Ya know Ludovic, as I first started reading your post I thought immediately that it was going to be an Anti-science post going on about how worthless the scientific method is. Reading it makes through, however, shows your opinion to be that the scientific method has worked “too” well. Hehe. You should work for hollyword.
(just complimenting your post, no sarcasm or anything inteded)
What was the question again?
Actually, I’ve wondered the same thing and what I figured was that given all the safeguards that exist in modern society (relatively safe jobs, not a lot of wars that affect civilians, medicince given to pretty much everyone, government assistance, etc.), there’s no Darwinian reason for “dumb people” to die off/not reproduce as there used to be. The percentage (of doofuses) is, IMO probably the same as it’s been for thousands of years. Also, I’m sure that the previously stated idea that people are in contact with a greater number of people widens the sample size considerably.
Ludovic: So, you would say that the scientific method has increased the general store of information at the cost of making individuals less likely to think `deeply’ or on an intuitive level? Interesting argument, but I don’t know that a good case can be made for it.
On the one hand, yes, individuals are less likely to come across something totally unknown to the world at large. On Earth, the major exploration has been done, there are no new continents, and most macroscopic species most groups of humans are likely to run in to have been classified and studied. Humans are not going to be killed by a totally new kind of disease or an unknown species of snake any more than they are going to wander into an unknown desert or forest. By that reasoning, it would seem obvious that stupid people can survive: The unknown dangers are almost eliminated.
On the other hand, what does that have to do with deep thought? The ancient sailors, who were always on the edge of the known world as far as their core cultures were concerned, weren’t prone to making great advances in philosophy or intuition. They simply tried to survive and get back to port often enough to get paid and put their money to use.
Similarly, the pre-scientific natural philosophers' were given to bizarre notions and time-wasting preconceptions. For example, Aristotle thought that women were born with fewer teeth than men, even though he was married and (presumably) had access to plenty of females. Plato, to use another example, denigrated experimentation in favor of pure thought’, and Pythagorus made a cult out of his mathematics.
All of them were geniuses, but they were geniuses crippled by a lack of systemization and method. They couldn’t go as far or as fast as Bacon or Jefferson or Edison because they were constanty stymied by their own backwards notions.
In situations such as this, when people say something like “people nowadays are so _____”, I kind of sigh and roll my eyes. While I have no doubt that humans today are worse off than our ancestors in some ways and better off in others, I doubt very seriously that it’s to any extreme degree.
I think the main reason that people believe this is because we really are moving towards a global village mentality where we hear about everything around the world instead of just things that happened down the street. Our worldview is larger and the dynamics in it are obviously going to be as well.
If television is any mirror of society then I would say we are on the fast track to social hell. I can’t watch a “reality” program for more than 5 seconds without wincing at the immature, vitriolic behavior of the participants. But then, history has seen the pendulum of social behavior swing back and forth. I just hate having to see this side of the swing.
I realize this is an IQ question but I think poor social skills are seen as stupid behavior and therefore, the person is perceived as stupid.
I also think that each new generation has had a progressively “softer” lifestyle and therefore, matures at a later age. To me, an 18-year-old today is a virtual child in comparison to my friends at that age.
But it’s not. Intentionally so. Reality TV picks jerks, idiots and people with outrageous personalities because they’re more entertaining than normal, reasonable, fully functional human beings. And they also edit to make them appear as crazy, sexy and dumb as possible.
Derleth: I totally agree with the last half of your post. I am assuming for the moment however, that there is this nebulous thing called “intelligence”, which isnt necessarily the case. That the same thought process that let you figure out where food was likely located or where the enemy tribe likely was also helps you figure out mathematical formulae.
Since we are no longer hampered by, as you put it “backwards notions,” it is indeed true that if intelligence IS a monolith, that the SAME amount of intelligence combined with the scientific method will make it much easier for us to appear smart than before. But think how smart someone like Pythagoras or Archimedes had to be to get a lot of stuff right without it.
So if we will largely be supported by our peers in day to day life, and advances will not require as many complete geniuses, genius-level intelligence could very well go the way of eyesight in cave fish.
On the other hand, if intelligence is NOT a monolith, then we may be selecting FOR certain types of intelligence. But this is less likely IMO, since it would only confer an evolutionary advantage to a few, while their less-intelligent peers would still reap the benefits of their work and pass on their genes.
Actually (as you probably know), they all denigrated experimentation in favor of “pure thought”; Plato simply applied that principle the most broadly and painstakingly.
Hence I don’t think it’s appropriate to say that they were “crippled by a lack of systemization and method”: rather, I think, it was inevitable that the first scientists would fall into the trap of excessive deductive thought. They saw the wonderful usefulness of mathematics (especially geometry), and the way further reasoning could discover new patterns in them (which increased their usefulness), and figured that the same process could be applied to other sciences, such as physics and government. (Plato of course epitomized this by reasoning from the superiority of reason itself.) The only way that humans could learn that such a method is flawed was to discover that nothing could simply be assumed, and the only way they could learn that was to disprove, one by one, each idea that had previously been accepted without question: to discover, e.g., that two points do not make a line, that an object in motion will remain in motion, and ultimately, that an outside force posessing intelligence and reason is not necessary for an ordered and complex system to exist (as in biology, chemistry, economics, politics, ethics, . . . ). And of course the old erroneous ideas took much longer to disprove than it took for people to assume them, and deduce things from them.
So, I think, it was inevitable that science would begin with deduction before realizing the supremacy of induction. And that had nothing to do with a lack of “systemization and method”; it was simply the natural course of things.
As to the absurdities that some of them believed, such as women having more teeth than men: well, I honestly don’t know how that came about, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the erroneous view of the scientific process that was their true fault. I especially wouldn’t accuse Aristotle of a lack of “systemization and method,” since his biological work was more organized and scientific than anything that followed it for many centuries. And while I don’t think that he was an empiricist as some claim, I think his reactions to the absurdities of Plato indicated one of the first realizations – if only halfway made – that their approach to science was wrong. Hence his work was an important – and inevitable – step in the path toward modern science.
Just my relatively uninformed view of this subject, formed after reading a few works of Plato and Aristotle.
Er, fewer teeth, not more.
And when I say Plato “epitomized” the aforementioned concept, I mean it in the sense provided by Merriam-Webster of “to serve as the typical or ideal example of”. Perhaps a better word would have been “idealized” or something to that effect.
Amen. That could have come from the pen of Cecil himself. Er, you’re not him, are you?
Being 19 I’ve observed a lot of people in my age group and… you’re right. My generation hasn’t seen a major economic breakdown like the 70s (most of us barely have any recollection of '88, if at all) and we grew up in the rather uneventful decade of the 90s (“Dad! We’re from the MTV generation. We feel neither highs nor lows.”) We’re used to our cell phones, IM, and many (not most) teens had cars their parents helped pay for. There is not any push to do anything but upgrade the cell plan so you can surf the net on it, so things are just… stale.
Upon reading this I felt obliged to chime in with the wisdom (??) shared by J in MIB II: (sorry I can’t remember the exact wording) - “A person is an intelligent, often rational being capable of logic, work, good deeds, etcetera. People are frightened, wreckless, destructive, etc.” My very limited exposure to people in my work environment (pharmaceutical quality) leads me to believe this is fairly accurate - no question the individual members of the masses are bright, but the group as a whole invariably groans upon receiving the news that “we need to beef up our validation documentation”, and awaits the lone voice to find grounds to complain and justify a continuation of laziness. What was my point? Ah, yes: if I am to sit and explain the situation to the individual, there is never any question as to the necessity of the changes. Presented to the whole, there will always be questions. One person > intelligence > masses.
Upon reading this I felt obliged to chime in with the wisdom (??) shared by J in MIB II: (sorry I can’t remember the exact wording) - “A person is an intelligent, often rational being capable of logic, work, good deeds, etcetera. People are frightened, wreckless, destructive, etc.” My very limited exposure to people in my work environment (pharmaceutical quality) leads me to believe this is fairly accurate - no question the individual members of the masses are bright, but the group as a whole invariably groans upon receiving the news that “we need to beef up our validation documentation”, and awaits the lone voice to find grounds to complain and justify a continuation of laziness. What was my point? Ah, yes: if I am to sit and explain the situation to the individual, there is never any question as to the necessity of the changes. Presented to the whole, there will always be questions. One person > intelligence > masses.
And now having read the post, I guess I haven’t really answered the question at all. The only argument to be made toward the “people are getting dumber” for me is that the quantization of discovery has decreased dramatically with time - not too hard to argue that somebody, somewhere had to “invent” music, speech, the written word… Nowadays, we’ve had all the handed to us. Alas, too much science, too little philosophy poor b_anthracis… :rolleyes:
D’OH! And a “double-post” effect… Glad I got in that last paragraph the second time. :smack:
Being 19, aren’t you in the worst possible position to judge this issue? You haven’t actually seen any other generation grow up. I’m 22 myself, so while I can’t say this argument is false on its face, given the fact that every generation seems to make it I think the proper course is to suspend judgment. Things have changed an awful lot since I was 18 (I’m thinking of a particular event that occurred when I was 19 1/2), and we haven’t really had enough time to gauge how our generation - I think it’s fair to say that you and I are of the same generation - will respond to the challenges we’re facing and to the unforeseen ones we will face.
Since you have been so honest I’ll finish my thought.
I am the son of depression era parents. I didn’t have much as a kid and I don’t mean that to sound like I’m trying to wear “poor” like a badge of honor. I mean that in the context that there wasn’t anything to “have” as a kid. There were no computers or walkman’s or gameboy’s or anything. They didn’t exist. And I truly believe I was the wealthier for it. I was forced to interact with people to have fun. And by that simple fact of life I grew up.
In comparison, my Father’s entire life was no bed of roses. He had a childhood that people on welfare would consider beneath them today and yet he was the richest man I ever met. Although I have no way of knowing it, I’ve always felt he was probably a mature adult by the age of 18. He had to be to survive.
If my premise is true, and we are progressively taking longer to mature, we are cheating ourselves of the richness of life.
I read that Mike Judge is developing a movie based on this premise.
It’s set in the year 3000, and is an examination of 1,000 years of uneducated people breeding early and often; and educated people deciding to wait to have kids (thus having fewer), or to not have them at all. Creating a society of dumb, unmotivated people.
The Marching Morons, by any chance?
Argh! It’s happening again! Every time I see a thread dealing with this topic, I get that song stuck in my head
Old dude checking in.
When I was going to college in the 60’s, everybody was reading books (for fun) and they were political radicals…anti-war, pro-ecology, volunteering to do work for the underpriviliged, smoking dope, listening to hard rock, backpacking through Europe, sitting up all night, screwing, having deep conversations and planning on how we were going to change the world.
George W. Bush is President of the United States.
OK…so I guess we fucked up.
But now I see little lemmings running through universities, with their un-political, materialistic lifestyles, worried about who is going to be voted off Survivor and I wonder, how bad are THEY gonna fuck up.
My generation at least tried.
So, it’s the 1920s all over again?
No, the 1960s and 1970s weren’t magical eras of revolution and social upheaval, any more than any of the other eras of enlightenment were. The 1770s and the 1840s both saw the rise of a youth culture at odds with its parents. Rousseau, Thoreau, and Dylan are birds of a feather, and all of their revolutions failed.
The 1980s and 1990s were decades once again burned out from trying to change the world, like the 1920s was. Hemingway and Cobain share a common alienation with the world at large, a disaffection from the notion that They Are the Future. Less moody people danced the Charleston or listened to MC Hammer, sat on flagpoles or had long IRC chats.
In other words, a new revolution will come in a decade or so.