Human Devolution? Interesting Article...

by AGuest 233 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  sabastious

  I think people are getting dumber in the sense that we rely far too much on technology to do our thinking for us.

  Tec, you do realize that this was the exact same argument that philosophers in 300 BCE made with the invention of writing? The thing about technology is it's often designed to mimic human senses, including thinking. We have great memories, but we have memory loss and require to write things down. Don't you want a robot to clean your house for you? Technology is proof that we are getting smarter, as in more effecient. Housecleaning is backbreaking when done for decades, what if it suddenly vanished?We don't want to go back in time and keep writing from coming to be would we? We should revere science and technology and humbly allow it to keep on it's path while we use our brains to adapt and improve the random enviroments that are presented before us. The trend is that the environments ultimately get better. To do rise and fall, which creates a two steps forward, one step back momentum. They do all eventually crash, yes, but remnants continue on and keep the flag blowing in the wind. People even today are still trying to bring back the Roman Empire. The glory days! FOR JUPITER! Everything changes, but also everything stays the same, but always transcending into something completely different and always reaching towards Eternity.

  -Sab
• 

  tec

  It can seem that way in some areas. But there is a paradox here . . . the technology itself is the result of some pretty high quality thinking. Medicine, space travel, to name just a couple are achieving some amazing results from some very complex thinking. There are so many facets to the subject . . . that hard and fast conclusions will still be a long way off I feel.

  Yes, I recognize the paradox.

  We could also all be wrong. People aren't getting less intelligent. Just lazier. (generally speaking)

  Peace,

  tammy
• 

  tec

  Tec, you do realize that this was the exact same argument that philosophers in 300 BCE made with the invention of writin

  Did they? Lol. Funny because part of me was thinking that this might just be the same old argument mankind has always had with new generations. Perhaps the problem is that we are just NOT getting smarter. More advanced, as in more understanding, but no more intelligent than we have ever been?

  You know what just occurred to me. It might not be intelligence that i think I am speaking of... but rather, wisdom. (or perhaps that is just another discussion altogether, lol)

  Peace,

  tammy
• 

  TD

  It can seem that way in some areas. But there is a paradox here . . . the technology itself is the result of some pretty high quality thinking. Medicine, space travel, to name just a couple are achieving some amazing results from some very complex thinking. There are so many facets to the subject . . . that hard and fast conclusions will still be a long way off I feel.

  I agree, but technology by nature does tend to put the genius of the few in the hands of the many. Most people couldn't explain even in general terms how to calculate longitude using a sextant and watch. Any fool can use a Garmin. Most people couldn't explain even in general terms what two's compliment signed binary is. Any fool can use a spreadsheet.
• 

  sabastious

  I agree, but technology by nature does tend to put the genius of the few in the hands of the many. Most people couldn't explain even in general terms how to calculate longitude using a sextant and watch. Any fool can use a Garmin. Most people couldn't explain even in general terms what two's compliment signed binary is. Any fool can use a spreadsheet.

  TD have you heard about the Tricorders that are coming in the future? Micho Kaku discusses them in this video:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=219YybX66MY

  He says that they will help out third world countries because you are going to be able to slap a Tricorder in the hands of the smartest person in the village and turn them into a doctor the village could never have before.

  -Sab
• 

  sizemik

  technology by nature does tend to put the genius of the few in the hands of the many. . . . TD

  Agreed . . . but then the few (which in actual numbers is quite a few) cannot be dismissed when evaluating the relative levels of human intelligence over time, unless you generalise through statistics. It tends to add weight to tammy's reasoning . . .

  People aren't getting less intelligent. Just lazier. (generally speaking) . . . tec

  Over time that "laziness"may have an effect on neurologically based skills . . . I'm not sure. Any fool can use a spreadsheet sure . . . but a skilled user will use such a tool to produce intelligent results . . . as with the skilled user of a sextant.
• 

  sabastious

  Sizemik, I think we are going to turn into a race of logical thinkers who churn out theoretical solutions at a rate we can only dream of. Today society assigns worth based on production (slavery). This is something that is actually in the process of being replaced by the potential to create intellectual property. Kaku goes on about it in the above video. If solutions are accomplished with technology our population will suddenly become highly theoretical. I cannot deny that I get this idea from Gene's Roddenberry's Star Trek science fiction formula. I look at it as more prophecy then science fiction. The characters on that show existed in a world where the computer did all the dirty work and they were simply logicians using tools. They still used their backs, but they could heal any simple ailment using technology. Their academy was one where the students are filled to the brim with theoretical and tactical education. The more human needs that are automated the better because it inches us towards that Roddenberry reality. Full of people of character and honor and duty. That's what we truly are when you remove our chains.

  Gene Roddenberry was around a bunch of people from the early programming days. He understood that those people were the pioneers of a shift in society. These people, in simple terms, are the basement dwelling geeks who play Dungeons and Dragons. Not all fit the stereotype perfectly, but they are the fathers and mothers of a whole new way of thinking. Convenience and automation made possible by the furthering of technology. Think of a guy holding a boombox to his ear in the eighties as a product of their world view. This created an incredible economic boom that had extreme highs and lows and tossed earth's culture to and fro. A great distress that shall never occur again, perhaps? *dr evil pinkie*

  -Sab
• 

  sizemik

  I guess the principle could be . . . as you free the mind from some tasks, you open up the opportunity to apply it to others.
• 

  sabastious

  I guess the principle could be . . . as you free the mind from some tasks, you open up the opportunity to apply it to others.

  Yeah, that's a really elegant way of putting it.

  -Sab
• 

  cofty

  There seems to be plenty Lamarckian thinking on this thread, its like Darwin never lived.

  Gerald Crabtree's idea is that ...

  "The development of our intellectual abilities and the optimization of thousands of intelligence genes probably occurred in relatively non-verbal, dispersed groups of peoples before our ancestors emerged from Africa,"

  If its true that 3-5 thousand genes are involved in intelligence then its inevitable that mutations will happen. When intelligence is important for survival and breeding there was a strong selective pressure against individuals who suffered such mutations.

  In our modern world of agriculture and relative security there is little or no selective pressure to maintain a biologically expensive level of intelligence.

  The paper has nothing at all to do with people's ability to perform tasks that were common a few generations ago, its about mutations that may or may not have happened over hundreds of thousands of years since our non-verbal humanoid ancestors emerged from Africa and may have become more common in the human gene pool.

  Until somebody locates those genes and identifies the specific mutations its just an interesting hypothesis.