Do less intelligent people indeed tend to have more children than more intelligent people? Remember than intelligence, education, and economic class are not the same thing. There is no particular reason to think that the populations "exploding" in Africa are different in intelligence than the populations not exploding in China or Norway. And also remember that "tend to" is a probability statement, I.e. than less intelligent parent(s) have a higher probability of producing less intelligent offspring than more intelligent parents would.

Do less intelligent people tend to mate with other less intelligent people? And is low intelligence a recessive trait.

Do two less intelligent people tend (and how much) to produce less intelligent offspring? Do one less intelligent person and one more intelligent person tend (and how much) to produce less intelligent offspring? This is a heritability question.

You would need to answer these questions, and have a sense of the magnitude, to assess whether OP's thesis is correct. Consider that we're only talking about a few generations of time here, a generation being 25 years, four generations takes you back to 1912, when whatever you might consider welfare-like did not yet exist.

In only four generations, you can see that all those tendencies would have to be not only true, but very strong tendencies (very high probabilities of producing very large differences in family size, mating preference, intelligence), for the gene pool to be significantly different today.

Evolution takes a long time. Not tens of years or even hundreds of years. Maybe in a thousand years the OP's thesis might be true. By then there will be synthetic ways of manipulating intelligence anyway.

This is a great Thread.

[QUOTE=jyl;7039693]Do less intelligent people indeed tend to have more children than more intelligent people? Remember than intelligence, education, and economic class are not the same thing. There is no particular reason to think that the populations "exploding" in Africa are different in intelligence than the populations not exploding in China or Norway. And also remember that "tend to" is a probability statement, I.e. than less intelligent parent(s) have a higher probability of producing less intelligent offspring than more intelligent parents would.

The fundamental question is this regarding your post.
How intelligent can one be or a couple be procreating when all they have-at all- to eat are bugs, roots and have to walk for miles for some water.

In return, they have enough energy to have many many children.
Babies that have only a tit to suck on. These tits are flat.

These Children grow up malnourished and brain development is seriously effected.
The many Children from the same family may survive and THE CYCLE CONTINUES.

We've always had dumb people... Terms like "cannon fodder" and more recently "factory fodder" come to mind.
It's not a racial thing because the genetic difference between the races is so small it doesn't make a difference. (IMO)

It is genetic to a degree but what does make a big difference is environment and upbringing. Local culture/enviroment can vary greatly and this environment affects how people think and act.

It may seem like there are more dumb people around but I believe this is because people have more opportunity to be dumb in a more public way than they used to.
.... I'm always amazed at what most of my "friends" on "Faceplant" post. Really stupid stuff about their personal lives and how they make decisions.

Emotional maturity is more important the intelligence IMO.

How many "smart" people do you know who are broke? Or how many of these same people have massive dept on their credit cards? Will they ever clear that dept?

There is one guy I know personally who is a self made multimillionaire. He made most of his money in car breaking yards. The thing is he's not very good at maths so he prefers dealing in cash only. He never finished high school because he simply didn't get it. He can barely read and yet he has NO dept and daily drives a late model Ferrari that he paid for in cash. ;)

That's "Flagpole Sitta" - Harvey Danger.

Is this lack of intelligence?

Or lack of education, lack of money, lack of contraception?

Or lack of understanding of the situation (by you)? Remember that sometimes, more children means more survive to support the family.

Oh, and a person's genetic ability to produce more or less intelligence offspring is not affected by whether the person grows up with brain damage and malnutrition.


[QUOTE]

I get to meet people from all walks of life and economies. I done some work for a surgeon once and I remember him saying to me "I know some incredibly intelligent people, but most of them are not that bright". I think what he means is that some of these very smart people would'nt/could'nt work out how to change a flat if they had to.... as an example.

I think thats "Irony" by Techweenie

maybe people are "stupid" becasue we have removed life experiences from them growing up, experiences which would make them "smarter".

PE is no longer required in high school- so very few physical confrontations worked out on the field. They all mimic the computer games where they shoot someone to death. We have generations of kids who seek refuge in their computer games instead of interacting physically with others. And it is from the games where thye learn how to deal with others.


Wood shop, metal shop and electrical went away a long time ago. No more cut fingers or electrical shocks to learn not to do something stupid.


How does the guy at the local car parts find your part. He has to follow the screen requests for information from you. If you don't know the answers he can't help you. We accept and promote stupidity.

for anyone interested in the mis-uses of IQ, read The Mis-measure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould

I'd say a larger factor is that US culture casts intelligence is a negative light, and has for 30-40 years at least. We send kids to school to be educated, but what they learn for the entire 12 years is that intelligent people are geeks, nerds, losers, and that's backed up by music, movies, and television. As a culture, we've said it's okay to be stupid and irresponsible, so that's what people are - we're reaping what we've sown.

My opinion on Zero Population Growth is "Two heirs and a spare"......then a clip job.


http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...29029456_n.jpg

Yes.

If it was not the case, this sticker in the plastic helmet from my kid's Halloween costume would not be necessary.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1350681578.jpg

It is a Knight costume, and the breastplate and shield have the same sticker.

I have tried to watch that movie (on the basis that is so highly regarded by many here)... however couldn't make it thought more than five minutes...

I guess that is because I'm a souper geanus!

sure stupid is gaining

look at all the nut-con's, teabaggers, and others in the fly over states

Is this problem prevalent in China or India too?

And do we care?

We are DEVO
D-E-V-O......

Best post yet! :D

I think the book "The Bell Curve" explains a lot of this.