Breeding Like Rabbits

[Griffin NoName]

I just watched Idiocracy and thought I'd share it's disturbing vision:

A narrator explains that in modern society, natural selection has become indifferent toward intelligence, so that in a society in which intelligence is systematically debased, stupid people easily out-breed the intelligent, creating, over the course of five centuries, an irremediably dysfunctional society. Demographic superiority favors those least likely to advance society.[1] Consequently, the children of the educated élites are drowned in a sea of sexually promiscuous, illiterate, alcoholic, degenerate peers.

Who will outbreed who? The Bankers? The Politicans?

Not sure this is the right place for this topic.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

That's a new (and possibly worse?) interpretation of it. I was thinking hill billies and bros outbreeding the rest of us, but bankers and politicians....well, we may be screwed.

[The Meromorph]

Where do you think the Bible Belt in the USA comes from?

It's a little more complicated than that hypothesis considers. Education, particularly literacy, has exerted a large selection pressure on the human genome. So large that I believe it's had a huge effect in Western Society in a very short period of time (a few hundreds of years). 'Universal' Literacy and 'Universal' Education has even had huge societal impact on human behavior in the West in only a single century. The phenotypical consequences of that were just beginning to accelerate dramatically when...

The effective (in one sense of effective) destruction of the previous effective (in the other sense of effective) educational  system began destroying our civilization (I only said began, it's not yet certain). I believe that that last effect is what the hypothesis mentioned above is trying to account for. The gains from the literacy and education are, of course, not yet consolidated in the genome (Evolution does not work like that, not in terms of even hundreds of years) and are thus vulnerable to the described anti-selection pressure without the support of the civilization that created them.

I can't predict who is going to win for western civilization, but one of the good results of western dominance for so long is that non-western civilizations (mostly east and southeast Asian) have noticed the benefits, and their people are vigorously pursuing them. I suspect (hope) they won't be dumb enough to destroy them like the west is trying to do.

Unfortunately some of those civilizations have their own equivalents of the forces that are trying to destroy ours.
I point to the differences between India and Pakistan as an illustration.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I saw the movie in question a while ago, and certainly the concept is disturbing but the flexibility of the human brain has to be taken into account, literacy was something enjoyed by the elites up until recently (pretty much the XIX and XX centuries) and despite eons of generations without it, the majority of people is still capable of reading, writing and doing basic math, once exposed to some level of education.

What I believe is that the pressure mentioned in the movie is what keeps us in the same intellectual level we were five thousand (probably more) years ago. So far it seems that the geniuses have little time and/or interest to breed and when they do they rarely place enough attention to their own offspring (practically deleting any advantage they may have had). It makes you wonder what would happen to the rest of us if all the geniuses breed among themselves...

[anthrobabe]

snip-quote-Mero:
"Where do you think the Bible Belt in the USA comes from?"

No it isn't the only issue- but it is a big issue-- especially when education suffers (especially with the actual outlawing or attempted outlawing of teaching valid science-- if they don't get a good grounding in the basics then how do they ever get the intricasies of anything?)

And then of course there is the actual fact that some
Breed Like Duggers!
the people have in fact/practice/reality (of course they seem to have the sex part down to precision clockwork and not practice) take the bible literally-- be fruitful and multiply and now their oldest child is married and his wife is possibly pregnant already according to a local news blurb I heard on the radio.

Now what sort of education are these children receiving? Home schooling-- now home schooling can be good but I know they aren't getting a valid science education (including biology, chemistry, astronomy, etc)-- Oh surely they get the basics-- I mean she has to know by now that his penis has something to do with all these little gifts from god- right? But who really knows. It seems they use the Alpha-Omega Switched on Schoolhouse brand of home teaching. Hmmmmmm -let's check that out  Here--

Sure I poke a bit of fun- when I should be tolerant of all and their beliefs- but this is a huge family that shows on a massive scale what happens in literally tens of thousands of smaller ones each and every moment.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I think a lot of the problem is that so many people can't seem to learn from context. They're not taught to or encouraged. I really think that's what a good chunk of intelligence really is--being able to read and learn from context. My parents pushed that and I'm very grateful. I wouldn't have learned it in school-my teachers were too preoccupied with teaching to the test. That's the root of the thing, I think.
Decentralize the education system, hand the power back to local school boards and parents, and I think we'll see improvement.

[Swatopluk]

'Genius' seems to be not that hereditary or we would not have countless examples of capable leaders with decidedly subpar offspring.
There are even biologists that think that genius could be 'overclocking' the brain, i.e. gaining higher performance at the risk of a fatal breakdown (the fluent border between genius and madness).
More in the realm of cliche with a grain of truth: Teh Successfull (male) tend to woo gorgeous dumbbells (female) resulting in offspring of the Paris Hilton variety. 
And don't forget that geniussesses are notoriously gay and thus less likely to produce offspring

[Griffin NoName]

Where do you think the Bible Belt in the USA comes from?

Woops I forgot that one. It is so alien to the UK......

The gains from the literacy and education are, of course, not yet consolidated in the genome (Evolution does not work like that, not in terms of even hundreds of years) and are thus vulnerable to the described anti-selection pressure without the support of the civilization that created them.

I think this was covered in the film with the bit where wotsit-clever-clogs was expected to have had a bigger head

........ the majority of people is still capable of reading, writing and doing basic math, once exposed to some level of education.

Yes still the majority, but there are serious problems in the UK education system currently where illiteracy is increasing enough to be worrying.

It makes you wonder what would happen to the rest of us if all the geniuses breed among themselves...

I say bring it on...... let's have a Genius Breeding Programme. It makes more sense than others we have had in the past and than some we still have now (eg.only boys, only girls)..... I suppose strictly speaking I am meaning the extermination of sub quality products, selection, eugenics, rather than active breeding prgs but I am sure you get my drift.....

Unfortunately some of those civilizations have their own equivalents of the forces that are trying to destroy ours.
I point to the differences between India and Pakistan as an illustration.

Sure I poke a bit of fun- when I should be tolerant of all and their beliefs- but this is a huge family that shows on a massive scale what happens in literally tens of thousands of smaller ones each and every moment.

Maybe it is time for a split in "Thw West"........ maybe Europe needs to ditch the US ?  

I think a lot of the problem is that so many people can't seem to learn from context. They're not taught to or encouraged. I really think that's what a good chunk of intelligence really is--being able to read and learn from context.

I agree and it's similar to we don't learn from history.... we still have ethnic cleansing etc etc

There are even biologists that think that genius could be 'overclocking' the brain, i.e. gaining higher performance at the risk of a fatal breakdown (the fluent border between genius and madness).

And creativity... this seems to go hand in hand with bi-polar !  The brain needs more evolutionary tinkering in these areas.  Seriously.

[Kaliayev]

I have to say, I think this is a rather sinister way of looking at things.  Almost Social Darwinistic, in a sense, and certainly not scientific.

Intelligence is not genetically determined.  At all.  Sorry.  The "Flynn effect" discovered in psychometric testing should have put an end to this nonsense.  Furthermore, the fallout from Flynn's criticisms suggest that, if anything, society is becoming more intelligent over time, and that this could be measured, if not for the inanity of the majority of the intelligence testing community.

Now, religion and large families can be linked, but typically atheists only score about, oh, 6 points higher than theists on IQ tests.  More stupid people can be easily entrapped by religion, its true.  But the reason most religions encourage large families is because so many people turn away from them.  By pumping out as many people as possible and indoctrinating them from birth - whilst also placing large emphasis on conversion and witnessing - they can make up for the vast amounts of people who realize that said religion is a heap of crap and so leave it.

Robert Altermeyer, the noted authoritarianism expert in Canada, has a lot of information on the interplay of religion, authoritarianism and conversion.  His book is available online freely, if you want it.

The best way to stop idiocy is to fund schools well, and promote a culture of intellectual inquiry.  Simple as that.  Demographic panics have to be one of the ugliest and nastiest ways to try and justify something I can think of.

[Aggie]

Intelligence is not genetically determined.  At all.  Sorry.  The "Flynn effect" discovered in psychometric testing should have put an end to this nonsense. 

Huh?  Can you expand on this?  Not sure if we are using different definitions of intelligence, but I would tend to disagree.  From what I know of the Flynn effect, I don't understand how it discounts genetic determination of potential for intelligence on an individual basis.  Whether this potential is realized is another matter entirely.

Stepping aside from humans and the many, many confounding factors (education, nutrition, fetal development, parental support, sub-cultural factors, etc.) for a moment, I've been around enough pure-bred show dogs to know that there's MASSIVE differences in intelligence levels (as evidenced by learning ability, problem-solving ability and intuition) between dogs from obedience / hunting trial lineages and from conformation lineages, within the same breed. Artificial selection, yes... but artificial genetic selection, no? 

[Griffin NoName]

Kaliayev, I'm sorry, a lot of what I wrote was tongue in cheek. The folk here know me well enough to make me lazy about using enough smilies to indicate when...... well usually.

However, I know nothing of the Flynn stuff so will follow that up anyways.