawyers will choose to eliminate those who are educated from a jury, because they can not sway them so easily. The lawyers that are trying to gain votes for elections are not trying to convince an intelligent or informed minority but just the opposite. See the Al E quote.

[nowayout]

Popular culture does not equal reality. Lawyers will choose to eliminate those who are educated from a jury, because they can not sway them so easily. The lawyers that are trying to gain votes for elections are not trying to convince an intelligent or informed minority but just the opposite. See the Al E quote.

Are we disagreeing or agreeing?

What is the opposite of your intelligent and informed minority. The idiotic and ignorant majority, perhaps? Isn't that the very point of the discussion?

[Athanasios]

Are we disagreeing or agreeing?

What is the opposite of your intelligent and informed minority. The idiotic and ignorant majority, perhaps? Isn't that the very point of the discussion?

By the very definition and scaling of IQ, the majority will always be the stupid.

The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency. - Al E.

What you see on T.V. and politics is overwhelmingly targeted to that majority and is not a good gauge of intelligence in our community.

And, the minority can have even more impact than in the past due to better technology and communication.

I don't think the absolute reduction of the minority to 0 will be possible regardless of how fast the rest multiply. It is not so much about speed as sufficient incentives and resources for that minority, which I see as growing versus declining due to the tech and comm effect.

Edited by Athanasios, 28 November 2010 - 08:10 PM.

[nowayout]

What you see on T.V. and politics is overwhelmingly targeted to that majority and is not a good gauge of intelligence in our community.

Maybe, but that idiotic majority is also choosing our governments - isn't that the definition of "idiocracy"?

[Athanasios]

Maybe, but that idiotic majority is also choosing our governments - isn't that the definition of "idiocracy"?

And, they are very inconsistent. What they are using to select these people does not have a large affect on how we are governed. What affects us more is a degradation of principles, apathy, or disconnection from our fellow countrymen. This would make 1984 more of a worry than idiocracy.

[nowayout]

Maybe, but that idiotic majority is also choosing our governments - isn't that the definition of "idiocracy"?

And, they are very inconsistent. What they are using to select these people does not have a large affect on how we are governed.

I disagree. They are making effective government impossible, and preventing the really important problems that need government intervention from being addressed. And they are dragging the rest of us into perpetual war and environmental ruin.

Edited by viveutvivas, 28 November 2010 - 10:07 PM.

[Ghostrider]

Maybe, but that idiotic majority is also choosing our governments - isn't that the definition of "idiocracy"?

And, they are very inconsistent. What they are using to select these people does not have a large affect on how we are governed. What affects us more is a degradation of principles, apathy, or disconnection from our fellow countrymen. This would make 1984 more of a worry than idiocracy.

Yes, in summary, it's all cultural. I don't think any race has a significant advantage in terms of IQ / genetic mental capability. I suspect the differences in quality of life among groups of people arose first from environmental differences, but now are primarily cultural differences. Actually, upon thinking about this further, I don't think we'll ever have an idiocracy. Here's why. Say things start turning really bad here in the US, even worse than they are now. What happens? Well, the unproductive people (the majority) simply vote to take away wealth of the smaller, more intelligent minority. The minority leaves. Now there's no one around to support the dumber majority. Other countries lower their economic forecast for the idiocracy nation, the nation's currency and consequently buying power weakens. Standard of living drops to come into balance with productivity. There's simply no longer enough resources to care for people who cannot take care of themselves because everyone's worse off / has less to give. Welfare is essentially an artificial stimulus to keep people alive and reproducing. The harsh reality is that it interferes with evolution and natural selection. I wouldn't go so far to claim that people unable to take care of themselves should be left to die (war veterans, cancer victims, even the elderly who were so unlucky to be alive so long (sarcasm...)), but I would say that if one cannot take care of him or herself, they should not be having children. Even if we got rid of evolution (people being able to completely reconfigure / re engineer themselves physically), the pace of human advancement will still be limited by culture and values. In some cases, we have seen where culture holds back human progress (Bush's ban on stem cell research).

Edited by Ghostrider, 18 December 2010 - 09:47 AM.

[Athanasios]

the pace of human advancement will still be limited by culture and values

Robert Anton Wilson also made the observation that culture serves as a brake on technological progress, a kind of coping mechanism for fast technological change. I may be too young, or haven't delved into it deeply enough, but it seems like each press of the brake is having less of an effect on the rate of change. Some of this may be due to communication throughout the world and across cultures. To extend the example, stem cell research was banned in the U.S. but research still continued elsewhere.

Thanks for the post, Ghostrider. I will have to think more on the economic and historical trends, as I have been mostly thinking about mechanism.