"Medical know-how raises doctors' suicide rate": http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24526645
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: Thu, 8 May 2008 07:09:50 -0400 > Subject: Re: Intelligence is overrated > To: [email protected] > > The writer of the following piece may have suppressed some "facts" in order > to make his thesis seem stronger. > > Two examples: It seems obvious he should have addressed the fact that because > of the technologies developed by human intelligence many more babies than in > the past now survive birth and their early years . > > Similar products of intelligence have now made the average life span far > longer than it was in the past. > > I can think of few better "adapting" advantages for a species than increasing > survival rate, and extending lifetimes. I doubt the writer can cite one > "dumb" species that has done this -- especially in the short a time hman > intelligence has been at work. > > One might say increasing human litter-sizes would have been good for the > species, but, through intelligence, we have recognized the dangers of > overcrowding > and have devised ways to prevent it -- concurrently with our devising ways to > ways to make "crowding" less dangerous. > > But maybe the writer didn't suppress such observations. He may have just > lacked the intelligence to see them. > > Editorial Notebook > The Cost of Smarts > > By VERLYN KLINKENBORG > Published: May 7, 2008 > > Research on animal intelligence always makes me wonder just how smart humans > are. Consider the fruit-fly experiments described in Carl Zimmer's piece in > the Science Times on Tuesday. Fruit flies who were taught to be smarter than > the > average fruit fly tended to live shorter lives. This suggests that dimmer > bulbs burn longer, that there is an advantage in not being too terrifically > bright.Intelligence, it turns out, is a high-priced option. It takes more > upkeep, > burns more fuel and is slow off the starting line because it depends on > learning - a gradual process - instead of instinct. Plenty of other species > are able > to learn, and one of the things they've apparently learned is when to stop. > > Is there an adaptive value to limited intelligence? That's the question > behind this new research. I like it. Instead of casting a wistful glance > backward > at all the species we've left in the dust I.Q.-wise, it implicitly asks what > the real costs of our own intelligence might be. This is on the mind of every > animal I've ever met. > > Every chicken that looks at you sideways - which is how they all look at you > - is really saying what Thoreau said less succinctly: you are endeavoring to > solve the problem of a livelihood by a formula more complicated than the > problem itself. Thoreau himself would not dispute that he was hoping to > recover the > chicken's point of view. He went to Walden Pond b to remember well his > ignorance.b > > Research on animal intelligence also makes me wonder what experiments animals > would perform on humans if they had the chance. Every cat with an owner, for > instance, is running a small-scale study in operant conditioning. I believe > that if animals ran the labs, they would test us to determine the limits of > our > patience, our faithfulness, our memory for terrain. They would try to decide > what intelligence in humans is really for, not merely how much of it there is. > Above all, they would hope to study a fundamental question: Are humans > actually aware of the world they live in? So far the results are inconclusive. > VERLYN > KLINKENBORG > > > > > ************** > Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? Get new twists on family > favorites at AOL Food. > > (http://food.aol.com/dinner-tonight?NCID=aolfod00030000000001) > _________________________________________________________________ Make Windows Vista more reliable and secure with Windows Vista Service Pack 1. http://www.windowsvista.com/SP1?WT.mc_id=hotmailvistasp1banner
