Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!udel!princeton!notecnirp!rks
From: rks@notecnirp.Princeton.EDU (Ramesh Sitaraman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Inheritance of IQ
Message-ID: <18526@princeton.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 5 Aug 89 05:49:19 GMT
References: <5453@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <2061@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> <5480@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <458@edai.ed.ac.uk> <18330@princeton.Princeton.EDU> <483@edai.ed.ac.uk>
Sender: news@princeton.Princeton.EDU
Reply-To: rks@notecnirp.UUCP (Ramesh Sitaraman)
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Princeton University
Lines: 41

>>In article <458@edai.ed.ac.uk> cam@edai (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>
>You assert that there are essential characteristics which take a long
>time to respond to selective pressure, and external characteristics
>which respond rapidly. Evidence?
>
>You assert that IQ is one of the essential characteristics. Evidence?

I agree that I have no evidence that IQ is such a characteristic.
It was only an (educated?) conjecture. Especially as we dont yet
know how to measure it.

>
>Note that the largest and most rapid recent evolutionary change which
>the human race has suffered is a very considerable change in brian size;

Is this really true ? The Neanderthals are supposed to have had
a bigger brain than us but they were certainly not more intelligent.
In fact Neanderthal sites round the world shows such remarkable
similarity indicating a complete lack of innovation.

>this is usually presumed to be correlated with becoming cleverer. If we
>accept your assertions, this is one of the most unlikely evolutionary
>changes to have happened. How come?

I don't think we have become any cleverer in the past 50,000 years
or so (in terms of intrinsic cleverness). In my understanding,
the evolutionary change that anthropologists propose 
that caused the so called "great-leap  forward" is the of the larynx
that helped us communicate with a larger variety of sounds. With
this new communication, we could collectively utilise the brain
power of the entire community past and present and what this
resulted in is history !

		    Ramesh


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