X-Message-Number: 11511 From: Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 14:42:30 EDT Subject: The tallest midget Hugh Hixon's recent comment on the Flynn Effect (rising measured IQs over recent generations) has had some comment; here are a couple more. 1. More schooling doesn't necessarily raise IQ significantly, and IQ tests don't succeed well in separating potential from learning; and students learn how to prepare for IQ tests as well as achievement tests; and, as others have noted, IQ tests do not necessarily measure everything that is important nor balance the facets measured; and as immigrants become Americanized, the cultural bias in IQ tests becomes less important; and nowadays more people have more exposure to opportunity that is conducive to mental development. 2. The actual trend in IQ, nevertheless, is probably downward. In earlier times you had to be a lot smarter in some ways to get by--certainly you needed a better memory when there were fewer books and maps etc., and you needed more innate talent when there were fewer available mentors and training courses etc. And in ancient times the most capable males sired far more than the average number of children, which doesn't happen now. In recent times there has been a tendency for the most ignorant, which partly correlates with the least intelligent, to propagate most rapidly, and the penalty for incompetence is no longer death. But the important thing is that none of this matters much. The best of us now can only brag that we are among the taller midgets. Natural evolution will soon have ended, to be succeeded by conscious development and improvement, both in the species and in individuals. By the time the earlier cryonics patients are revived, there will probably be thorough understanding and control of intellectual and emotional capabilities and development, and all of us will have available the resources and traits of the best of us. One might hazard a guess that many forms of competitiveness will die out. Anyone will be able to excel at anything, by paying the price of specialization--but who will want to put all his time, effort, and resources into (say) the ability to put a shot somewhat farther, just to be the champion shot-putter, humanoid class, super-heavyweight division? Who will want to spend his time accumulating extra possessions, when anyone's general-purpose thinking and actuating machine can provide (within wide limits) anything he wants (including the best advice based on the latest decision theory models and database) whenever he wants it? Who will try to dominate others when he knows that almost all of those billions of others have resources about equal to his, and they might be annoyed? And of course, who will engage in acts of desperation, or take imprudent chances, or offend his neighbors, when he sees ahead an open-ended vista of opportunity and coexistence? O course, getting from here to there is a bit tricky, but some of us think the prize is worth the effort. Robert Ettinger Cryonics Institute Immortalist Society http://www.cryonics.org Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=11511