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Credit: Artem Chernyshevych | Stock Xchng View full size image
Are Humans Becoming Less Intelligent?
Tia Ghose, LiveScience Staff Writer | November 12, 2012 12:14pm ET

Humans may be gradually
losing intelligence, according to
a new study.
The study, published today
(Nov. 12) in the journal
Trends in Genetics, argues that
humans lost the evolutionary
pressure to be smart once we
started living in dense
agricultural settlements several
thousand years ago.
"The development of our
intellectual abilities and the
optimization of thousands of
intelligence genes probably
occurred in relatively non-
verbal, dispersed groups of
peoples [living] before our ancestors emerged from Africa," said study author Gerald Crabtree, a researcher at Stanford
University, in a statement.
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Since then it's all been downhill, Crabtree contends.
The theory isn't without critics, with one scientist contacted by LiveScience suggesting that rather than losing our smarts,
humans have just diversified them with various types of intelligence today.
Life or death situations
Early humans lived or died by their spatial abilities, such as quickly making a shelter or spearing a saber-toothed tiger.
Nowadays, though almost everyone has the spatial ability to do ostensibly simple tasks like washing dishes or mowing the
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lawn, such tasks actually require a lot of brainpower, the researchers note.
And we can thank our ancestors and the highly tuned mechanism of natural selection for such abilities. Meanwhile, the
ability to play chess or compose poetry likely evolved as collateral effects.
But after the spread of agriculture, when our ancestors began to live in dense farming communities, the intense need to
keep those genes in peak condition gradually waned.
And its unlikely that the evolutionary advantage of intelligence is greater than it was during our hunter-gatherer past, the
paper argues.
"A hunter-gatherer who did not correctly conceive a solution to providing food or shelter probably died, along with his/her
progeny, whereas a modern Wall Street executive that made a similar conceptual mistake would receive a substantial
bonus and be a more attractive mate. Clearly, extreme selection is a thing of the past," the researchers write in the journal
article.
Intelligence genes
Anywhere between 2,000 and 5,000 genes determine human intelligence, and these genes are particularly susceptible to
harmful changes, or mutations, the researchers write. Based on knowledge of the rate of mutations, the team concludes
that the average person harbors two intelligence-stunting genetic changes that evolved over the last 3,000 years.
The hypothesis is counterintuitive at first. After all, across the world the average IQ has increased dramatically over the last
100 years, a phenomenon known as the Flynn Effect. But most of that jump probably resulted from better prenatal care,
better nutrition and reduced exposure to brain-stunting chemicals such as lead, Crabtree argues.
But just because humans have more mutations in their intelligence genes doesn't mean we are becoming less brainy as a
species, said psychologist Thomas Hills of the University of Warwick, who was not involved in the study. Instead,
removing the pressure for everyone to be a superb hunter or gatherer may have allowed us to evolve a more diverse
population with different types of smarts, he said.
"You don't get Stephen Hawking 200,000 years ago. He just doesn't exist," Hills told LiveScience. "But now we have
people of his intellectual capacity doing things and making insights that we would never have achieved in our environment
of evolutionary adaptation."
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Add a comment 121 comments
Lifted Labs Portland, Oregon
I argue the last paragraph with the pyramids and ancient texts that match modern physics
Reply Like Follow Post January 28 at 12:00pm
Ce De Le Top Commenter
Strange, a writer in Romania wrote a book in 2010 about this effect/theory, his name is
Constantin Cretan.
Could have given the link to Daily Mail Uk, but they do not have the Comments active on the
article they published.
Link to writer's blog (Romanian): http://constantincretan.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/inteligenta-
umana-e-in-scadere-de-cel-putin-75-000-de-ani/
Link to book cover titled: From wild(feral) Ape to domestic Ape
http://culturale.ro/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Constantin-Cretan.jpg
Reply Like Follow Post December 1, 2013 at 4:56am
Follow
Amy Payne
The movie, Idiocracy, makes some very good points. Less intelligent, uneducated people are
breeding more than vice versa. In fact, according to one study I read, the rate is about 5 to 1.
Reply Like Follow Post June 13, 2013 at 4:13am 1
Ian Arnold New York Academy of Art
Yea but people seem stupid because the smartest amount us are so far ahead. It is
a disparity issue that has economic roots as well... A couple of college professors
could adopt a kid from very low iq parents and give that kid the tools to succeed,
since they have the resources. Like wise take a child from two brilliant parents and
throw them in foster care and what will happen?...
Reply Like June 29, 2013 at 3:39am 1
Ian Arnold New York Academy of Art
Amount = among
Reply Like June 29, 2013 at 4:53am
Christian Khoueiri Andrew Jackson Fundamental Magnet High School
"..but Brawdos got what plants crave!"
Reply Like April 6 at 8:12am 1
Dale Garland Top Commenter Sales Specialist at Dillard's
6/1/2014 Are Humans Losing Their Smarts?
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Dale Garland Top Commenter Sales Specialist at Dillard's
If you work with the public whether you're a 911 operator, a cop or work in retail, you know that
this is the case. We didn't need anybody to spend time and money on a scientific study. I see
the lowering of intelligence ( or it could just be an increase in apathy and laziness ) on a daily
basis from just simple observation. I see it at my apartment complex, on the streets from other
drivers, on the evening news or on Jay Leno's "Jay Walking". People in general have either
become more stupid and/or ignorant ( and if you don't know there's a difference, you're not too
bright either ), or their laziness and apathy just make them appear stupid.
Reply Like Follow Post March 14, 2013 at 8:18am 2
David Boyle Top Commenter Illinois Institute of Technology
In a world where brain dead individuals can now be kept alive indefinitely, genius cannot but be
diluted. Environmental pressures, including predators, used to have the final word in whether
we were smart or fit enough to survive until tomorrow. So now we have shelters and cars and
airplanes, and we've killed off all the predators. Without the filtering that helped shape us into
what we are, no one should be surprised to be told we're on our way down hill. And to the
comment "You don't get Steve Hawkings...," who do you think invented all those marvelous ways
of making fire? Even in the Way Back, there were indeed geniuses.
Reply Like Follow Post December 29, 2012 at 12:17am 5
Kyle Pietschmann Roosevelt
I've thought about this a lot. No longer do only the strongest survive. We encourage
everyone to reproduce.
Reply Like December 29, 2012 at 10:43am
Daniel Rabbitry Tambrien GED
I think it was talking about the types of genius branching off into different categories
now a days. Not that there weren't geniuses.
Reply Like July 24, 2013 at 12:11am
Ernst Haeckel
I bet that all those prehistorical Stephen Hawkins were eaten by wild beasts while
they profoundly meditated about the nature of things. You don't need to be a genius
to invent the wheel or something equally functional, specially when it was already
invented by dung beetles.
Reply Like September 23, 2013 at 3:02am
Nick Toth
So we think we've got it tough surviving these days? Apparently not. I guess it all depends on
how you look at it.
Reply Like Follow Post November 23, 2012 at 10:48pm
Virginia Strong Top Commenter UCLA
I personally think birth control and abortion among the better educated and more progressive
people in the world would diminish the intellectual level of the world as a whole. I am no
scientist but it only appears to be logical. It seems to me that those are the people we should
encourage to have children, while on the contrary Science seems to encourage the least fit to
reproduce and populate the world. I am only making an observation not a value judgement.
Reply Like Follow Post November 20, 2012 at 10:14pm
Follow
2
Tina Barry Auburn, New York
obviously. Look at the election.
Reply Like Follow Post November 20, 2012 at 6:36pm 1
Larry Bell Auburn, New York
Let's guess. Did this come from Tina or Kevin?
Reply Like November 20, 2012 at 8:46pm
Tina Barry Auburn, New York
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Tina Barry Auburn, New York
Kevin is no longer on facebook BUT it seems he has been I my facebook! I'll kick his
butt when I see him later today!
Reply Like November 20, 2012 at 9:20pm
Susan Jordan Works at Retired from teaching
Good for you, Tina...:)
Reply Like November 21, 2012 at 11:45am
Gary Katz Top Commenter University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Does it count as mass less intelligence when mobs burn down embassies because they were
insulted by a small film produced thousands of miles from where they live?
Reply Like Follow Post November 19, 2012 at 1:04am 2
Gilbert R. Jones Top Commenter Ehove Joint Vocational
For a more simplistic, yet comprehensive look at this subject, follow this link and discover "The
Fundamentals of Thought." After watching intro wait a few seconds and another video will start
with another 'fundamental.' These 3-1/2 min videos might help minimize the arbitraries,
variables, and suppositions encountered in this article. Of course there are no absolutes.
Semper Fi... http://www.scientology.org/fundamentals-of-thought/videos.html
Reply Like Follow Post November 18, 2012 at 1:07am
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