Have we really stalled so much in our intellectual road of evolution that we rever those intelligents of hundreds to thousands of years ago as though they are rare, unique or unduplicated?

I keep hearing this in the religious/political/scientific threads.

Intelligence from a hundred to thousand years ago should have been outgrown by now if we are truly evolving and growing. We should be smarter than that by now, wouldn't you think?

Not discounting their wisdom but we should have by passed it intellectually, emotionally, etc... by now.

My opinion here.

I see more problems in clinging to what may be holding us back than revering the wisdom of old.

We are not evolving anymore. Human evolution stopped when we formed societies

I agree with the monkey. We're actually in the process of devolving right now.

We're basically nothing more than stupid monkeys with highly technology tools, toys, and weapons.

Our technological progress has grown dramatically, but our wisdom hasn't increased much at all, especially in terms of the masses and social structures overall.

I personally expect the human race to become extinct fairly soon, geologically speaking. I'm not even sure if that's a bad thing to be quite honest about it. Humans aren't all that great. They just think they are, and that's their major problem.

Who says that?

The brain is evolving at a very fast pace, however fast for evolution is thousands of years.

I think we are smarter then people thousands of years ago, but what does that mean? What positive characteristics define smart? Is it computational? Hmm, I doubt many would agree with that, especially as a sole characteristic.
No one who understands anything about evolution. The selective pressure may change, but evolution itself will continue, change can stagnate, but that in itself is evolution at work, if it works why change?

Evolution as the variation of genes in a populace is ever occurring, it cannot stop unless we stop having children. Reproduction with variation in a changing environment is all that is needed.

no one person is really all that smart. except for very rare and occasional people like Newton or Einstein

the totality of human knowledge is added incrementally by thousands of people making small advances and discoveries

evolution is still ongoing but its really slow

There are great minds everywhere, but they aren't always put in the history books!

I agree.

I also agree that evolution continues.


Do we stay stuck in the past when we rever old text or old philosophers too much?

I don't think so

Newton said his success came from "standing on the shoulders of giants"

No cause that's our foundation.

It's the great minds that influence and inspire our everyday lives that make the difference... those that will never make the textbooks!

Those great minds are a result of variation. They represent the very upper echelon of the pendulum swing for human intelligence. They are rare. As for evolution. I cannot think of any particular selection pressure that would cause those with higher intellects to reproduce more.

Humans continue to evolve but we are drifting somewhat randomly. There is not any strong selection pressures for us. Evolution takes 5 things:

Nonrandom mating
Migration
Genetic Drift
Natural Selection
Mutation


A worm in the dirt has been evolving for billions of years. Evolution does not always drive toward more complexity or higher intelligence.

I can't help wondering though

if there are roughly a million abortions a year in America

if we haven't missed out on this generation's genius

Good twist to the topic!

Excellent insight, thank you.

This is what you do right? Evolution, you kind of hinted at it in another thread, if you don't mind me prying, I am ever curious about fields of research.

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About selective pressures for intelligence . . .

I agree, its kind of sad to me that intelligence is just not selected for directly.

I think however that unnatural selection in coming years will make more difference for humans then ever before.

This kind of opens the discussion to bio ethics . . .

If you could just preorder your child specs . . . What would you select? Would you at all? Is that ethical?

Well and then if we use your two examples from the previous post, both of those men where no doubt genius, but circumstance, the right idea at the right time, it makes a big difference.

There are plenty of geniuses, I doubt the traits are extremely rare. Even 2% of 7 billion is a big number, most are not doing what you are I may call notable with there genius but I have met at least 2 of them ehehe.

I agree artificial selection applied to humans in the future will be very interesting for our evolution.

We are smarter but not wiser.

(just to spur conversation, not to be annoying)

Where does wisdom come from?

Good question! Obviously not age, although older people tend to be wiser. However, many aren't. Some children are very wise.

My guess it does come with age, but not the physical age of the person you are looking at here. I think it takes many lifetimes to achieve real wisdom.

Well, not everyone believes in multiple lives....

Could it be life experience?

Children who are sheltered from life, but have a top notch education. Might be exteremely intelligent, but not wise.

Excluding the possibility of multiple lives, then that would be the only explanantion. However, I don't think it explains very wise children.