Mike, At 09:34 01/10/02 -0600, you wrote: (KH) >> The one big argument against this bifurcation becoming permanent is >> demographic -- that inter-racial mixing (and thus inter-IQ) mixing due to >> immigration is occurring at a faster rate than physical (and breeding) >> separation (hitherto required for speciation). It is clearly true that >> high-IQ parents at the present time are having fewer children at far less >> than replacement rates (and so are all other parents in developed >> countries). Nevertheless, the pace of innovation means that high-IQ >> individuals with high level technocratic skills is becoming increasingly >> required. One result of this seems to be that income differentials are >> growing within developed countries. (MH) >What about the regression to the mean? Not all children of >high IQ parents have high IQs and not all children of low IQ parents >have low IQs.
Yes, I'm fully aware of this -- and it's yet another factor which I should have mentioned when I talked of differential demographic trends which are tending to reduce the average IQ of a population. However, it's the latter trend which is more important at present, and my hypothesis implies that the present situation of differential replacement rates (as between high-IQ and others) is not necessarily permanent. One doesn't have to speculate too wildly to suppose that at some period in the future (due to higher energy costs or climatic change or some other factor) survival will be much more difficult than now. For the last 100 years or so, mankind has had an exceptionally comfortable time due to fossil fuels. Leaving that on one side for the moment, I think we can say with reasonable certainty that embryo selection (e-s) will continue apace for three reasons: (a) as a byproduct of IVF for infertile couples, (b) elective e-s for avoiding deleterious alleles, and (c) selective e-s for desirable genes or gene clusters. This by itself will tend to be adopted by the high-IQ portion of the population rather than the low IQs for reasons of both finance and more purposeful parentage. Let's also assume that biogenetics will enable selected embryos to be taken right through fetus stage and then to full term in vitro! This is not improbable. This is almost certainly a lesser problem than the selection of high-IQ gene clusters (or other chosen traits) which is probably more distant. Now let me return to the likelihood of a period of great economic stress. In my opinion, high-IQ mothers (that is, those who tend to have interesting, well-paid jobs) would readily revert to the aristocratic practices of the past in delegating the upbringing of their children to nurses (who are likely to be relatively lowly paid). In that situation, high-IQ parents could have a large number of children without personal inconvenience, and thus reverse the present differential replacement rates. (It has astonished me in England to see how quickly the middling-rich have taken to employ au pairs and nursery nurses in recent years.) Now all this may seem highly speculative, depending on too many "ifs" but if you believe, as I do, for one or other of several probable reasons, that harder times *are* coming and yet, at the same time, high-IQ people (as everybody else, of course) want to retain the standards and luxuries that they have at present, then it's vitally necessary that society as a whole is able to maintain its high-tech systems. It isn't inevitable, of course -- I suppose it's conceivable that high-IQ people might say (of their higher-responsibility jobs -- and working longer hours than anybody else [as now seems to be occurring] ) "the game isn't worth the candle" and give up, and thus society as a whole winds down to lower levels of skills and standard of existence relevant to the newer circumstances (as, say Australian aborigines when game animals were wiped out and in their subsequent simpler environment -- and Tasmanians even more so.) However, I suggest that this would not happen. Even if the high-IQ portion of the population decided to give up the burden of supporting all the rest, they would not cut off their own noses. They would use every trick in the book to so arrange government and society so that they, at least, maintained a high standard of living -- and also that they would be self-sustaining in numbers. (MH) >Also, there is more to intelligence and effectiveness >than what is measured by IQ. The neurobiologist William Calvin in "A Brain >For All Seasons" argues that sudden coolings of climate selected for humans >and societies best able to share and collaborate, which suggests that >Gardners Interpersonal Intelligence may be man's most important selected >trait, not capacity for abstract reasoning. This may very well have been important, and even crucial at these particular times of sudden coolings. But unless this Gardner factor is measurable we will never know. It's more likely in my opinion that this factor would be correlated to a greater or lesser extent with the general g-factor measured by IQ tests, inherited and selected over very long evolutionary periods even before the emergence of homo sapiens. >Why the concern over a sudden cooling? Because that is what may happen. >Climatologists have been puzzled by the sudden severe little ice age >of the Younger Dryas 12,500 BP to 12,000 BP but have finally figured >out how they think it happened. They are brought on by warmings that >melt sufficient ice to flood the North Atlantic with fresh water and >stop the Atlantic Conveyor and hence the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe >and Eastern North America warm in winter. They have also figured out from >ice cores that similar sudden coolings have happened hundreds of times >before. Each time human populations would have crashed - been heavily >selected - for cooperation in the face of great adversity. > >The Woods Hole Oceanographic has been keeping track of the salinity of >the North Atlantic and is now sounding the alarm that it has fallen >far enough to be concerned about a Conveyor stoppage. >http://www.whoi.edu/home/about/whatsnew_abruptclimate.html > >How severe it might be is another question. They are suggesting an annual >average drop for Europe of 5 degrees F, enough to freeze ports and >shipping lanes and cause crops to fail. > >That would be more severe than the Little Ice Age, so I am sceptical. Severe >sudden coolings in the past were associated with deglaciation, so the >amounts of fresh water involved were enormous, much larger than Greenland >and Arctic sea ice could produce today. What may be more likely according >to two Swiss climatologists (Stockner and Schmittner) is a slowing of the >Conveyor with occasional brief cessations of one of the three downwelling >sites. That would lead to a slight cooling trend with short somewhat >cooler variations from trend. > >As always, there are other data to muddy the waters. These sudden coolings, >at least for the past 10,000 years that we have data, are also coincident >with reductions in the amount of energy radiated by the sun. Right now >solar radiation is in an up cycle. > >Ain't life interesting. The above comments on the Conveyor effect are extremely interesting. I was aware of it, of course, but haven't been as closely in touch with discussion about it as you've obviously been. Keith ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
