On Sat, 3 Nov 2001, Ken Follett wrote:

> Whereas in the city state there is a social network that keeps
> dumb people alive, in the process it being difficult to keep them from
> interbreeding. Though dumb people in the jungle may get eaten they
> survive in cities. In a city state smart people are equally susceptible
> as dumb people to contagious deseases such as the black plague. City
> states therefore tend to develop dumb down populations and that may be
> why solitary intellectual genius is highly valued by groups. If everyone
> is smart then nobody is outstanding.

I disagree with the above.  First of all, cities have not existed long
enough to be a significant influence on human evolution.  Second, it was
only in the industrial era that cities came to have a lower death rate
than the countryside, so the concept that a jungle environment is more
challenging is completely bogus; jungles are also places of abundant food.
Third, the survival challenges in preindustrial cities are not necessarily
less demanding of intellect than survival challenges in a jungle.

One challenge to the whole concept of evolution and intelligence is that,
if intelligence is pro-survival and heritable in a straightforward way,
then we ALL should be highly intelligent, just as we all have fingernails
and immune systems.  Since this doesn't seem to be the case, either
intelligence is (a) heritable, if at all, in some weird, sneaky, non-
straightforward way, or (b) not very relevant to surivival.  I would posit
a third possibility: that humans are social creatures, and community
survival depends on having people with ranges of various different
abilities to allow specialization.

> It interests me that I know very few successful people in NYC that can
> realistically claim that they were born and bred in NYC. Intelligent
> people move to the city for similar reasons as they once went West, ran
> after gold in the Sierras or Alaska, or went to sea on whaling ships...
> for the opportunity and prospect of wealth. Dumb people I think do not
> move around very much and their movement may be dependent on their
> degree of dumbness and reliance on a social network.

On the upside, I don't think it's a matter of intellect at all, but of
ambition.  Per an article in the Atlantic Monthly a few years ago, people
who move across state lines are more economically successful than those
who remain where they were born, even taking into account all the usual
factors like education, intelligence, family background, etc.

Out here in the Midwest, we have plenty of born-and-bred New Yorkers who
are very successful, just as you see vice versa.

On the downside, do not underestimate the power of passivity.

There is a fun game that sociologists sometimes play: measure the
intelligence of people who engage in any specific voluntary activity, and
you'll always find higher than average intelligence.  People who play in
bowling leagues or belong to garden clubs have higher intelligence than
those who don't.  People who attend church services or football games have
higher intelligence than those who don't.  People who bet on horses have
higher intelligence than those who don't.  And on and on.

The reason for these very consistent results is that "those who don't"
always includes a vast number of passive people who do very little that is
not required of them.  The passives score low on intelligence tests,
perhaps because their native intellect gets rusty from disuse and lack of
stimulation.  What they really lack are curiosity and drive.

                                 Larry

---
Lawrence Kestenbaum, [log in to unmask]
Washtenaw County Commissioner, 4th District
The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com
Mailing address: P.O. Box 2563, Ann Arbor MI 48106