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Intellect or below, what would the world be like now?
And by average, I mean the average at any given time point. Basically, what would the world be like without all of them pesky experts.
I'm not sure you've really understood the concept of average!
I do. Maybe I should frame it better, if in a hypothetical world no one broke our average intellect in our reality at any given time point. Ever.
How do you like your diseases?
Also average would be a bit of a strange word as nobody would really know what it was for
How do you like your diseases?
18th century and of an airborne persuasion
if in a hypothetical world no one broke our average intellect in our reality at any given time point.
That's not much better!
Are you suggesting some sort of thought experiment along the lines of: what would the world be like if everyone of above average intelligence throughout history had mysteriously disappeared?
Ignoring the fact that we'd then need to re-calculate the average and remove a second batch of 'above average' and so on...
We'd probably still have progressed but much more slowly and not so far is the fairly obvious answer.
So .. you're glorying in your intellectual superiority by saying something idotic?
What if everyone had exactly the same IQ, and the chosen number just happens to be what we currently call average?
so, by definition, nobody is clever. Or stupid.
18th century and of an airborne persuasion
you're probably going to be in luck - Scarlet Fever and TB both due to make a comeback. Even cow pox even had a surprise appearance the last few weeks.
You'll be up to your pustulated arm pits in retro lurgy soon 🙂
There would be a hell of a lot less of us for a start. We would be living in a way closer to a primitive tribe than what we are at present.
There would be a hell of a lot less of us for a start.
one person's invention is currently preventing a third of the world's population from starving to death - and he was an utter arsehole too.
And by average, I mean the average at any given time point.
I agree with spin, it's still not making sense ...
At any point in time ?? Human intellect or intelligence hasn't really changed in tens of thousands of years...
The Romans weren't thick because they didn't have electricity....(for example) any more than someone born today in a deep amazon tribe is thicker?
Basically, what would the world be like without all of them pesky experts.
Presuming what you mean is everyone is thicker... so the most intelligent are what we would score average then you are still going to have experts.... going back to this hidden amazon tribe... (or whatever) you'd still have people who were specialists in one thing or another... regarded as "experts" .. someone would be "expert" at making darts and someone else in identifying frogs ... or picking berries etc.
This forum would be a damn sight less entertaining I’d imagine
Like clones... what if we were all clones that maybe looked different, but all had the same personality? Cos Intellect is all part of personality isn’t it.
Man, that would be weird. We’d all have the same opinions and everything. There definitely wouldn’t be an Internet.
I too don’t understand the OPs requirement, yet do understand the concept.
If humans were less intelligent, not fewer, but less then I suspect (rather imagine, because that’s all I have.. an imagined scenario) then presumably we’d be still back about 200 years with the industrial revolution just becoming a thing.
The problem with that is there will always be smarter intelligent humans in a group, it’s part of what a humans make up is. We have the ability to both comprehend a problem and solve it, or seek to solve it.
So.. we may have progressed slower, but we’d still be on the same trajectory.
IMO
Imagine a low pass filter that only let's people of average intelligence or less through to reality since the dawn of time. All the really clever people are in limbo busy not existing in our reality. What would the world be like if that were the case? And are you sure it isn't the case already?
Intelligence is irrelevant. Our world has evolved by the masses following leaders, so it’s leadership qualities that mater and history tells us that there is no correlation to leadership qualities and intelligence - there have been plenty of stupid leaders through history and plenty of intelligent people willing to follow stupid leaders. I don’t intelligence does not correlate with making the correct decision at any given time - intelligent people are not immune to making stupid decisions. And if everyone had equivalent leadership ‘skills’ we’d all be killing each other because that’s what has happened in history when leaders clashed....they declare war.
If smart alec's hadn't invented religion as a means of control and subjugation for the masses, we would be living in the world of the future by now.
Human intellect or intelligence hasn’t really changed in tens of thousands of years…
thats not strictly true - the genetic potential for intelligence doesn't necessarily change but the ability to reach that potential does. Diet, longevity, health, civilisation, culture, language and a whole bunch of other things have an influence on what degree of an individuals or society's potential gets expressed.
Intelligence is a mix of genetic and environmental factors and it even ebbs and flows in an individual as their circumstances change
Intelligence is irrelevant. Our world has evolved by the masses following leaders, so it’s leadership qualities that mater and history tells us that there is no correlation to leadership qualities and intelligence
Codes, the silicon chip, the internal combustion engines, nuclear physics, Wifi etc.
All discovered by leadership?
Codes, the silicon chip, the internal combustion engines, nuclear physics, Wifi etc.
All discovered by leadership?
All the result of patronage
At any point in time ?? Human intellect or intelligence hasn’t really changed in tens of thousands of years…
In all seriousness, see the Flynn effect.
But the thread was more aimed at being idiotic light hearted banter.
Intelligence is irrelevant
Don't worry about that, answer the question. What would the world be like? Please thoroughly consult Wikipedia to know which contributions to the world made by people of above average intelligence to remove. Once done, please post back. Thank you.
Everyone would win a prize, just for taking part.
The neanderthals would have won...
There would be no countdown on channel four.
Our world has evolved by the masses following leaders, so it’s leadership
So, like explorers, inventors, engineers, mavericks, never done anything for the World’s development... I, myself, think that is bollocks.
(sorry, mikews, just noticed saying the same. Good)
There would be no countdown on channel four.
And Rachel Riley would just be an ordinary attractive woman.
Intelligence is irrelevant. Our world has evolved by the masses following leaders, so it’s leadership qualities that mater and history tells us that there is no correlation to leadership qualities and intelligence – there have been plenty of stupid leaders through history and plenty of intelligent people willing to follow stupid leaders. I don’t intelligence does not correlate with making the correct decision at any given time – intelligent people are not immune to making stupid decisions. And if everyone had equivalent leadership ‘skills’ we’d all be killing each other because that’s what has happened in history when leaders clashed….they declare war.
Some contradictory points here - the masses do follow leaders - but it was usually the less than stellar leaders, in terms of intellect that led their people off cliff edges. See the various civil wars around the world, and the idiots that have led those. Hitler has been estimated as having a verbal IQ of about 120, whilst Roosevelt was up there at 146. Who made the better decisions out of those two?
one person’s invention is currently preventing a third of the world’s population from starving to death – and he was an utter arsehole too.
The Just Eat app?
The neanderthals would have won…
They did, very cleverly by marrying their DNA with Homo Sapiens ensuring they would live on
They did, very cleverly by marrying their DNA with Homo Sapiens ensuring they would live on
By marry, do you mean getting gang raped by homo sapiens? Wasn't the problem with neanderthals, that their social groups were nowhere near the size of Sapiena?
I’m not sure you’ve really understood the concept of average!
Averages can can be tricky. After all, I have more than the average number of legs. Really, I do.
People seem to be taking the question a bit too literally. It's an interesting thought experiment even though the nature of intellect or IQ means that it's not really possible for everyone to be the same.
The question really seems to be, what would it be like if there weren't any geniuses (or idiots too)? Whether you count interpersonal skills/verbal ability/leadership etc. as part of intellect complicates it, of course, but if we just limit it to things like maths, science, etc., I think we would still be living in caves. Technology like making stone tools can be discovered by accident and mastered by average people, but I don't think average people could have developed geometry and other more abstract mathematical tools. Without that, you wouldn't get very far. Things that seems simple and obvious to us, like clocks and navigation at sea, took seriously smart people centuries to work out. Average people can understand them once they are explained, but figuring it out in the first place requires a completely different level of smarts.
How do you know this isn't already the case?
How do you know this isn’t already the case?
What, that everyone is the same?
What if
, by definition, nobody is clever. Or stupid.
We wouldnt have needed the thread about Geraint Thomas!
What, that everyone is the same?
He said everyone of average intellect or below. So that just means removing the most intelligent but still leaving a variation. This could already be the case no?
We wouldnt have needed the thread about Geraint Thomas!
We didn't need it anyway.
There would be more deaths and illnesses along with a more simple lifestyle. The more deaths is bad, the different lifestyle not really.
You would be living in simpler times but would have evolved as even the average person can think of better ways to do stuff but they would just be more simple (and generally not as good) solutions
Notice I say "You" as I wouldn't be part of it as I am above average 🙂
There would be more deaths and illnesses along with a more simple lifestyle. The more deaths is bad, the different lifestyle not really.
Theres a bit of a Catch 22 though. More death, more illness ... a 'Simple Life Style' would be one of hardship and fear. That in itself has an impact on intelligence - or more the ability for people's capacity for intelligence to reach its potential. That kind of lifestyle is very blinkered - hand to mouth, day to day - there isn't room to have bigger ideas, take long views, make plans.
Poverty impares cognitive function
At a society level those pressures of death and illness are burden for every one, not just the sick and dying. A lot of the advances health care we made in the past century were partly the work of clever people having great ideas and partly because a previous cure or treatment relieved a burden of care and freed up time and money to address wider issues. The artificial hip - for instance - was developed in a dedicated TB hospital that suddenly didn't have any patients. The burden of treating and caring for people with TB was huge a century ago it was the countries single biggest health concern - over 100,000 cases a year all needing weeks and weeks of treatment and followed by a lifetime of complications (my uncle still suffers complications from losing a kidney to TB 70 years ago) - cure and immunisation gave the whole medical profession time to get on with something else.
Average = xbar = (x1+x2+x3+...xn)/n
if everyone has an intellect of xbar or below then everyone must have the same intellect xbar. The real question is are we more intelligent, and if so what drives that increase? Is it genetics? Do more intelligent people breed more intelligent offspring. Is this countered by having fewer offspring?
Variation certainly plays a part, but as mentioned, epigenetics probably plays at least as big a role.
He said everyone of average intellect or below. So that just means removing the most intelligent but still leaving a variation. This could already be the case no?
In the sense that there doesn't seem to be an upper limit to IQ, yes, the sample we have has a restricted range over the maximum theoretically possible. However, true geniuses such as Newton, Descartes, etc. are massively more intelligent than the average person.
The thread title says "If humans were historically all of average". You can only achieve that by removing the people at the upper and lower ends of the spectrum, not by only removing the upper end.
Whatever the case, if you cropped the human race so that everyone was within one standard deviation of average IQ, I doubt that we would have developed beyond simple technology. There would still be some people quite a bit smarter than others, but someone one SD above average does not have the level of IQ needed for the truly earth shattering discoveries.
Its quite an interesting though experiment
Even dumb humans are pretty clever. An average 5 year old given a box of Lego can construct practical machines that function in their environment - they can build a toy car and "drive them round the carpet"
So average humans would have still been able to use stuff lying around and adapt it to their environment - so we'd have houses and clothes and we'd have learned to domesticate and use animals
But we'd have no technology beyond the simplest of machines - like a cart or wagon. We might not even have developed writing. Without "clever" outliers we'd have got no further than Stone Age agrarian society
There would be a hell of a lot less of us for a start. We would be living in a way closer to a primitive tribe than what we are at present.
Though that tribe would no longer be primitive, just average.
Silly question anyway. Intelligence isn't a scalar quantity. Lots of things were discovered or invented just by someone in the right place at the right time. Or someone who had a flash of insight then did not much else the rest of their lives.
If humans were historically all of average
Mass extinction as none of them can dominate and none of them can think differently.
Lots of things were discovered or invented just by someone in the right place at the right time.
Sure, lots of basic technology is discoverable by average people who get lucky, but fundamental scientific stuff is almost never discovered by luck. Algebra, geometry, timekeeping, chemistry (in contrast to alchemy), etc require abstract creativity that average people don't have. Once those theoretical explanations are understood, average people can learn about them, but discovering them requires a much higher level of intelligence. Steam engines weren't discovered by someone who happened to be in the right place at the right time, they were created by someone who figured things out at a much deeper level.
STW would look like a forum for intellectuals 🙂
Except we'd all be dead without antibiotics, wouldn't have the wheel, no electricity to run our computers, living in caves or huts
wouldn’t have the wheel
We'd most certainly have the wheel...
...29ers though would be in short supply
Except we’d all be dead without antibiotics, wouldn’t have the wheel, no electricity to run our computers, living in caves or huts
We weren't all dead before antibiotics
We would have the wheel as some average people would have come up with it
Probably wouldn't have electricity or computers (probably a good thing)
We could live in houses as average people can make houses. I live in a house made of mud with a straw roof and it is fine.
Algebra, geometry, timekeeping, chemistry (in contrast to alchemy), etc require abstract creativity that average people don’t have.
I think we'd have got there in the end - a different route perhaps, but unless we were all very stupid we'd have managed. The genius of Newton et al. is coming up with it in a flash of inspiration, in their heads, not arriving at it by slow hard graft.
What you need is someone who's prepared to sit down and work on a problem. These people don't have to be geniuses, but they have to be methodical and persistent.
Average people don't have abstract creativity? Phew, anyone for eugenics.
If everyone was average we wouldn't get standout statements like this..
You’ll be up to your pustulated arm pits in retro lurgy soon
🙂
The genius of Newton et al. is coming up with it in a flash of inspiration, in their heads, not arriving at it by slow hard graft.
No. Newton and Leibniz independently developed integral calculus. That's not something you get to by slow hard graft, it requires a massive conceptual insight that average people don't have. Once you get the concept, the details are fairly easy to grasp even for fairly average people, but you'll never get there without that massive conceptual insight. That's just one example. Descarte's synthesis of algebra and geometry is another. Seems kinda obvious in hindsight, but no average person would ever have figured that out just through slow hard graft. Without fundamental leaps like that, none of the modern stuff we take for granted would have been possible.
double post - just raising the average!
none of the modern stuff we take for granted would have been possible.
Well, if you don't know what you are missing. Just as we don't have things today that we will have in 200 years time but I am not missing them.
Average people don’t have abstract creativity?
It doesn't say that average people don't have abstract creativity. It says that they (or we, to be honest) don't have the level of abstract creativity needed for the discoveries that shake the foundations of our knowledge. Leibniz, Newton, Einstein, etc didn't merely invent some cool gadget, they completely reconceptualized our understanding of how things work. Average people's minds just don't work at that level.
I still think humans wouldn't have survived. The USP of humans is big brain - which allows outliers to make leaps forward and others to understand these.
If we weren't wiped out by more physically gifted species IIdont think we would not have made it past the stone age. Just think of the intellectual stretch to develop even the most basic forms of metallurgy from a zero base.
Even with our huge intellectual capability most of human timeline is "pre-history" and even with the establishment of anything approaching civilisation population growth was very slow until industrialization and the development of modern medicine.
World population since 5000BC
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/
The thread title says “If humans were historically all of average”. You can only achieve that by removing the people at the upper and lower ends of the spectrum, not by only removing the upper end.
I hadn't really aimed such a daft thread at stats literate people, I had thought of cropping both sides of the normal distribution curve to make the thread acceptable to certain statistics and maths types on here - but decided that a hypothetical world would be more entertaining with the idiots left in it.
Part of the entertainment value in a proper toilet/shower thoughts thread is in offending fellow nerds into nit picking anyway.
The genius of Newton et al. is coming up with it in a flash of inspiration, in their heads, not arriving at it by slow hard graft.
It takes both - and it takes the graft of many too.
It has been said of Einstein that he was an overnight success after 20 years of failure. These flashes of inspiration don't just happen to clever people effortlessly. Its people who've pitched themselves against a problem in a context where lots of people are also trying and challenging and sharing findings. In retrospect we hang the merit on one person but they'll have generally been part of a whole constellation of people who were approaching a problem form all sorts of angles.
Logie Baird and his invention of television for instance - he didn't invent it, he just managed to make a working version of the idea. But the idea preceded Baird's solution by decades and numerous were attacking the problem in different ways. His flash of inspiration was just the cherry on the top but 'television' was really just a combination of other people's efforts and ideas.
And thats the issue with inspiration and creativity generally. We tend to think of it as something that comes from within - that from inside of this person comes something that never existed before. But really what is happening when creative or inventive people are being creative and inventive is that they are noticing things, filtering things out and making connections - its not coming from within.
Most of the responses seem to indicate the stupidest people being left behind. Your average person (in my opinion) is pretty smart. Add to this that some people can be gifted in one way and not in others and I don’t think things would be as terrible as some are making out.
My wife’s late grandfather was extremely intelligent. To the point where you couldn’t really have a conversation with him as he’d just lose you. However, he had zero emotional intelligence and was an utter ****wit when it came to making a brew, sandwich, putting up a shelf etc.
I think we would die off much quicker as a species if the super intelligent (in IQ terms) didn’t have the average person to look after the day to day stuff. Whereas the average joe could just muddle along. Yeah, we’d be missing out on some breakthroughs, but we wouldn’t know about them anyway.
Where are we drawing the line with regards to intelligence and is it basically the high IQ types that we’d be without or the mechanically minded, those good with their hands etc?