Scientific American

Without the rigours of strong selection in our extended urban conglomerates-no more necessity of getting it right the first time on that spear throw-the slow but relentless decline of those 2,000 to 5,000 cognition-related genes has already begun-as this argument goes. Crabtree begins the first part of his essay by asserting that the average citizen from Athens circa 1,000 B.C.-or anyone from Africa, India, Asia or the Americas millennia back-would be among the “brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions, with a good memory, a broad range of ideas, and a clear-sighted view of important issues”-personal qualities supplemented by astonishing emotional aplomb. This hyper-fit type would have prevailed even before the rise of civilization:

The verdict is now in from whatever passes as the scientific community this weekend: We’re not just dumb — we’re getting dumber…

Of course, to take his argument to its logical conclusion: The best solution out there would be to find some way to have sabre-toothed tigers eat the insanely slow ones in the far left-hand lane of Deerfoot Trail… That is, of course, if we don’t assume that the insanely fast ones (who wipe themselves out of the gene pool so regularly) are not their own version of the same…

😉