by AGuest 233 Replies latest jw friends
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.
How do we know they were non verbal for sure?
-Sab
Crabtree, a professor of pathology and developmental biology, suggested our intellectual peak came when humans were mostly nonverbal and were stressed out trying to think of ways to not get eaten by wild animals. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/human-beings-stupider-research-article-1.1200985#ixzz2C9s3o9Dl
I think this was a very interesting point in his article. So he is somehow linking inability to use language to communicate, and stress to the development of our intellect. If that was our peak and it is all down hill from there that just doesn't make sense to me.
If as some have argued on this thread that intelligence is a use it or lose it thing. Wouldn't the development of language and better environment and diet be beneficial for intelligence?
How do we know they were non verbal for sure?
Its not binary - there is a spectrum of verbal communication. There is fossil evidence that some of our non-human hominid ancestors had some verbal ability.
Its not binary - there is a spectrum of verbal communication. There is fossil evidence that some of our non-human hominid ancestors had some verbal ability.
I ask because all primates have a language of sorts and the level of sophistication varies, Geladas being the most complex. When you say there was a "non verbal" society, I assume you mean no complex language? They are always going to have some form of verbal communication, correct? Even if merely grunts and hisses?
-Sab
I am glad I do not live in the Stone Age. Hunting and gathering is not my life style choice. Our IQ led us to develop tech and economic systems. Commerce is truly global. I readily have friends in Europe and New Zealand with Skype. What IQ we longer use to hunt wild animals and search for food is freed for other more complicated tasks.
In case people don't know, the Daily New is a NY tabloid. If you want to succeed, you are not seen reading it. Alas, the New York times often lacks good local coverage so the occasional purchase is necessary. It is a joke paper.
How do we know they were non verbal for sure? . . . sab
Good question sab . . . and there's no definitive answer. Paleontologist suggest that the ability to form the complex sound variations that enable speech was the result of the gradual re-alignment of the larynx as primates took on bipedalism . . . so chances seem likely it evolved in it's own linguistic evolution (as opposed to biological) from that point.
What IQ we longer use to hunt wild animals and search for food is freed for other more complicated tasks.
Yeah, young people these days don't even know how to make a decent spearhead.
Sheesh.
the Daily New is a NY tabloid
Science is reported very badly in the UK as well. Few journalists have the ability to understand it and they are lazy and sensationalist.
There is a good version of the paper on the Medical Express website.
What dear tec said (about the effect of technology on our thinking abilities - peace to you!)... then what dear Size said (about "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" - peace to you, as well!)... then what dear TD said (about "technology by nature does tend to put the genius of the few in the hands of the many" which made me think of "Atlas Shrugged" - peace to you, too!)... then what dear Size said again (that "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", which I think any study would have to do)... then his comment that "Over time that 'laziness' may have an effect on neurologically based skills"... which is what I think the study is SAYING.
Dear Sab... peace to you, as well... and let me share something with you, if I may, in response to your comment regarding the Tricorder. When I started in housing oh so many years ago, everything we did was by hand: receipting and posting rents, reconciling tenant ledgers and bank statements, vouchering HUD/CHFA/whoever for subsidies, recertifying tenant rents to coincide with changes in their status and/or income, etc. And back then books were CLEAN. Housing programs WORKED. And then... they industry automated. For a few years, things were okay because those responsible for the new computer spreadsheet reconciliations, etc., knew what they were SUPPOSED to result in... because they knew how to do bookkeeping. Wrong numbers often jumped out, to a second reviewer, if not the first.
And then... they started just training folks on the computer programs. Unfortunately, while they may have known which buttons to push to, say, enter data, etc., they didn't necessarily know what the data was supposed to SAY. The result? We are now sitting on a housing industry that is screwed up books wise... into the billions! For example, among the things I found at the housing authority were rents in arrears of 10's of thousands of dollars... security deposits not only not refunded, but not even reconciled... all the way back to the late 1970's!! And when I tried to get my staff to reconcile their accounts... OMG... it has gone on SO long... it might be easier to dismantle the Golden Gate Bridge... rivet by rivet.. vy HAND. Of course, staff complained ("she's making us do stuff we don't know how to do!")... so I started to train them. But then that opened up the reality that the people above didn't know how to reconcile the tenant accounts, either. Or calculate the TRUE cost of turning a unit. Or the time it should take. Because no one could frickin' add! And it wasn't their - they're not TRAINED to because... "the computer does that."
But you know the saying: garbage in, garbage out. Are there some benefits to the automation? Sure. Now one person can do what was formerly done by 5 people. Of course, the result is 5 times the mess... but payroll has gone down. No, wait... it hasn't... because since people have become "skilled" (because while they can't type they CAN text, and while they can't add they CAN surf the Internet)... and so demand higher salaries.
I am not trying to say that a Tricorder won't be of benefit in a third world village - of course it will. It will help them deal with health issues. But having one doesn't mean the people of the village will get smarter. To the contrary, were the people formerly had to use their thinking abilities to deal with a certain illness, they won't any more. But THAT'S because the technology used to help them is smarter. And THAT was designed by most probably fewer people than those who ultimately end up with and/or benefit from the Tricorder.
There is also the possibility that, say, a mother will now feel able to pay less attention to her child... because of a false sense of security due to the new technology. Of course not all will, not even most. But some will, if for no other reason than perhaps the "laziness" mentioned by dear tec.
Another (short) story: some of you will remember when my son was sick as a child... and that he was not admitted to the hospital (even after 6 visits to the ER)... although he kept registering a "high" temp (104.1 at home). During the last ER visit before admitting him, after telling me that his temp once again registered 101, the doctor frustrately asked me, "What are YOU taking his temperature WITH?"
"A mercury thermometer," I told her. She had staff get her one (which took quite awhile, actually, because they weren't used any longer - one was finally found somewhere like down in the basement or something). Unfortunately, neither the doctor nor attending nurses had been trained on a mercury thermometer and so no one could read it! The orderly who brought it, though, had learned from his mom while in med school could... and so did. My son's temp registered 104.6. Just under 105!! And he had been running this temp for more than 11 days! Of course, he was admitted right away... and into ICU!
My point is that where the folks previously had to THINK... they often no longer need to... and perhaps that COULD effect our brains. As to size as well as mutation. I personally can "see" this, as I stated, based on my own observations over my 50+ years. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the study is wrong. I understand how the possibility might seem distasteful/undesirable... but it makes sense to ME.
That's all I'm sayin'... LOLOLOL!
Peace and, again, thank you ALL for comments. I look forward to further comments, if you care to make them.
A slave of Christ,
SA
There seems to be plenty Lamarckian thinking on this thread, its like Darwin never lived.
Thank you. I was going to bring that up much earlier, but the thread needed to focus a bit more. Maybe an explanation of what this means.
Lamarck theorized that adaptations individuals made in their lifetime was passed on to their offspring. So if a mammal, in its lifetime, stretched it's neck for food and had some elongation, then they would pass the longer neck on to offspring who would continue the process until we had giraffes. That's the simple explanation.
Darwin said that there had to be a variation of trait, and that trait had to be passed on to offspring (genetics)
The difference. All individuals have limited ability to adapt to an eviroment. But only within a spectrum they are genetically programmed to achieve. Think of how a profession my enable you to build certain muscles, or callouses and then simply thicker skin (this happens when I pick my guitar after a while. callouses that eventually just become thicker skin). My body has done nothing but reach a potential that was already programmed. My daughter does not automatically get thicker skin on the tips of her fingers, though she may have inherited the ability to do so.
So if a parent can read a clock, it is because they had the potential to think in those terms was inherited. If they pass that potential on to their child, and their child does not learn to read a clock, the potential is not lost. Not learning that skill will not make their child 'dumber' because the child can be taught. The ability remains.
When it comes to the brain, it gets even more complex. We are born with all these pathways in our brains. they go everwhere. As we grow and learn, we will use some of those pathways more than others. We will make connections. But we are efficient. We get rid of things that can take up our energy in order to use that energy more efficiently. This is why when we lose a tooth, we begin to lose bone in that area of the jaw. The body does not want to support a platform that is no longer used, and will use the energy to maintain other parts of the body that are being used. Our brains do something similar. As we grow older, we begin to eliminate unused pathways, allowing us to focus more energy on the paths laid. It makes us smarter.
So when we are young, we have all this potential. As we age, that potential is cut off, but it makes our abilities stronger. So it would seem that culture plays a huge role in how smart we can be, but that does not mean that potential is lost. It can also mean that we are not nurturing some of that potential in time, and it gets closed down. Yet that does not affect our genome, because Lamarckian theory has been falsified.
There are some hypotheses out there that kind of mix the two. Some hypothesize that behavior can actually change the genome, and then the trait can be passed on to the offspring. I'm not on board with this, because I see many problems. For instance, if you environment requires that you stoop a lot, and your back adapts to make that more efficient, then does this translate into modifying the exact genes needed to pass it on as a trait. I think that is problematic, but I'm sure more will come out about it if it stands up to testing.
I don't know if I made that easy to understand---but if it needs fine tuning---feel free. I sometimes have a hard time expressing these things.
