Has Humanity Reached Peak Intelligence?

[Cristiano]

I don't need science to tell me that human intelligence seems to have peaked and actually is on the decline - the past two years have illustrated that in stark detail.

Has humanity reached ‘peak intelligence’?

Are our IQs set to increase forever, or are we on the cusp of decline? David Robson explores the past, present and future of intelligence.

www.bbc.com

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Since IQ tests are a bad instrument anyway, so this need to be approached with utmost caution.

 

[Chalice Yao]

And to add, there are different types of intelligence.
There are up to nine different types, depending on which theory you go by, but a famous one is Gardner's:
* Naturalistic Intelligence
* Musical Intelligence
* Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
* Existential Intelligence
* Interpersonal Intelligence
* Linguistic Intelligence
* Body-Kinesthetic Intelligence
* Intra-Personal Intelligence
* Spatial Intelligence.

The only type of intelligence usually tested in IQ tests is Logical-Mathematical intelligence. And IQ tests are rather vague in the first place.

Add to this that the very nature of out intelligence changes over time, suiting our society's needs; Abstract thinking, for example, is all but completely untrained in some very tribal and remote societies - but that does not make them less intelligent. Their intelligence simply never got trained for that kind of thought, which they simply do not require for their way of life; On the other hand, they are excellent at some of the others.


Another problem that mostly affects our own society is the fact that, these days it's extremely hard to keep up a broad spectrum of knowledge that also goes in-depth: Our fields of technology have just exploded in variety as well as refinement; Most jobs these days ask for deep specialization. Even being a Jack-of-all-trades these days usually meins being very versatile in one specific trade, say IT, and not between multiple trades.

Put the overall Information Overload that the Internet provides when it comes to 'Common Knowledge' on top and things just aren't as cut and dry as they once were.

 

[Free]

Has Humanity Reach Peak Intelligence?

Yes.

Next fucking question.

 

[Sid]

Has Humanity Reach Peak Intelligence?

Yes.

Next fucking question.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

 

[Lady Darnk Juniorette]

I disagree, we have yet to hit floating brain stage so no we have not.

 

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

Humanity? Maybe. My company's QA department? ABSOLUTELY! (-_-)

 

[Rose Karuna]

I found this to be really interesting:

Consider the abundant literature on our cognitive biases. Something that is presented as “95% fat-free” sounds healthier than “5% fat”, for instance – a phenomenon known as the framing bias. It is now clear that a high IQ does little to help you avoid this kind of flaw, meaning that even the smartest people can be swayed by misleading messages. [personally I think that people need to be trained to see these cognitive biases and they aren't]

People with high IQs are also just as susceptible to the confirmation bias – our tendency to only consider the information that supports our pre-existing opinions, while ignoring facts that might contradict our views. That’s a serious issue when we start talking about things like politics. [one of our biggest problems today with the advent of 24X7X365 news, again, I think that training and focus would change this]

Nor can a high IQ protect you from the sunk cost bias – the tendency to throw more resources into a failing project, even if it would be better to cut your losses – a serious issue in any business. (This was, famously, the bias that led the British and French governments to continue funding Concorde planes, despite increasing evidence that it would be a commercial disaster.) [Most people aren't even aware of "sunk cost bias" but deal with it every day in both their personal and professional lives, we need to make children aware of this at a much younger age]

Highly intelligent people are also not much better at tests of “temporal discounting”, which require you to forgo short-term gains for greater long-term benefits. That’s essential, if you want to ensure your comfort for the future.

Besides a resistance to these kinds of biases, there are also more general critical thinking skills – such as the capacity to challenge your assumptions, identify missing information, and look for alternative explanations for events before drawing conclusions. These are crucial to good thinking, but they do not correlate very strongly with IQ, and do not necessarily come with higher education. One study in the USA found almost no improvement in critical thinking throughout many people’s degrees.

When I was going to school in the 50's and 60's I remember when courses and teaching methods changed significantly (think new math) to promote science and math and logical thinking because of the cold war and space race. I think the focus has been on this and on student test results for some time now but with less than stellar results than were expected by the work force. I think the reason that we have not had the expected results in the work force we planned is because we have failed to focus on or even teach all of the things that are mentioned above.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

When I took the GRE in 1995, it was similar to an IQ test. The current GRE has changed significantly, because IQ does not measure how likely someone is to succeed in graduate school. There is more focus on things like reading comprehension and the ability to synthesize information, which is what graduate students have to do to be successful.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Homo Sap. hit peak brain volume in the Neolithic.

 

[Chalice Yao]

Homo Sap. hit peak brain volume in the Neolithic.

Brain volume isn't necessarily equal to intelligence. Well, it might be equal to potiential intelligence, maybe. The maximum. But not..effective intelligence, for a lack of a word.

I'm rather convinced that whales for example, on average, are not very intelligent creatures.
Social, yes. Self-aware, very probably. Do their large brains have huge potential? If we just go by size, quite.
But you can't really form much of an extensive high intelligence quotient when you lack the means of physically interacting with your surroundings in an intricate way other than swimming around.
It's what made us come so far. It's what makes rats such smart rodents, and what make corvids such intelligent birds. The brain to body ratio combined with the ability to interact with the environs in complex ways.

 

[Rose Karuna]

Brain volume isn't necessarily equal to intelligence. Well, it might be equal to potiential intelligence, maybe. The maximum. But not..effective intelligence, for a lack of a word.

I'm rather convinced that whales for example, on average, are not very intelligent creatures.
Social, yes. Self-aware, very probably. Do their large brains have huge potential? If we just go by size, quite.
But you can't really form much of an extensive high intelligence quotient when you lack the means of physically interacting with your surroundings in an intricate way other than swimming around.
It's what made us come so far. It's what makes rats such smart rodents, and what make corvids such intelligent birds. The brain to body ratio combined with the ability to interact with the environs in complex ways.

Which is why, now that they've taken over our homes and the internez, I'm convinced that eventually, cats will rule the world.

 

[Brenda Archer]

Which is why, now that they've taken over our homes and the internez, I'm convinced that eventually, cats will rule the world.

I for one welcome our new fuzzball overloards.

 

[Beebo Brink]

What a steaming pile of BS. The article conflates IQ tests, knowledge, education, skills, emotional behavior and tech advances with intelligence, and makes only the most token attempt to separate them from native intelligence, which is never defined in the first place.

 

[Brenda Archer]

What a steaming pile of BS. The article conflates IQ tests, knowledge, education, skills, emotional behavior and tech advances with intelligence, and makes only the most token attempt to separate them from native intelligence, which is never defined in the first place.

There’s so much politics around this subject.

When I was a young student the observation was that bored, intelligent children might do worse in lockstep classes designed for slow learners. They were sometimes giving up.

Whatever happened to that insight? It seems to me that overly large, rigid classrooms could be inadequate for all kinds of students and in this age of computing, we should use the opportunity to customize learning much more.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Here's another possible explanation for the changing raw IQ scores.

A century ago, IQ tests were developed using the American and European educational systems as their basis. At the time, schooling was not universal, even in Europe and America, with many of those who did receive an education leaving by the sixth grade.

Over the next 80 or so years, education levels increased in the US and Europe, with a majority of children completing a high school diploma. Other countries have included elements of this educational model as well. As a larger percentage of the population has received the kind of education that prepares you for an IQ test, raw scores have increased (although always normed to 100 average).

Since No Child Left Behind, the US education system has changed how and what they teach, de-emphasizing the specific type of problem solving that is measured by IQ tests. That leads to a leveling off of new scores as the current class of college freshmen have been educated completely under NCLB. They are not less intelligent, and they can be good at solving problems, but not in the way that an IQ test measures. In other countries that have not made similar changes to their education system, you could still expect to see scores plateau as education rates are very high, with limited potential to increase without making drastic structural changes (say, eliminating poverty).

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Also, brain volume is not as important as brain complexity. H. sapiens has a high degree of folding of the brain surface that increases the area available for connections within the brain.

 

[Adeon Writer]

Various kinds of instances of photographic memories and amazing mental math show we have plenty of room for improvement that the average person does not have.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

And again Adam Conover ruins the day:

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Brain volume isn't necessarily equal to intelligence. Well, it might be equal to potiential intelligence, maybe. The maximum. But not..effective intelligence, for a lack of a word.

Yes, I know that, but it's suggestive. So is the fact that technology and modern society has reduced the selective pressure on Homo Sap. Human intelligence has been enhanced by external tools, such as writing and collective social information stores. Individual intelligence increase in the future will come from technology, not evolving better brains.

As for your second point, there is an ongoing school of thought that it's language rather than simply interacting with the environment that led to the massive increase in human brain size over other apes. And it's done it because individuals that can communicate better can engage in more complex power games and deception, and thus have more children.