The Evolution of Human Intelligence

Posted on by Opher

A look in wonder.

8 thoughts on “The Evolution of Human Intelligence”

  1. I think you underestimate the IQ test. It was designed to identify ability to solve rather than knowledge and that meant you could not learn anything to help you pass an IQ test. To design the perfect IQ test was impossible but the best ones produced bell curves as would be expected. The top of the curve was taken as the mid point and average IQ at 100 with 50% below and 50% above that value.
    The old grammar school was about 125 and Mensa over 140 a very small percentage of the population.
    A high IQ does not translate directly into business success and wealth and Mensa draws members from all walks of life.
    IQ is not the be all and end all of personality but those with low or very low IQs have very limited options in western society ; of course a high IQ in the Amazon Jungle may not lead to survival.

    1. Yes Kertsen – but the IQ also has been shown to have cultural bias and people can be trained to perform better in it. While it isn’t knowledge based it does have many elements that improve by repeat performance.
      My contention is that there are many forms of intelligence that are not covered by the current IQ testing. I base that on some psychology theory but also on my wide experience working in education.
      Intelligent is a slippery beast and difficult to quantify. The IQ test should be treated with some degree of skepticism.
      For me there are many other aspects of human qualities that are equally important – if not more so.

  2. Personally I think you are redefining intelligence and including many other human qualities that do not involve problem solving as a basic ability. Empathy is a very important one but not needed by a top notch physicist perhaps more important for a surgeon unless he works in Harley street and even then he may believe keeping the rich healthy is important for global well-being. Alfred Wallace a brilliant thinker who’ also discovered evolution along with Charles Darwin did not believe the human mindfulness could possibly be formed by natural selection. He reasoned why does a cave man need a brain capable of understanding the complexities of science they do not contribute to his survival.
    It’s an interesting paradox called Wallace’s Paradox and Steven Pinker attempts to explain it in his book ‘How the Mind Works.’

    1. Is intelligence just problem solving though?
      Yes we all need various qualities in our careers but surely empathy, tolerance, compassion and the like are qualities that everyone should have? That’s what makes society work.
      I thionk Wallace was wrong. He looked at it the wrong way round. The first humans developed minds that could solve problems, see patterns and find solutions. That was useful in hunting, developing tools, finding seasons for fruits, water etc. It is that ability that produced the side-effect of enquiry and understanding the complexity of the universe. It wasn’t a primary function.

  3. I’m not at all sure if our present society would have formed on empathy , tolerance and compassion often those qualities take away the ability to decide and act. Take compassion it would never ring the chickens neck or take an axe to the tree or shatter someone’s dreams to build new houses etc. It is the mixture of qualities that make human nature so successful but we know it may also bring about our downfall.
    Wallace was following natural selection to its limit and believed nothing could appear in any population of creatures that did not lead to benefits. If you are right about side effects then they have proved quite incredibly transforming up to the present moment of time, but looking to the future they may yet prove disastrous.

    1. Kertsen – I take your point but it is a question of keeping things in balance isn’t it?
      I don’t think Wallace understood selection completely. Mutations arise and if they are beneficial they will be selected. A mutation might have more than one effect or be neutral. They are random chance, as is selection. Population genetics sheds further light on the process. There is genetic drift in a population. In small populations things can be selected by happenstance. Luck plays a role. My own research indicates that populations changed by the relaxation of selection forces (plentiful food, few predator etc) enabling all progeny to survive and greater variation. Then the selection pressure returned and the extremes may be selected and we end up with varieties quite different to the original.

  4. I must admit I’m not too sure about natural selection even though I have heard reams of talk , and read piles about it . Sometimes the closer you look at something the more elusive it becomes ; a bit like particle physics. Perhaps Mr Pinker had a point when he suggested that our brains were made for survival and not to unravel the intricacies of the universe.

    1. Kertsen – I think most people misunderstand natural selection. They think it is a precise process when it is arbitrary. Many things that shouldn’t have survived do and many things that should don’t. Luck plays a part. Mutations are random. In terms of intelligence and humans that which made us solve problems and see patterns also enabled us to wonder. The universe is just another problem to solve and pattern to see.
      The two most important products of evolution that enabled us to develop technology were the opposable thumb and binocular vision. They enabled the use of tools and both came from are arboreal ancestry for swinging on branches and judging distance. We put them to other use.
      Just imagine what whales could have done if they had possessed an opposable thumb and binocular vision? Their brains are bigger than ours.
      I wrote a poem about it with the line – the hand the eye the wonder why.

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