"Mainstream Science On Intelligence"

[sid]

For those of you who are interested in questions regarding race and intelligence this is an interesting read.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream_Science_on_Intelligence

[togor]

In his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond posits that hunter-gatherer societies (such as the ones he knew well from his days of field study in New Guinea), possessed higher innate intelligence on average than societies like ours that are organized around food production--especially before the age of modern medicine. His reasoning was that in a European society of say 1600, disease was the predominant killer and indiscriminate as to the intelligence of the victim. Whereas in hunter-gatherer societies of low population density, death by disease ranked well below death by predation or accident--things that intelligence can help avoid. I know avid hunters who can tell an oak from a maple from an elm from a conifer in the woods, and that's about all, when it comes to plant lore. One would expect more from a three-year-old in a hunter-gatherer society.

[dogtag]

If we were transported into the world of 30,000 years ago
with only a deer skin to keep us warm in the ongoing ice age
with hungry Lions, Tigers and Bears behind every tree.
Could any of us survive like those guys did ?
I very much doubt it.

[bruce]

Re: Transported/survive. If some of us were transported by 30,000 years, our survival would be, to put it mildly, challenging. Quite likely many of us would do well simply b/c we have a background in the woods/fields from hunting/fishing, etc. We have a modicum of basic skills that would advantage us in the outdoors. In the dead of winter, we'd all struggle. If we were in the late spring or summer, we'd have a easier time. But ... if you took men/women from 30,000 years ago and transported them to our era, they'd most likely not survive long enough to be fitted for a straitjacket since they'd have absolutely no resistance to any diseases. JMHO. Sincerely. bruce.