
Are humans getting cleverer? - sebgr
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31556802
======
gwern
> Focusing on one part of the IQ test, the Raven's Progressive Matrices, they
> found that on average intelligence has risen the equivalent of 20 IQ points
> since 1950. IQ tests are designed to ensure that the average result is
> always 100, so this is a significant jump.

The problem is, that's about the _only_ part that has risen. The limited
number of subtests showing the gains has long been one of the big question
marks about how the Flynn effect could possibly be about the underlying
intelligence rather than an artifact
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)).

> This is a puzzle not just for the US, but for all countries demonstrating
> the Flynn Effect. "Does it make sense," Flynn wrote in one paper, "to assume
> that at one time almost 40% of Dutch men lacked the capacity to understand
> soccer, their most favoured national sport?"

This sort of point comes up often, but it's not a good point to make. The
people discussing IQ tests typically have lived in a tight bubble their entire
lives and have not meaningfully interacted with the general population. They
typically have even less interaction with the populations of poor countries
who might be comparable to long ago. For example, just today I was reading a
Wired article which remarks offhand that "In some areas of the country, up to
40 percent of children under 5 are affected. The effects are mental as well as
physical. A 2008 study by the National Intelligence Council found that a
quarter of North Korean military conscripts are disqualified for cognitive
disabilities". Flynn asks whether it's possible for a quarter of Dutch men at
some point to not be able to follow soccer well; I ask whether it's possible
for a quarter of North Korean men to be rejected by the notoriously voracious
NK military because they are too stupid or mentally broken. The latter seems
to be true, however...

~~~
TrainedMonkey
My personal opinion is that Flynn effect is a combination of factors that aid
developing of brain:

1\. Better nutrition and medical care. 2\. Teaching abstract concepts such as
predicate logic early on. 3\. Increasing complexity of the world in terms of
information streams. 4\. Urbanization of population. 4\. Mandatory schooling
and various programs aimed at increasing graduation rate, which is proxy for
total amount of time an average child is schooled [0].

I was writing out long and detailed argument based on clustering of scholars
and their presence in ancient civilizations, but after realizing amount of
details such argument would need to stand I gave up. My argument was along the
lines of: presence of clusters of extraordinary scholars in ancient
civilizations show that prospering economy[1], knowledge communication, and
education play crucial role in preparing those scholars.

[0] Now thinking about it - I think there should be strong correlation between
average time children are schooled and standardized test scores. Probably also
has additional wide variety of rippling effects including better economic
growth.

[1] An economy that is capable of bearing load of academia.

~~~
MaysonL
Re clustering of scholars, prosperity is probably important, but Bloom's two
sigma problem[0] probably contributes also. Would Aristotle have been anywhere
near as profound without Socrates and Plato as predecessors?

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_2_Sigma_Problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_2_Sigma_Problem)

~~~
TrainedMonkey
That was part of my point, would kids today perform better without benefit of
all the scholar achievements before them? I was arguing that academic
development of a society is part of the reason for Flynn effect.

------
weeksie
I would be surprised if humans are getting smarter. Show me the selective
pressure on intelligence in the modern world, because I don't see it. You
don't have to be smart to be evolutionarily fit. Not even close. I'd be very
surprised if humans were changing much as far as cognitive capability is
concerned, animals that become domesticated almost universally have smaller
brains than their wild counterparts.

~~~
jacobolus
There doesn’t need to be DNA change to make people smarter. Just having a few
generations in a row with adequate diet, not breathing smoke from a wood fire
every day, less damage from childhood disease, etc. could make a huge
difference.

~~~
nicolethenerd
On the contrary, the evolutionary argument here is that a few generations
under these conditions would allow more biologically "stupider" humans to
survive (since intelligence isn't being selected for) and pass on their genes,
creating future generations of dumber humans.

Jared Diamond makes a similar argument in Guns, Germs, and Steel for why the
people of New Guinea are smarter than their western counterparts.

~~~
Retric
Human evolution is almost meaningless on those time scales.

~~~
weeksie
There has been shrinkage in the average brain size over the last five thousand
years. Intelligence is a very complicated thing and brain size might not be
the only factor—that shrinkage might not even be relevant. But that does not
mean that evolutionary change cannot take place on thousand year timelines.

~~~
Retric
Current theory is skull size was adapting based on temperature not
intelligence.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_size#mediaviewer/File:Bra...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_size#mediaviewer/File:Brain_Size_Map.png)
Also, there are likely more people alive now with larger brain volumes vs five
thousand years ago and the same apples to just about any trait you can name
due to the rapid population boom.

The important thing to note is the human population covers the globe. There
are plenty of sifts in populations like Lactose tolerance becoming widespread
over the last 7,500 years, but even that is a long way from becoming
effectively universal.

~~~
weeksie
I think that was my point. You said that ten thousand years of civilization
was too short for meaningful evolution. At least that was my understanding.

~~~
Retric
10,000 years is long enough for significant beneficial traits to spread
widely. It's not enough time to Change neutral traits that used to be
beneficial.

That's generally a vary slow change consider most animals don't need dietary
vitamin C even if there diets provide plenty of the stuff.

However, you used the term "a few generations" as in below 1,000 years and
that's rediculusly fast for a species that takes as long as we do to reproduce
and have so few children.

~~~
weeksie
I didn't use the term "a few generations", that was another commenter. :)

That said, you mentioned a beneficial trait becoming neutral, and that's
making the assumption that greater intelligence is neutral. It could be that
larger social organizations reward slightly less intelligent critters. That
would do the trick rather quickly. I'm not making that claim, but am saying
that discussions around evolution and traits that we have bias toward seeing
as "good" are fraught.

There's also the further issue of intelligence being a very nebulous term that
encompasses tons of cognitive traits, which makes any discussion of
intelligence in evolutionary terms even more difficult.

It's also possible that _some_ of what we call intelligence is epigenetic.

~~~
Retric
I don't think we have good data on people’s intelligence 10,000 years ago.
But, civilization as we think of it only impacted a fairly small chunk of
humanity for a relatively small time period. So, at best 'larger social
organizations' was rather localized.

Just 500 years ago lots of people in North America where living nomadic hunter
gather lifestyles. Even just 100 years ago you could find tribes in many parts
of the world still living hunter gather lifestyles little changed over the
last 15,000+ years and probably similar to how people lived 100,000+ thousand
years ago.

As to epigenetic factors, the classic hunter gather lifestyle could be very
healthy as long as population numbers stayed low. Farming actually lowered
many heath indicators even as it allowed for massive increases in population
sizes.

PS: Anyway, evolution is only 'fast' when there are significant benefits or
harms. If a single mutation or environment change increases survival chances
by say +/\- 1% it takes exponentially longer to spread than a +/\- 10% change.

~~~
weeksie
I don't disagree with any of those points. My original post just stated that I
couldn't imagine any fitness pressure that would be making humans smarter and,
if anything, we were probably going in the other direction. My secondary point
was that change can happen on short timelines.

I do want to mention that larger social organizations were quite widespread in
the Americas, despite the existence of hunter-gatherer tribes. The new world
certainly wasn't an uncivilized wasteland when Europeans arrived.

Epigenetic factors can be triggered buy group size (domestication) as well. So
those hunter-gatherer tribes might share the same genetic traits but express
them differently based on their environment.

~~~
Retric
_any fitness pressure that would be making humans smarter_

I don’t recall the study, it was either men in the US or Britton. But, income
was positively correlated with number of children. Income and intelligence are
also linked so that's evidence that right now intelligence is positively
correlated with number of children. This may be strongly linked with prison
time but again that links with intelligence.

The important thing to note is men often have children with more than one
person and can have children vary late in life.

------
hyperion2010
I remember reading about the Flynn effect awhile back. Can't find the exact
article, but this one [1] will do. This quote really does it for me:

"The second factor is what Alexander Luria discovered when he tested rural
Russian peasants in the 1930s. He discovered that pre-scientific people can't
take the hypothetical seriously. That is, if you pose to them questions like,
"There is snow at the North Pole; where there is snow, bears are white; what
color are bears at the North Pole?" they would say, "Well, I've only seen
brown bears. And only if a person came from the North Pole with testimony
would I believe that the bears there are white."

It seems like the brain doesn't think abstractly when it doesn't need to, and
for many thousands of years it didn't. The nice thing about culture and
education is that it seems like more than just knowledge is passed down. Whole
modes and ways of thinking, perspectives on the world that are useful and
revealing now exist in the greater collective consciousness. We can't really
measure this, but I think it makes a huge difference that there is this idea
that everything in the world is not simply magical or arbitrary and that given
the right tools we can figure it out. The idea that there ARE knowable
underlying principles that govern the universe (even randomness!) completely
changes the way that we think about the world.

1\.
[http://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/03/smarter.aspx](http://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/03/smarter.aspx)

------
rndn
Daniel Dennett explains the Flynn effect with a trickle down effect of
engineering knowledge to the general public (as an example he mentions
percentage calculation). It provides people with more useful thinking tools
than what is traditionally passed on, which makes people more efficient
thinkers and thus they achieve higher scores in IQ tests.

~~~
chadgeidel
Can you point to a work (video or article) where he describes this? Also, is
this the person you are referring to:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett)
(Google is correcting "Dannet" to "Dennett").

Thank you.

~~~
rndn
Your spelling is correct. There you go: [http://devoutnone.com/tools-for-
thinking/](http://devoutnone.com/tools-for-thinking/)

------
svachalek
As to the last point in the article about why we don't have so many more
geniuses, I'd like to add the possibility that it's similar to longevity:
although we are seeing the average lifespan increase dramatically, the upper
end is not really moving. It seems that more people are just living their full
lifespan.

Perhaps it's the same with intelligence, where more of us are forced to
develop to our potential now but we haven't necessarily raised the bar for our
species. I think if you look at other statistics such as college attendance
rates they would support this scenario.

------
tracker1
All this means is that the spread of intelligence is more homogenized towards
the center (100 being average). What I'd be more curious about is the spread
of those people in the top 5-10%, or even some more raw comparison data, not
necessarily averages or spread.

Given some truly clueless people I've interacted with in my lifetime, it seems
to me that there are plenty of people who may have more generalized knowledge
or even be able to reason about some things better but still can't think of a
way out of a paper bag let alone a box.

Just because you can use an iPhone, or a remote control for a TV with some
understanding of how it works isn't the same as being able to build one. The
average man in the 60's in the U.S. had a better understanding of relatively
simple things like changing a light switch, or replacing a toilet than the
average man today. Understanding more of the machines we use every day is
being lost in recent generations imho.

TFA mentions reasoning over memorizing names and numbers, but doesn't mention
much in support of that.. I'd say general health of the overall population
beyond historic poverty and starvation has had more effect than actual
increases in human reasoning.

------
Brodersen
Yes humans are getting more clever, and I find it quite easy to see why. As
times are changing, certain personality traits become more preferable,
advantageous and then attractive.

More than ever is it attractive to be intelligent. We celebrate Intelligence
like never before. Intelligence is more likely to lead to work/money/power,
and people are more likely to seek mates that are intelligent.

Any trait that is preferable at the time, is more likely to lead to
offsprings. Ask your local sperm bank.

I'm not saying I think it's the only, or necessarily the most important trait
(Hitler was likely quite intelligent), but it is increasingly important, and
therefore increasingly likely to affect the human evolution.

Human evolution is constantly changing us, and I'd say it makes little to no
sense, to argue that our intelligence specifically, is not changing with it
(for better or worse). But with our short lifespan, it might not change fast
enough for some to recognize it.

------
JoeAltmaier
Folks tested in the 40's and 50's averaged IQ 70. Were they dumber then? Or
just not as test-savvy, having less exposure to education, logic etc? What we
call IQ today can be boosted by exposure to more cognitive tools
(memorization, speed reading, puzzles and games)

~~~
robflynn
Are you talking their averages then scaled with current averages? I thought IQ
was averaged around 100. I'm on mobile with a spotty connection right now, so
I can't look much up at the moment. I am doing well to reply on my fourth
attempt.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
SOme previous HN post about old intelligence test results, filed away for 60
years. Rescored, those people who took those tests long ago, had an average IQ
of 70.

------
smutticus
"cleverer" or "more clever"

I think I prefer more clever.

~~~
k1t
'Cleverer' is correct[0], but definitely an ugly word.

'More intelligent' would probably have been a better choice.

[0]
[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cleverer?s=t](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cleverer?s=t)

------
JoeAltmaier
Socializing in close quarters (civilization) provides pressure to compete in
more technical ways than brute force. Rule-lawyering, arguing, backstabbing
etc. You might call that 'cleverer'.

------
buckbova
So the opposite of the premise of Idiocracy is true?

~~~
nwatson
Guess so. That's the premise of "Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's
Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter" by Steven Johnson
([http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Bad-Good-You-
Actually/dp/15...](http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Bad-Good-You-
Actually/dp/1594481946)). Though Idiocracy is a great underappreciated film.

~~~
buckbova
It does make sense the humans would get better at pattern matching.
Interacting with UIs constantly and exposure to video games with loads of
information must be good for the brain.

------
qiqing
Fewer women are also dying in childbirth as nations get more developed.
Slightly relevant.

------
mseepgood
No, my observation is that the youth is getting dumber and dumber with every
year.

------
anonymousfox
Perhaps a result of epigenetics?

------
Sevzi
I assume this is one of those statistics that is the opposite of what is
commonly thought? Crime rate is another (most think it is going up, while it's
been going down for decades).

