June 01, 2005
Send Celestial Blue to Israel!
Celestial Blue is trying to finance a study trip to Israel. And she is selling
beautiful blue bracelets,
which gives you the chance to help her out. So go
for it!
I might add that I'm familiar with the
program
she wants to go on, and I highly
approve.
Her bracelets say: `am yisra'el hay
(עם ישראל חי)
- "the people of Israel live", or more colloquially: "Long live the
people of Israel!".
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June 02, 2005
Education for life
I'm very busy a the moment (for a hint at what I'm doing you can look here),
but I'd like to take some time out for some quick comments on Amritas's
latest post. He makes the
radical statement that higher education isn't for everyone, and points
to an article by John Ray called Down
With Education! I basically
agree with them, but I would like to briefly mention some things that I
think the education system could do, but doesn't.
As John points out, there are two major goals of education: to teach
skills that will be useful in life, and to create good citizens. I
would like to add to this a third: to expose students to life's
possibilities. Most people graduate from the educational system
(whether at the High School or University level) with very little idea
about their options. If you ask students about their career goals, for
example (to pick just one aspect of life), your answers will be
something like this:
- Teacher
- Movie Star
- Sports player
- Rock star
- Doctor
- Lawyer
- Scientist
- Father's/Mother's profession
This is, to put it mildly, a very unrepresentative picture of the true
nature of the possibilities, both in terms of scope and proportion.
These are simply the possibilities that are visible to the average
student. But there is a big world out there, it would be nice to know
something about it before you get there.
I think that this can be addressed. I think that every year (at least
the four years of High School) students should take a course which is
devoted to simply describing the workings of different industries - I
can't think of a good name for it at the moment, any suggestions are
welcome. The way it would work would be to take an industry - say food
production - and describe all its components, e.g. what the farmers do
- who they buy from, sell to, what are the factors which influence
their decisionmaking, what are the different jobs in the industry, what
are the skills that are required for the different jobs - then do the
same for the people they sell to or buy from. Industries should be
chosen based on their prominence in the economy, and diversity (i.e.
their inner working are different from each other). I even think that
government agencies should be covered - after all they really are
potential career choices! Four years of this, and you can cover a lot
of ground, and people would come out of it understanding a lot more
about how the world works, and what their possibilities really are.
It seems to me that most students would consider this a fun course - it
doesn't involve mathematics, and doesn't require good writing skills.
Fun and useful, what could be better?
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Trackback from joannejacobs.com, College for all:
All public high school students in Los Angeles Unified would have to take the college-prep sequence required by California's public universities, under a proposal before the school board. Teachers and counselors at Hollywood High told the LA Times that...
Comment:I wonder if it would be even more beneficial to actually work in various careers for at least a few hours a week. Learn and do is probably the best way to really understand anything.
Posted by: Rachel Ann at June 2, 2005 08:46 PM Permalink
It would be nice if there were teachers who were bright enough to incorporate some kind of blogging curriculum into the classroom. The students could find bloggers in industries that interested them and comment and ask questions. I am sure that folks would be happy to respond and honestly tell the students what it is really about. The kids are going to be doing this kind of thing anyway, unguided, so imagine how productive it could be if there were assignments, and a little guidance, etc. I suppose smart parents might already be doing this kind of thing. shalom.
Posted by: koa at June 4, 2005 09:29 AM Permalink
University, just because, rather than to prepare for one's future is a waste of time and money. In Israel the kids first go to the army or National Service. and then they sometimes travel. So by the time they study, they have an idea, and acceptance to university is to a major, and it's a three year program.
Posted by: muse at June 4, 2005 08:27 PM Permalink
Muse is right; by the time Israeli children have reached college age, they have gone through the army, have perhaps held leadership positions, no what it is to work with little free time, do something for someone else. THey come not only older, but more prepared to do work.
Posted by: Rachel Ann at June 4, 2005 08:42 PM Permalink
When your hobby is also your career, then going to work might be a pleasure. A professional sports person or recognised artist, for example.
I always fancied glass blowing, or this http://www.outline-uk.com/Neon.htm
How about swordsmithing? http://www.thearma.org/
Pericles
Posted by: Pericles at June 5, 2005 12:55 PM Permalink
This is very interesting, actually I'm having the same thought since I left school (which was 10 years ago). I live in Germany and although kids have the opportunities to take internships and visit companies I always thought it might be necessary to change the way of becoming a teacher. I mean here you leave school, you study at the university, you go back to school to be a teacher. Its a closed cycle somehow and although there are teachers that are very committed, curious and interested in miscellaneous things also a lot of them aren't. How can those people be able to draw a picture of the world out there and to give hints about the vast opportunities?? Difficult I'd say.
Posted by: heike at June 6, 2005 01:55 PM Permalink
My career goal when I was in high school was race car construction, which got me looked down upon both because it was considered blue collar and because I was a total dweeb about it. I let myself be pushed into college for mechanical engineering, which would have been useful in that field, but I'd have been far better off with a metalworking apprenticeship.
Of course if I had told people back in the '60s that I wanted my current line of work, using laptop computers and GPS mapping to optimise GSM wireless telephone networks, they really would have thought I was nuts.
Posted by: triticale at June 23, 2005 04:43 AM Permalink
June 05, 2005
Barukh Dayan Emet
I wish to extend condolences to Maria of Hatshepsut, on the death of her grandmother.
The traditional Jewish response on hearing of a death is:
ברוך דין אמת
Barukh Dayan Emet
Blessed is the True Judge
The only thing that can be done in the presence of the ultimate tragedy is to accept the truth. And the only consolation is the thought that, somehow, it is part of God's plan.
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Reality Catches Up
Reality
Check (via Instapundit):
This is part of the fun of following politics: the relation to reality is generally delayed, but is always there in the end. Unreal schemes often appear and even dominate for a time - fascism, Communism, the League of Nations are examples. But the truth eventually finds them out. I am sure that the "ever-closer Union" on which the European Union has been built from the beginning is one of these unreal schemes, since it believes in two falsities - uniformity where in fact there is diversity, and the primacy of government over people. The two main instruments by which truth reaches politics are votes and markets, which is why political Utopians instinctively dislike both.
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June 06, 2005
Rest In Peace, Bunker
It's hard for me to express my sadness
and shock at the news of
Bunker's death.
It was past midnight last night when I visited his blog and found out.
I wanted to respond immediately, but was too confused and overcome with
emotion to do so. Never have I felt more strongly the adage that you
don't know what you have till it's gone.
I visited Bunker's blog almost every day for more than a year, and he
visited mine. We almost never communicated directly, even by email or
comment. Yet we linked to each other, and inspired each other - at
least he me. Though I know from my statistics that I have quite a few
readers, I don't get feedback from many, and on certain topics that I
consider some of the most important, I get even less. Bunker was one of
the few who seemed to get the message.
For all that, the medium of the Internet is so incorporeal
that my cyber-relationships have a dreamlike quality to them. I don't
fully believe that they are real. Last night, when I learned of
Bunker's death, I was reminded that they are. I will miss him.
Michael
James Reed
"Bunker Mulligan"
1953-2005
Rest In Peace
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Thank you David.
Fortunately, his family was able to post the sad news on his blog so that all his blog friends would know. The death of a blogger is a new phenomenon which I discuss at http://www.estatevaults.com/lm/archives/001596.html
Posted by: Jill Fallon at June 11, 2005 03:02 PM Permalink
June 07, 2005
Why smart people defend bad ideas
Essential reading for smart people (via John Hawks):
Majoring in logic is not the kind of thing that makes people want to talk to you at parties, or read your essays. But one thing I did learn after years of studying advanced logic theory is that proficiency in argument can easily be used to overpower others, even when you are dead wrong. If you learn a few tricks of logic and debate, you can refute the obvious, and defend the ridiculous. If the people you’re arguing with aren’t as comfortable in the tactics of argument, or aren’t as arrogant as you are, they may even give in and agree with you. The problem with smart people is that they like to be right and sometimes will defend ideas to the death rather than admit they’re wrong. This is bad. Worse, if they got away with it when they were young (say, because they were smarter than their parents, their friends, and their parent’s friends) they’ve probably built an ego around being right, and will therefore defend their perfect record of invented righteousness to the death. Smart people often fall into the trap of preferring to be right even if it’s based in delusion, or results in them, or their loved ones, becoming miserable.
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Just dropped in after GNXP -- and thanks for a brilliant citation. The article itself by Scott Berkun is the greatest essay I myself never wrote (not smart enough), but that has always been somewhere in my head.
Posted by: Cathal Copeland at June 20, 2005 02:05 PM Permalink
A lot of this applies to dumb people as well, who often power their arguments through despite their obvious deficiciencies. Often smart people are inclined to give in because the idiot is convinced he is right and he wouldn't understand your counter-arguments anyway, so why bother.
Posted by: om_shalom at June 20, 2005 05:59 PM Permalink
We have been talking about this all week in my advanced logic class. Sometimes the only way to tell the truth from the rest of the garbage is to keep tossing it out one piece at a time. Eventually, under all the waste, you'll find something resembling the truth.
Posted by: Joan at June 24, 2005 09:41 PM Permalink
June 09, 2005
Khoisan Clicks
Amritas mentions the Khoisan languages in his latest post. The Khoisan languages are famous for having clicks as regular phonemes. I have always been curious about how these sounds are integrated into the language, so I did some searching and found a clip from The Click Song, by Miriam Makeba. (You can buy the whole song here.) I would be interested in longer (free) samples of Khoisan languages. If anyone can direct me to them, I would be most thankful.
Also check out !Xóõ - no, that's not a comic-book curse, !Xóõ is a Khoisan language. If I understand correctly, the exclamation point is a post-dental click and the X is a velar fricative (like kh in my Hebrew transcription).
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June 12, 2005
Shavu`ot
Tonight is the holiday of Shavu`ot (שבועות). Shavu`ot, in Hebrew, means 'weeks', referring to the following passage:
וּסְפַרְתֶּם
לָכֶם
מִמָּחֳרַת
הַשַּׁבָּת
מִיּוֹם
הֲבִיאֲכֶם
אֶת עֹמֶר
הַתְּנוּפָה
שֶׁבַע
שַׁבָּתוֹת
תְּמִימֹת
תִּהְיֶינָה
עַד
מִמָּחֳרַת
הַשַּׁבָּת
הַשְּׁבִיעִת
תִּסְפְּרוּ
חֲמִשִּׁים
יוֹם
וְהִקְרַבְתֶּם
מִנְחָה
חֲדָשָׁה
לַה'
Usfartem lakhem mimahorat hashabat
Miyom havi'akhem et `omer hat'nufa
Sheva` shabatot t'mimot tihyeyna
`Ad mimahorat hashabat hashvi`it
Tisp'ru hamishim yom
V'hiqravtem minha hadasha laH'
And you will count to yourselves from the day after the [Passover] holiday
From the day of your bringing the sheaf-waving [offering]
Seven complete weeks there will be
Until the day after the seventh week
You will count fifty days
And you will offer a new meal-offering to the Lord
In other words, from the day after Passover, you count seven weeks (49 days) and on the 50th day you make a holiday (חג) - hag. That is the holiday of Shavu'ot - Weeks. It is often called Pentecost in English, from the Greek word for 50.
Like most Jewish holidays, Shavu`ot is multifaceted. It celebrates the wheat harvest, the bringing of the first-fruits, and the giving of the Tora. There is a custom of eating milk products on this day, and Tiqun Leyl Shavu`ot (תיקון ליל שבועות) - The Fixing of the Night of Shavu`ot, in which you stay up all night and study Tora.
On Shavu`ot the Book of Ruth is read. Ruth is the paradigmatic convert to Judaism (not just in the literary sense, a lot of the laws of conversion are derived from the Book of Ruth). A convert to Judaism, like the Jews at Mount Sinai, is one who explicitly receives the Tora. It is something that Jews are supposed to do every day, but especially on Shavu`ot.
More about Shavu`ot here.
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June 21, 2005
Cochran, Hardy, Harpending, and me
I haven't posted anything to my blog in over a week, being very busy lately, and with the Shavu`ot holiday taking up a couple of days in the middle. There is also another reason: this paper (pdf), which was reported on by the New York Times, and The Economist, to name a few, and picked up on across the blogosphere. Gene Expression, which has been talking about this subject for a while, has a series of posts up on the subject:
Briefly, for those who have not yet heard about it, the paper (Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence, by Gregory Cochran, Jason Hardy, and Henry Harpending) claims that the average IQ of Ashkenazis is around 115, about one standard deviation above the general average of 100, and that this is the result of natural selection acting on an Ashkanazi population which for centuries specialized in intellectually demanding tasks like commerce and banking.Overclocking
Natural history of Ashkenazi I.Q.
The Urban Sink
Bad science?
The history of the Jews...a very special people...sort of
Medieval Jewish achievement
Metzenberg on Jews
One of the consequences of this selection pressure, they claim, is
the spread among the Ashkenazi population of genetic diseases which
have the a effect of raising intelligence. They hypothesize that
common Ashkenazi genetic diseases such as Tay-Sachs and Dysautonomia
are among them.
As one of the specimens under the microscope, I have been following the Ashkenazi selection debate with keenly-felt trepidation and intense curiosity. Curiosity, because, well, they're talking about me. Trepidation, because it puts the Jews under a dangerous spotlight - those who claim that such fears are out of date need only look at the generation that experienced the Holocaust: they thought the same thing - and the rising anti-Semitism among the Left and around the world.
Which doesn't mean that I think it should be suppressed. While a case can be made that this piece of knowledge or that does more harm than good in the world (nuclear bombs, for example) the only way to suppress knowledge is totalitarianism, and that bears a far higher price. You can't get away from the problem: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, who will decide which knowledge is permissible and which not? The only way forward is to seek the truth, and deal with it. The proper response to truth is more truth. Just don't forget your morals along the way, or the possibility that you might be wrong.
Overall, I find the paper's thesis extremely plausible (I feel no need to actually make a judgment: its conclusions are testable, though the precise historical mechanism isn't - we will soon find out). Natural selection is everywhere, you can't get away from it. Every population is selected for its habitat, including our own at this time. In that vein, I would like to add some observations. First of all, intellectually demanding occupations were not the only characteristic of the Ashkenazi environment. For example: Ashkenazis have been living in an urban environment for over 1000 years, I would expect some adaptations to reflect that. Another thing: Judaism. For example, Judaism prohibits sex during menstruation (but for a minimum of 5 days), plus 7 days thereafter, so women with short cycles or long periods can have trouble conceiving. Do Jewish woman have more regular cycles as a result?
And what about the other way around? The paper implicitly denys or minimizes the role of Judaism in Ashkenazi intellectual success. The tradition of sending sons to school at age 3, Talmudic study, and the intellectual character of Judaism in general, would be a correlated side-effect rather than causal factor, according to this story. But perhaps it has a different role, perhaps Judaism is an evolved response to the Jewish habitat? Hygiene, for example: Jews are required to wash their hands after urinating or defecating, and before eating.
But that is of little relevance in this day and age. More relevant: it is striking to me how much the historical habitat of the Jews resembles today's habitat for everyone. IQ is correlated with economic success in today's world like never before. Agriculture occupys a tiny fraction of the population. The vast majority are urban. And fertility today is below replacement rate in every modern society - as has been historically true for urban populations in general. Moreover, the tendency of high-IQ individuals having low fertility seems to an ancient pattern. How many children did Aristote or Plato have? The founding fathers of the US? The professors of Oxford and Cambridge? The Jewish population, urban, intellectual, fit this pattern: it was in decline for many centuries (10% of the Roman Empire was once Jewish, that would correspond to hundreds of millions today). Perhaps after centuries in their challenging habitat, Jewish culture evolved mechanisms for its survival? Observant Jews, with a birthrate of 4.5 children per woman, are likely the US's most fertile native-born urban population. In contrast, non-observant Jews are one of the least fertile sectors of the US population (way below replacement rate).
What can these mechanisms be? Well, for one thing, as I indicated above, Judaism strongly encourages sex on the 14th day of a woman's cycle (the first day that it is permitted, usually the night of the 13th day by non-Jewish reckoning, since the day begins at sundown) - just when she is most likely to be ovulating, and in general the religion encourages sex between husband and wife. But more important than that, I think, Judaism has strong cultural institutions for maintaining society against the background of urban life.
(I have frequently talked about this subject in the past, for example here, here, here.)
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Trackback from Hatshepsut, Stupid is who stupid does.. and vice versa:
Rishon Rishon's David is currently very occupied with this discussion on Jew's and their abnormally high IQ's. I personally do not like the strong faith people appear to have in intelligence tests. It is far too often that I've heard...
Almost all incidents of Tay Sachs occur among non-Jews these days, since people believe it to be an all-ashkenazic disease, so Jews take precautions while non-jews don't. The truth of the matter is that it isn't, it is just more common for ashkenazim to be carriers (1/50 as opposed to 1/300, or something like that.
The reasons you named for why askenazy Jews have a higher average IQ than most others is just one theory. I personally think it is just one of those things we can't explain. I also don't think that this discussion should have to harm Jews. People just need to get over this obsession with "measuring intelligence". IQ tests are only reliable to an extent (and not a great one), and only in certain societies. I know many Jews who are very or even exceptionally intelligent, but I've certainly known some incredibly stupid jews. The most intelligent person I've ever known, my father, was not Jewish.
Posted by: Maria at June 22, 2005 08:06 PM Permalink
I think it's a pity that people are so fixated on numbers.
I certainly don't think that genius = high IQ! Note, I was careful to say IQ and not intelligence. IQ is nothing more than the score you get on an IQ test. It measures what it measures. However, whatever that is is one factor in success in many areas.
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at June 22, 2005 10:26 PM Permalink
The post is fascinating.But I disagree with the evolutionary hipothesis. The commonly accepted intuition is that evolutions is very slow, and one thousand years is a compratively short period. Survivance patterns and genetical mix make the reproductive process very random, and to separate "noise" from signal you really need lots of iterations.
Posted by: Kantor at June 22, 2005 10:28 PM Permalink
Kantor: Read the paper, they specifically deal with your objection.
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at June 22, 2005 10:34 PM Permalink
"Almost all incidents of Tay Sachs occur among non-Jews these days, since people believe it to be an all-ashkenazic disease, so Jews take precautions while non-jews don't. The truth of the matter is that it isn't, it is just more common for ashkenazim to be carriers (1/50 as opposed to 1/300, or something like that."
duh...There's a huge difference between being a carrier and actually having it. Did you even read the study? What Cochran et al are sepculating is that certain genes for these diseases increase intelligence as heterozygous alleles. Sheesh.
"IQ tests are only reliable to an extent (and not a great one), and only in certain societies. I know many Jews who are very or even exceptionally intelligent, but I've certainly known some incredibly stupid jews."
Aren't you contradicting yourself? First you imply that IQ tests are subjective, then you talk about dumb and intelligent Jews you've met. Sorry, but an IQ score holds more weight than your personal opinion.
Seriously, just read the freaking paper or quit yapping.
Posted by: A Reminder at June 23, 2005 10:45 AM Permalink
"A reminder":
No I didn't read the study. I have, on the other hand, studied genetics, so you don't need to lecture me."Aren't you contradicting yourself?"
No I wasn't. You just didn't understand what I was saying.
"Sorry, but an IQ score holds more weight than your personal opinion."
I don't quite understand why you think I'd care about your opinion.
Posted by: Maria at June 26, 2005 04:05 AM Permalink
(((David)))
Posted by: jinnderella at June 27, 2005 02:16 PM Permalink
This is so very good. Even Henry and Greg should remember that the mechanisms of inheritance are infintely subtle and infinitely complex. The crude tools of statistics that we employ are woefully inadequate to section and assign individual causality to parameters.
Judaism is an error correcting code that has evolved to be extremely robust and flexible, even in the modern world.
I am waiting anxiously for your IQ post. ;)
June 23, 2005
Jewish Languages - Wikipedia Links
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June 24, 2005
I Guess I'm Jewish after all
According to Belief-O-Matic I'm (via Grumbles):
|
How about you?
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I consider myself a Christian, admittedly more a cultural than a dogmatic one, but still a Christian. This test scored Christianity first on the eleventh place.... (And I'm certainly not a Muslim (4th place.)
So I don't give much for Belief-o-matic ;-).
Posted by: Jo at June 25, 2005 07:37 PM Permalink
1. Reform Judaism (100%)
2. Bahá'í Faith (91%)
3. Mahayana Buddhism (90%)
4. Islam (89%)
5. Orthodox Judaism (89%)
6. Sikhism (89%)
7. Liberal Quakers (88%)
8. Neo-Pagan (87%)
9. Unitarian Universalism (86%)
10. New Thought (83%)
11. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (83%)
Well, it pretty closely hit the nail on the head for me with #1 (but what the heck is Sikhism?):
1. Reform Judaism (100%)
Posted by: Katie-Yael at June 26, 2005 02:58 AM Permalink
2. Sikhism (90%)
3. Liberal Quakers (88%)
4. Unitarian Universalism (81%)
5. Bahá'í Faith (74%)
6. Orthodox Judaism (73%)
7. Neo-Pagan (71%)
8. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (70%)
9. Islam (69%)
10. Jainism (68%)
11. New Age (63%)
12. Mahayana Buddhism (60%)
13. Secular Humanism (59%)
14. Orthodox Quaker (56%)
15. Taoism (48%)
16. Hinduism (48%)
17. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (47%)
18. Theravada Buddhism (47%)
19. New Thought (39%)
20. Scientology (37%)
21. Jehovah's Witness (35%)
22. Nontheist (31%)
23. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (27%)
24. Eastern Orthodox (26%)
25. Roman Catholic (26%)
26. Seventh Day Adventist (26%)
27. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (25%)
Well that was time consuming! I don't think my results are very 'accurate'. I thought I answered like a skeptic?
1. Orthodox Judaism (100%)
Posted by: Maria at June 27, 2005 03:18 PM Permalink
2. Islam (88%)
3. Sikhism (88%)
4. Reform Judaism (83%)
5. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (83%)
6. Bahá'í Faith (76%)
7. Jehovah's Witness (73%)
8. Orthodox Quaker (72%)
9. Jainism (66%)
10. Eastern Orthodox (65%)
11. Roman Catholic (65%)
12. Liberal Quakers (64%)
13. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (64%)
14. Seventh Day Adventist (62%)
15. Hinduism (59%)
16. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (55%)
17. Unitarian Universalism (52%)
18. Mahayana Buddhism (51%)
19. Neo-Pagan (48%)
20. Theravada Buddhism (41%)
21. New Age (35%)
22. New Thought (28%)
23. Scientology (27%)
24. Secular Humanism (25%)
25. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (21%)
26. Taoism (20%)
27. Nontheist (17%)
I don't think my results are very 'accurate'.
As inaccurate as they are, there seems to be a lot of information in it.
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at June 27, 2005 05:54 PM Permalink
June 27, 2005
Mandarin Syllables
Cool chart of Mandarin syllables. There are 22 initials and 35 finals. Add the four tones, and you get a theoretical maximum of 3080 possible syllables. But, as you can see from the chart, only about two-thirds of the possibilities are actually used, which means that Mandarin uses only around 2000 syllables (I didn't count). For those 2000 syllables, it has tens of thousands of characters!
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IQ Plague
It seems (from private correspondence) that many people missed the main point of my Cochran, Hardy, Harpending post. (Amritas got it.) So I'll try again.
A while back I speculated about the possibility of a meme plague: that because we decide on our course in life through our reason and emotions, rather than automatically going with "what worked" in the past, cultural transmission can resemble more an infection than an inheritance, and when it does it results not in steadily increasing fitness but in random fitness change, which may well be negative. In fact, all things being equal, since we have been evolving for fitness for so long it is almost inevitable that major changes will result in decreasing fitness. (All things are not equal: our reason/emotions seem pretty at guiding us to survival, but they're not so good at fertility.) As a result, the most insulated from the meme plague, who cleave most tightly to their traditional cultures will almost inevitably have an evolutionary advantage. Those who are in the forefront of western culture like to style themselves as being more "intelligent" than the rest of us. I have a feeling that this is true, and as a result they have lower fertility. Is there an intrinsic connection between high IQ and lower fertility? I think that this too is true. In other words, not only are high-IQ people more suseptable to meme plagues in general, they have a specific bias toward low fertility.
The Cochran, Hardy, Harpending paper (pdf) makes a big assumption: that in an intellectually challenging environment, higher IQ will necessarily result in higher fertility. Why? Because, as they have succinctly put it, with more money you can buy more food. Here's my problem with that argument: It is hard for me to think of any profession or lifestyle in which higher IQ doesn't help you out. Life is full of problems, and IQ helps you to solve them. Therefore, as Cochran, Hardy, and Harpending reason in another context, IQ must have fitness costs as well as benefits, otherwise all populations would have rising IQs. How many really smart people also had large families? Darwin was one, but I can't think of many others. Newton? Einstein? Washington? Jefferson? Tesla? Ford? All these people lived in a time and place when most people had large families, but they didn't.
I have a hunch as to what that is, too. Human beings look for a reason to live. Most of us find that reason in our friends and family, and especially in our children. People with high IQ are apt to find it in their ideas.
Which is all well and good as far as I'm concerned, but it does mean that high-IQ people tend to be less fit, from an evolutionary perspective, than people with lower IQ (up to a point, of course). But what would happen if you put a group of people in an environment so intellectually challenging, that you needed that high IQ merely to survive? Well, the first thing that would happen would be a big die-o