<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>On Sep 11, 2015, at 9:45 AM, Keith Henson <<a href="mailto:hkeithhenson@gmail.com">hkeithhenson@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><span>The SAT being an IQ test is interesting.</span><br><span></span><br><span>IQ falls on a bell curve, and like height, it is subject to selection</span><br><span>on both ends. If it was not, then the center of the curve would drift</span><br><span>till it did have equal selection on both ends. Of course, the current</span><br><span>environment has existed for too short a time for IQ to be well adapted</span><br><span>and is unlikely to persist for even another couple of human</span><br><span>generations.</span><br><span></span><br><span>In any case, the coupling from high IQ to high fertility is currently</span><br><span>negative. That wasn't always the case in western Europe, particularly</span><br><span>the UK where Gregory Clark did a bunch of research on the probated</span><br><span>wills. Over a *long time,* at least 20 human generations, before much</span><br><span>birth control and when famines were common, the human population was</span><br><span>subjected to intense selection in that the children of the well off</span><br><span>were much more likely to survive than those of the poor.</span><br><span></span><br><span>I suspect that this selection was on top of some thousands of year of</span><br><span>selection for the traits needed to get through a temperate winter.</span><br><span>After an exceptionally cold winter, the children of those who</span><br><span>anticipated the need and had built up an extra large stock of firewood</span><br><span>took over the farms of those who had frozen to death.</span><br><span></span><br><span>The selection wasn't focused entirely toward intelligence, but that</span><br><span>got dragged along in the advantages of numeracy, literacy and</span><br><span>willingness to delay gratification. Impulsiveness was selected</span><br><span>against. The selection was as intense as the one the Russians used to</span><br><span>make tame foxes.</span><br><span></span><br><span>I would stick in the URL for Dr. Clark's paper, but it's gone from UC</span><br><span>Davis and I don't want to take the time finding it on the wayback</span><br><span>machine.</span><br></div></blockquote><div><br></div>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.<br><br><div><div><font size="3"><span style="line-height: 20px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.231373);">Regards,</span></font></div><div><font size="3"><span style="line-height: 20px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.231373);"><br></span></font></div><div><div><font size="3"><span style="line-height: 20px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.231373);">Dan</span></font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 13pt;"> Sample my Kindle books via:</span></div><div><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/" target="_blank" style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 13pt;">http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/</a></div></div></div></body></html>