Comments on: Are Humans Getting Intellectually And Emotionally Stupid?

By: jackie

jackie — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 21:02:10 +0000

Depending on the goverment takes work and effort. It takes a rocket scientist to navigate our paradoxical and overly Beurocratic political and social system. If one chooses to “leach” off goverment handouts, they’re still putting effort into aquiring those handouts.

By: Scott

Scott — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 19:22:34 +0000

Snewsome- right on the money!

By: Eileen Burke

Eileen Burke — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 01:44:26 +0000

Describing natural selection as a “brutal process” goes beyond extremism. Natural selection never killed or brutalized anyone. Natural selection is an idea–an idea that explains how species could have evolved over time. The most successful organisms were more likely to survive to bear young–young that were in turn more likely to survive. No one took the “less fit” out and executed them. Modern society seems to intervene in the process of natural selection–at least logic would have it so–but we have no actual proof of this. Who is more likely to survive now? The healthy? People who don’t smoke, who don’t eat fatty foods, who exercise? Or the wealthy? People who put their all into financial success, regardless of the consequences?
Natural selection is not something that nature “does”. It’s something that happens. When humans decide to make “selections” as to who should survive, then you would have a “brutal process”.

By: Alf

Alf — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 02:07:03 +0000

@ProperEnglishPlease: Based on a quick review, the article’s grammar looks fine to me. Would you care to elucidate?

By: ProperEnglishPlease

ProperEnglishPlease — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 21:12:22 +0000

The writer should check English grammar rules about commas, colons, semi-colons, and en and em dashes before writing about intelligence again.

By: Lucky

Lucky — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:59:14 +0000

Armin – What if it’s not ‘smart’ to have children? What if the more intelligent humans don’t find themselves in the appropriate place to reproduce and the dumb ones continue to do so without regard? Would society not get dumber?

I agree though, this article is entertaining, but sensational.

By: snewsom2997

snewsom2997 — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:11:56 +0000

As humans become more dependent on others, they become lazy. As more and more Americans are dependent on the government for their daily survival, more and more Americans will lack the skills to make it on their own, because they simply don’t have the need to. They will be taken care of, their offspring will be taken care, of, and as their population increases they will have the power to vote more benefits to themselves, without contributing to them.

By: Realist

Realist — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 16:02:09 +0000

Overall the IQ may be falling, but modern society has allowed the intelligent among us to develop and innovate better than ever before. The greatest advances in science and communication are in the modern era, so if anything, the gap between smart and stupid is growing.

By: sfobear

sfobear — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 15:35:52 +0000

Itelligence is not the problem, it is a lack of compassion and spirituality.

By: Supreme Ruler

Supreme Ruler — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 15:20:28 +0000

I don’t get it.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:56:49 +0000

Magnesium Deficiency

By: Ron Bockman

Ron Bockman — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:46:04 +0000

Of course, just look at the results of the U.S. election

By: Armin

Armin — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:31:57 +0000

I am not sure who these “Scientists” are to claim our intellectual doom, but they are not evolutionary biologists. The reason for our gene selection for our high intellect does not come from our need to “outwit potentially dangerous prey”. We could do that with our much smaller brain about a million years ago. We have big brains for much the same reason that peacock’s tale keeps getting larger: It is an attractive quality to the other sex. We are stuck an infinite loop of nature referred to as the “Red Queen” (See book of the same name from Matt Ridley). What this means is that, we are getting smarter because the opposite sex will find smarter people more attractive, not to outwit nature. We’ve regressed a bit in the past five thousand years partly due to the social chaos that our move away from our hunter gatherer societies brought about. But again, our life-span also got shorter. Today, our lifestyle is much more like how it was 10,000 years ago than anytime in between and we are bound to select smarter genes as our society permits our natural behavior. I could go on, but in short, this article is sensational but without merit.