[ExI] re end of world

[Keith Henson]

The SAT being an IQ test is interesting.

IQ falls on a bell curve, and like height, it is subject to selection
on both ends.  If it was not, then the center of the curve would drift
till it did have equal selection on both ends.  Of course, the current
environment has existed for too short a time for IQ to be well adapted
and is unlikely to persist for even another couple of human
generations.

In any case, the coupling from high IQ to high fertility is currently
negative.  That wasn't always the case in western Europe, particularly
the UK where Gregory Clark did a bunch of research on the probated
wills.  Over a *long time,* at least 20 human generations, before much
birth control and when famines were common, the human population was
subjected to intense selection in that the children of the well off
were much more likely to survive than those of the poor.

I suspect that this selection was on top of some thousands of year of
selection for the traits needed to get through a temperate winter.
After an exceptionally cold winter, the children of those who
anticipated the need and had built up an extra large stock of firewood
took over the farms of those who had frozen to death.

The selection wasn't focused entirely toward intelligence, but that
got dragged along in the advantages of numeracy, literacy and
willingness to delay gratification.  Impulsiveness was selected
against.  The selection was as intense as the one the Russians used to
make tame foxes.

I would stick in the URL for Dr. Clark's paper, but it's gone from UC
Davis and I don't want to take the time finding it on the wayback
machine.

Keith