Dumb, Dumber and Dumberer

[turoldus]

Our brains are shrinking, according to John Hawkes:

discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-shrinking

Unfortunately the article is for subscribers only. According to this the shrinking of our brains might be correlated with us becoming less agressive, which asks some nice teleological questions: Is human nature inherently violent? Are we actually dumbing ourselves down by trying to act better? Can't wait for ethicists' imput. ;D

[eckadimmock]

Measurement of intelligence is always fraught with difficulty, and basically means being good at things a particular culture values.

As for aggression, I don't see the most intelligent members of society being the most aggressive! Can you imagine Nobel prize recipients "I'd like to thank the judges...hey, what are you looking at? Yeah, you..."


That said, a bit of competition probably makes us work harder. One explanation I've heard for Europe's dominance in technological progress was that it was divided into little states, always at each others' throats, producing a kind of national natural selection.