RoR: Forum

I'm going to start my own poll:

Would you rather be

1) Smart

2) Anti-social

Post 21

Sunday, November 29, 2009 - 5:41pm

In his study of IQ tests scores for different populations over the past sixty years, James R. Flynn discovered that IQ scores increased from one generation to the next for all of the countries for which data existed (Flynn, 1994). This interesting phenomena has been called "the Flynn Effect." Many of the questions about why this effect occurs have not yet been answered by researchers. This site attempts to explain the issues involved in a way that will better help you to understand the Flynn Effect. It also provides references for further inquiry.

I read about the Flynn effect previously, and found it rather curious and not quite believable, since it would imply that the populace of the Americas in the 1770s were almost all morons if this trend were projected backwards.

Further, in the book "The Bell Curve" by Herrnstein and Murray, they presented numerous charts and graphs showing that IQ is highly hereditary, and that on average the higher the IQ level, the fewer children the mothers had, with only women of sub-average IQs having children at or above the replacement rates. This would seem to imply that, in the short term at least, that average IQs would be dropping.

I really don't know how to reconcile these contradictory assertions about the general trend of human IQ in the recent historical past. My gut feeling from studying biology is that average human IQ in the U.S., at least in the last 50 years and in the near future, might be slowly dropping due to the advent of birth control and legalized abortion, rising prosperity, and the rise of an ever more extensive welfare state.

Why?

Birth control and legalized abortion allows people who don't much care to have children to have fewer of them. But, smarter, more competent people would be better able to actually make the birth control regime work, while less intelligent people would be more likely to screw this up and have unintended pregnancies.

Rising prosperity would decrease the reproductive competitive advantage of being intelligent, since with rising prosperity less intelligent people can easily avoid starvation and feed larger families than in the past.

Finally, the welfare state in effect subsidizes poorer families, and poorer families tend to have lower IQs than richer families, and if you subsidize anything you tend to get more of whatever you're subsidizing.

All that being said, in the long run the local equilibrium for IQ distributions is going to respond to supply and demand, and an increasingly complex and technological society will place a premium on higher IQs.

Post 22

Sunday, November 29, 2009 - 6:01pm

Ted,

Yes, Ed, you have shown yourself repeatedly clueless about the meaning of the complex question. That has nothing to do with your noticing that nothing is preferable to happiness. Duh.

I'm not sure if you are aware of the irony here.

The complex question is the linking of independent notions, where actually answering the question causes unwarranted implications -- such as answering "yes" or "no" to the question: "Have you stopped beating your wife?" (which illegitimately implies you're a wife-beater). In reality, answering "yes" (or even "no") to the question has nothing to do with the way you have been treating your wife.

Now, you, here, are catching me being guilty of asking you ... a complex question (which illegitimately implied that you were being schizophrenic)! What can I say but ... you got me (though I would like to think that I noticed it first).

:-)

Ed
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/29, 6:08pm)

Post 23

Sunday, November 29, 2009 - 6:07pm

Ed,

I think a lot of the polls are dumb. I didn't take this poll seriously, because it doesn't merit that - clearly "smart" is the means, "happy" is the end.

Instead I looked to find smaller, specific contexts in which the question might generate some interest.

I could also have pointed out that asking for a personal preference in an area so tied to a person's existing identity is of questionable value - It is like asking a person "Would you like to be somewhat happier, but you can't be you, or would you rather be somewhat unhappier, but you get to stay you." People can't answer that, because it asks them to leave their standard of judgement - their personal set of values - their self.
----------------

Ted,

Overall bipolar people are going to be less happy. In the manic phase some would self-report higher levels of happiness, but it is at the expense of making good long-term decisions and damaging future happiness with less rational decisions. Others are in an agitated or anxious or irritable mood during their manic phases - not happy campers. And the depressive phase is not a happy time. And, for some, the meds make them feel like life has lost some of its spark.

Post 24

Sunday, November 29, 2009 - 6:41pm

Steve, you raise some interesting arguments, so let me try to flesh out my reasoning a bit more, and see if you either agree with that or find more perceived holes to try and poke in my logic (oh, and sanctioned your post #23):

There are assumptions in your statements I don't agree with.

You say, "...further amounts of intelligence may on average lead to dysfunction and less happiness."

Why?

I know of no organically-based dysfunction related to high intelligence.

For the sake of brevity I tried to compress two different types of "dysfunction" into one statement.

One of the less controversial type of narrowly defined "dysfunction" observed in higher IQ individuals, is comparative reproductive advantage (the ability to have lots of children to pass on the genes that influence intelligence). I'm not making a value judgment about these average choices, rather I'm saying that from the perspective of pure evolutionary theory, ANY behavior that decreases the number of surviving children can be labeled "dysfunctional". Evolution is a process that doesn't "care" about happiness or intelligence or anything that a moral, Objectivist value system might care about -- it's just a brutal numbers game, grinding on generation after generation. Whatever survives and reproduces is the "winner", evolutionarily speaking.

The second type of dysfunction I was speaking about is based on personal observations of highly intelligent people, and may not accurately reflect reality, but it seems that the more intelligent the person is, the more likely they seem to be at risk to have autism, social withdrawal, a general lessening of the ability to get along with others, things like that. A prime example would be Ayn Rand -- extraordinarily intelligent and talented, and with a really sad and dysfunctional personal life, in my view, eventually leading to her casting out and alienating most everyone who wished to befriend her. Perhaps you have noticed the opposite effect in the people you've met -- dunno.

There is nothing that, say, 3 deviations above average, would cost us in ability to survive, or decrease our capacity to reproduce - unless it is something in the culture. Cultures may have evolved to throw out or discourage those who fall outside of certain parameters, but that isn't an objective reason for disvaluing high intelligence, or a condition that cultural standards will necessarily adhere to in the future. And if there is a dysfunction it would be with the beliefs in the culture.

In my previous post I discussed my thoughts related to this, and why, at least temporarily, highly intelligent people seem to be reproducing at a far lower rate than anyone else.

I would tend to disagree with your assertion that intelligence would always enhance survival, and that any contrary effects must, by process of elimination, be due to cultural effects.

Evolution, over geological time frames, quickly multiplies any trait that carries even a slight advantage until it displaces the less favorable trait, unless there is a counterbalancing downside to any advantages. And yet, over any long time frame you care to measure, be it 100,000 or 10,000 or 1,000 years, there does not appear to be any runaway, exponential increase or change in average human intelligence. The people of Roman times, 2,000 years and 100 generations ago, appear to behave and think at levels comparable to people today, over a vast and ever-changing array of cultures over that time and space. If average intelligence was increasing at just 5% per generation due to your hypothesized superiority of intelligence for reproductive advantage at all levels, over the course of those 100 generations people would have morphed into incredible geniuses. And yet, there instead appears to be no big changes.

Is the bell curve you are discussing relative to a point in time? Or, are you claiming that intelligence has not moved up since we became a species?

I'm talking about shorter human timescales, over tens or hundreds or even a few thousand generations. As for whether intelligence has moved up since we became a species, no one has been able to pinpoint when that the change happened, whether it was gradual or abrupt, and so on, nor do we have any good measure of whether human intelligence (as opposed to technological ability or accumulating cultural knowledge) has substantially changed since that ill-defined moment of speciation.

But, if you look at the highly imperfect measure of intelligence of average brain mass, that seems to be fairly stable over broad stretches of time for homo sapiens, and is actually LOWER for homo sapiens than for our former competitors, Neanderthals.

How well all that brain mass was being utilized over time is an open question.

There are also great problems just measuring "intelligence" - there are lots of different kinds of intelligence and I haven't found any descriptions that I'd agree with. I'm also convinced that intelligence is both genetic AND premise-based - how intelligent a given person is goes beyond the wet-ware to how they have learned to use it.

Agree.

There might be some organic limits on happiness, but I doubt it - my experience with psychology has shown me enormous latitudes in a person's capacity to increase or decrease their level of happiness just by how they use their consciousness. The fact that changes in circumstances don't tend to change happiness levels in a permanent fashion doesn't mean that those level are innate.

While I agree with you that people's levels of happiness can change over the course of their lifetimes in response to circumstances, maturation, the usual mellowing and increase of wealth with age, basic character traits seem less mutable. Extraordinarily happy and cheerful young people tend to stay that way. Young curmudgeons tend to turn into old curmudgeons, pessimists tend to remain pessimists. Mark Twain, for example, became more interesting and whatnot as he aged, but he remained a misanthrope at heart throughout.

What were you like as a youngster? Have you become remarkably happier or unhappier as you aged? Are your basic personality traits completely different from when you were a kid? And if you asked people who've known you all your life, would they agree with your assessment?
(Edited by Jim Henshaw on 11/29, 6:45pm)

Post 25

Sunday, November 29, 2009 - 6:47pm

If you want to complain that this poll is a trick question, Ed, because it "tricked" you, (I don't know how you voted.) fine. Socrates "tricked" people too I suppose.

But how do you explain then the people it didn't "trick"?

As for your statement:

Now, you, here, are catching me being guilty of asking you ... a complex question (which illegitimately implied that you were being schizophrenic)! What can I say but ... you got me (though I would like to think that I noticed it first).

all I can say is what "question" are you talking about? Did you delete that post without realizing it?

I am really amazed at people's reactions to what this evul, evul, tricksy poll reveals. As if asking people to think is a betrayal. As if our egos are so delicate that mutual admiration is the only thing so-called egoists can tolerate.

You "smart" people all need to chill, and start working on being happy.

Post 26

Sunday, November 29, 2009 - 6:54pm

Steve, I ask because I do believe that I have, as Jim asks, become less "manic" over the years. I can see the attraction to some of self-medication as a means of slowing down the brain. I have met people on lithium for mania. While I am nowhere near their state of mind I can somewhat sympathize. I do recommend that people watch the House episode above. I think that it is puerile in its treatment of the issue. The problem of the genius physicist is obviously not his intelligence, but rather his inability to "chill."

Post 27

Sunday, November 29, 2009 - 6:59pm

Jim:

Further, in the book "The Bell Curve" by Herrnstein and Murray, they presented numerous charts and graphs showing that IQ is highly hereditary

Post 28

Sunday, November 29, 2009 - 7:28pm

Highly hereditary is not totally hereditary. Nurture and circumstance have their place in the full explanation.

Japanese people were generally shorter in stature before WWII. Improvements to their diet after the war resulted in many - who had the genes, but not the diet to enable them - growing noticeably taller than their parents.

jt

Post 29

Sunday, November 29, 2009 - 7:32pm

Jay:

Highly hereditary is not totally hereditary. Nurture and circumstance have their place in the full explanation.

So how do you know nurture and circumstances (although I would include choice as another explanation) is not the predominant factor? You can't just arbitrarily choose one explanation over the other without further evidence.

Post 30

Sunday, November 29, 2009 - 7:42pm

Ted, I had a hard time buying into the House story and I didn't like the treatment of the issue as well. My initial take, coming in as a psychologist, would be to look more deeply into the negative emotional reaction the physicist had when working at his normal mental capacity. That is ordinarily an natural source of good feelings, why not for him? I'd be looking for solutions to that.

Post 31

Sunday, November 29, 2009 - 8:21pm

I found the dilemma interesting when I heard the teaser for the episode. Have you read The Art of Fiction? Rand says that as an exercise one should take a potentially interesting plot that doesn't work out and rethink it in one's head and see how it can be made to work. The story interested me until I found out that the physicist had a loving wife who was obviously quite satisfactory if not, perhaps, a brilliant conversationalist or a brain surgeon herself. Surely she had passions? The problem wasn't his intelligence, it was his inability to deal.

The dilemma holds no real interest, and the question seems like, indeed, an arbitrary bit of a bull session topic, until in the words of Rand's play title, you "Think Twice." If you put any serious thought beyond the conventional level, the proper Objectivist answer becomes clear, even if it didn't work out that way in the House episode. Unfortunately, before I could post a recommendation to watch the show we had MEM's little contrarian temper tantrum. After that, if I had explained in depth the deeper point it would have "given away the answer." Jim, at least, didn't get personally offended, even if he did chose (probably for the right reasons) the "wrong" answer.

I would also strongly recommend, again, Giovanni Reale's Systems of the Hellenistic Age published by SUNY, available here. It fully explores the Stoic and Epicurean systems which are systems of rational egoism. The quotes of the ancients show that their spiritual development far exceeded anything except Rand and Spinoza in the modern age. Read especially about Panaetius, (excerpt here p 292-294) a Stoic who abandoned the more mystical metaphysical ideas of the early Stoa (universal mind, the conflagration) and abandoned some of the ascetic denial of the early Stoa, claiming with Rand and against the ancients that success and joy in this world are possible.

Post 32

Sunday, November 29, 2009 - 11:08pm

Hasn't this all been hashed out here before re discussions of CHARLIE, FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON (and the episode of THE SIMPSONS where Homer has a crayon removed from his brain, making him smarter, but not happier, while Lisa reveals a chart of the happiness to intelligence ration (and reveals that she makes "a lot of charts", prompting Homer to stick the crayon BACK into his brain)?

(That's what the HOUSE episode reminded me of...)

Post 33

Monday, November 30, 2009 - 6:36am

If you're rich you can always buy a reputation as an intellectual. Look at Al Gore and George Soros.

Post 34

Monday, November 30, 2009 - 10:38am

John,

I didn't assign any weights to my statement. I consider all to be reasonably deduced factors. I'm sure there are many who would make scientific arguments favoring one factor over another, and they may have valid conclusions. I have not advanced one myself.

jt

Post 35

Monday, November 30, 2009 - 12:28pm

And yet Herrnstein and Murray could not explain why low IQ parents have been known to have high IQ children, and that high IQ parents have been known to have low IQ children. I don't know where you learned science, but if a theory does not predict or explain the facts, then you throw away the theory.

John, in "The Bell Curve", the authors go at great length to explain that IQ is not entirely hereditary, saying that studies of identical twins raised apart at birth and other measures to control for environmental influences put the genetic component of IQ in the range of 40% to 80%, with them taking the average and positing that about 60% of IQ is genetic.

Yes, some high IQ parents have low IQ kids. I know one personally. She has a Down's Syndrome kid, an extra 23rd chromosome that depresses mental functioning. Other genetic mutations or DNA degrading can also depress intelligence, and the probability of these accidents goes up exponentially as a woman (and, to a lesser degree, a man) ages -- and high IQ women tend to delay childbearing into those dangerous years (the risk really takes off starting at age 40 or so).

As for low IQ parents having high IQ kids, the authors touched on the "scatter" of IQ from the parent's level. As anyone who has taken advanced genetics courses ought to know, children do not just blend the full genomes of their parents. Each child randomly gets about half the DNA of each parent (I say "about" half, because the mitochondrial DNA is exclusively inherited from the mother, though arguably mitochondria are in fact a separate species living inside each of us, but fully integrated into our lifecycles and necessary to our survival). So, if both the mother's egg and the father's sperm by chance both get the half of their genomes that code for higher IQ, the child could wind up considerably smarter than either parent. What would be really startling to anyone who understands genetics well would be if no low IQ parents ever had a high IQ child, since statistically that should happen from time to time due to random mixing and assortment of parental DNA in their children.

You can observe this by looking at my own children. Both of my daughters have blue eyes, which is a recessive trait requiring a blue-eyed gene from each parent. Yet, both my wife and I have hazel-green eyes, since we both have a dominant darker eye color gene masking the blue-eyed effect, but we both have a blue-eyed parent or grandparent. Similarly, low IQ parents might have had a mixture of high and low IQ parents, but due to dominant genes repressing recessive genes this mixture of high and low IQ genes could result in only the low IQ traits being expressed.

And, something that wasn't touched on in "The Bell Curve" at all, but which is obvious to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention, is that the person listed as the father on the birth certificate is quite frequently not the actual sperm donor. A low IQ mother might be married to a low IQ father, but mate with a high IQ father and bear his child.

So, I don't think you've disproved the thesis of "The Bell Curve". What I do find thoroughly surprising, and a bit suspicious, in that book are the charts showing the distribution of IQs for blacks and whites:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://library.flawlesslogic.com/bell.gif&imgrefurl=http://library.flawlesslogic.com/iq.htm&usg=__H17qTOIQzmLw_poMfrFQWZ3HQjI=&h=148&w=302&sz=6&hl=en&start=43&sig2=0ke-UiEji1yQBup_js79nw&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=nCa4zLQJXYLMYM:&tbnh=57&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522the%2Bbell%2Bcurve%2522%2Bblack%2Bwhite%2BIQ%26ndsp%3D21%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26start%3D42%26um%3D1&ei=ECIUS6y-JpH4tAOZhsjCAQ

This is the controversial heart of that book: that the mean IQ of blacks is around 15 points lower than that for whites, that these are genuine average differences in real intelligence and not some artificial artifact of flawed IQ tests (however much individuals may widely differ from those means) and that therefore governmental policies mandating equal racial OUTCOMES in employment are doomed to result in unequal OPPORTUNITIES based on color-blind merit.

Hence the flap over Sotomayor's opinion on the New Haven firefighters controversy -- if the thesis of "The Bell Curve" is correct, then the promotion exams for those firefighters, which relied heavily on IQ intensive testing, would almost certainly result in white firefighters passing the test in numbers disproportionate to the ethnic distribution of the test takers -- that the result were fair and merit-based, and not the result of racially biased exams, and that the real racism was Sotomayor's opinion upholding throwing out the results of that exam.

If anyone knows of some studies showing that this data has been fudged, please give me a link.

/Genetics 201

Post 36

Monday, November 30, 2009 - 12:39pm

The thing that most jarred me in the House episode was them casting someone who came across as reasonably intelligent as the borderline retarded spouse. If you do the math, the guy supposedly tested with an IQ of 170, and declared his wife was 90 IQ points lower -- yet she didn't act like someone with an IQ of 80. I would have placed her character's IQ at 100-110 based on how she talked and comported herself.

For a show that normally is kinda OCD about getting their facts straight, that just jumped out at me.

Post 37

Monday, November 30, 2009 - 1:51pm

I recall Carl Sagan dismissing The Bell Curve as flawed pseudoscience in his book The Demon-Haunted World though I do not recall why.

He did lump it with standard pseudoscience in the way this review describes:

The Demon-Haunted World is a collection of twenty-five essays, several written with Sagan's wife, Ann Druyan. The essays range in scope from eloquent paeans to science to impassioned denunciations of bigotry, from humorous accounts of a variety of pseudoscientific endeavors to serious attempts to understand the nature of alien abduction delusions. With intelligence and wit, and the rational calmness that is his trademark, Sagan takes on a wide variety of topics, among them: alien abductions, astrology, Atlantis, the Bell Curve, channeling, crop circles, demons, electromagnetism, ESP, the face on Mars, fairies, faith healing, magic, miracles, prayer, religion, Roswell, satanic rituals, therapy, and, of course, one of his favorite topics, UFOs and extraterrestrials. Only Velikovsky gets ignored this time around. Through each of his essays he extols the virtues of skepticism, empirical evidence and control studies, while uncovering a multitude of errors and weaknesses in the positions of occultists, paranormalists, supernaturalists and pseudoscientists. And he does so with extreme grace, gentility and civility.

Perhaps Jim can peruse the relevant sections of that book if he feels so motivated.

I have not read The Bell Curve and cannot comment further.

Post 38

Monday, November 30, 2009 - 4:04pm

My copy is in storage, and has been several years since last read it... as recall, was favorably impressed with it...

Post 39

Monday, November 30, 2009 - 4:33pm