[ExI] re end of world

[Dan]

On Sep 11, 2015, at 9:45 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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.

Is that selection only for IQ? It would seem selection for delayed gratification -- if that can be decoupled from IQ (or intelligence) and other things -- might have gone on during that period.

Regards,

Dan
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http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
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