# Reverse Darwinism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 14, 2013, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207 "2013-10-14T12:04:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/41 "2013-10-14T21:26:24Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Besides the fact that the OP is misusing the term “Darwinian”, there’s another false assumption: that society functions better when everyone is of high intelligence. > > Certainly we need a professional class. We need scientists, engineers, doctors, journalists, etc. We also need intelligent leaders. When you have a bunch of dumb politicians, you have prolonged government shutdowns with no end in sight. > > But we also need people who don’t mind scrubbing toilets for a living and who can endure the monotony of manual labor. You assume that first, there are a significant number of people who don’t mind degrading, menial labor (instead of putting up with it because they have no choice), and that people performing manual labor are stupid. I see no reason to buy either; those are class warfare propaganda points, not reality. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/42 "2013-10-14T21:53:28Z")
There is a classic urban legend about the physical height of French men. The story goes that Napoleon picked only the tallest men for his Guard…and that the Guard had such high casualties, that the average height of French men was reduced by some measurable amount. The problem is that height is hugely polygenetic. I have seen studies that show, to reduce the average height by two inches, the Napoleonic wars would have had to have killed off over 99.9% of everyone above average height, and not just once, but for several generations. Just killing off a few per cent of the tall guys, just once, won’t do the job. The same with intelligence. It isn’t like blue eyes! (Controlled by a single gene.) We all know smart people with dumb kids…and dumb people with smart kids. For dumb people to degrade the average human intelligence would require them to have 99.9% of all the kids, for many generations. This simply isn’t happening. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/43 "2013-10-14T22:03:41Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > The problem is that height is hugely polygenetic. The difference in height between North and South Korean pretty much disabuses this notion. It’s much easier/faster to get the same effect by simply starving people. If you catch them early enough, you’ll see results within a generation, too. You run into some problems really fast when you assume most traits aren’t influenced by any extrinsic factors. Worse yet, we know intelligence isn’t purely genetic and trying to separate that part out of the mix is a mug’s game with the existing data (though some of our resident racists have certainly tried to make that exact case). ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/44 "2013-10-14T22:28:44Z")
Making it worse for the “race realists” is that recently even more environmental factors that influence intelligence were noticed recently. Just from memory: I remember recent studies that report that a few IQ points are lost if you live in a violent environment (particularly hits to the head), more reports of poverty also reducing IQ and things like the diet of the parents (lack of folic acid for example) also not only leading to problems with the spine, but also affecting brain development. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/45 "2013-10-14T23:49:27Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > The difference in height between North and South Korean pretty much disabuses this notion. It’s much easier/faster to get the same effect by simply starving people. If you catch them early enough, you’ll see results within a generation, too. . . . But it isn’t genetic. Provide healthy nutrition to the infant babies of these people who have been shortened by starvation, and the babies will grow up just as tall as their South Korean counterparts. If you suggest that the babies won’t grow up as tall, you would seem to be invoking Lamarckism. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/46 "2013-10-15T00:04:45Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > But it isn’t genetic. Yeah, bad edit. I was supporting your point and it came bad out. English fail, Antibob smash. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/47 "2013-10-15T05:37:33Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Yeah, bad edit. I was supporting your point and it came bad out. English fail, Antibob smash. Grin! Hardly the first time I’ve disagreed with someone who was agreeing with me! We’ll blame it on the English language. This would never have happened if we were still speaking classical Latin or Greek! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/48 "2013-10-15T06:24:48Z")
There is no tendency for the average I.Q. to be decreasing over time. In fact, it’s slowly increasing. This is apparently because the environment for improved I.Q. is slowly improving. There’s no evidence that the I.Q. is changing for genetic reasons at all: > **[Flynn effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)** > > The Flynn effect is the substantial and long-sustained increase in both fluid and crystallized intelligence test scores that were measured in many parts of the world over the 20th century. When intelligence quotient (IQ) tests are initially standardized using a sample of test-takers, by convention the average of the test results is set to 100 and their standard deviation is set to 15 or 16 IQ points. When IQ tests are revised, they are again standardized using a new sample of test-takers, Test ... ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/49 "2013-10-15T07:10:50Z")
For those who brought up idiocracy, I think it’s worth pointing out [this comic](http://xkcd.com/603/). The movie, while funny and insightful, has _no_ basis in reality or any real understanding of evolution. Not only are the dumb not “out-breeding” the smart, but the very concept makes no sense. Intelligence is very heavily influenced by _environment_, and IQ is hardly a measure of value to society - hence why you can end up with MENSA members with IQs off the chart who happen to be complete morons. Looking at you, Ian Juby. And all the brainpower in the world is utterly wasted if you don’t direct it well, if you don’t get a good education, if you starve half the time, if you take too many knocks to the head… Need I go on? The entire basic premise of this thread is wrong, wrong, _wrong_. And that the OP references George Carlin (political satire; while often very funny, kind of a crank and conspiracy theorist), Idiocracy (political satire; not based in reality), and a New Yorker cartoon that he fundamentally failed to understand (newsflash: it’s riffing on _you_) is pretty much par for the course. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/50 "2013-10-15T07:26:38Z")
You know, I think I use the word “insightful” incorrectly in the above post. ---
**Author:** ![jsutter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@jsutter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsutter)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/51 "2013-10-15T14:11:27Z")
For what it’s worth, the OP referred only to educational levels, not intelligence. Aloha ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2013, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/52 "2013-10-15T14:24:01Z")
> [@jsutter](#): > > For what it’s worth, the OP referred only to educational levels, not intelligence. > Aloha That’s actually worse. You could maybe come up with a justification involving intelligence that made some sense if you didn’t look too closely at the data. But educational attainment is not highly correlated with genetics. And while educational attainment tends to be correlated (though not absolutely and not particularly strongly) with fewer children, to suggest it influences anything on an evolutionary scale is akin to Lamarckism. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2013, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/53 "2013-10-16T00:51:33Z")
And, furthermore, it’s more obvious that the average educational attainment is increasing than that the average intelligence is increasing. After all, one can argue forever about whether increasing scores on I.Q. tests shows anything or if it’s just an artifice of how tests work. There’s really no question though that a higher percentage of people are graduating from high school, college, grad school, or professional school. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2013, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/54 "2013-10-20T23:24:49Z")
> [@jsutter](#): > > " … Poor women generally have more kids than middle-class women, while women who drop out of high school have more than those who graduate, and way more than those who earn advanced degrees. All this adds up, Last writes, to a “kind of reverse Darwinism where the traditional markers of success make one less likely to reproduce.” Ironically, Professor James Flynn, who identified a rise in IQ scores through the 20th century (“the Flynn Effect”), [has now expressed concerns about this trend](http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10450313)(which is seen in most Western countries). > [@](#): > > An internationally recognised expert on intelligence warns New Zealand children could get dumber in three or four generations unless women with higher education started producing more babies. > > Otago University emeritus professor Dr Jim Flynn was commenting on census figures that show mothers without a higher education were the anchor of New Zealand’s current fertility rate. > > “ **Everyone knows if we only allowed short people to reproduce there would be a tendency in terms of genes for height to diminish. Intelligence is no different from other human traits," he told the Sunday Star-Times. A persistent genetic trend which lowered the genetic quality for brain physiology would have some effect eventually."** ” > > Statistics show women without tertiary qualifications who had reached their early 40s had produced 2.57 babies each. > > In contrast, women with a higher education were producing just 1.85 babies each. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/55 "2013-10-20T23:37:22Z")
“…unless women with higher education started producing more babies…” Wow! Lamarckism at its finest! Women with higher education will produce babies…with higher education! The social effects of educating women are well documented. But the genetic effects? As close to nil as makes no significance. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2013, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/56 "2013-10-20T23:38:05Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Herbert Spenser’s Social Darwinism has been discredited. What does education have to do with intelligence (as economic factors have a much higher correlation with academic success than IQ scores) or with “Darwinism?” 1. Behavioural traits, including intelligence are heritable (see [Pinker ‘My Genome, My Self’ 2009](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/magazine/11Genome-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)). 2. Higher intelligence makes it easier for people to do well academically. So intelligence tends to be associated to some extent with education level. See for instance, Deary et al _[Intelligence and Educational Achievement](http://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Femilkirkegaard.dk%2Fen%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2FIntelligence-and-educational-achievement.pdf&ei=VGdkUtOuMuW1iAePnoDABg&usg=AFQjCNF3YmEefR6iJUTDXIvPUNgXhGRDnQ&sig2=xbeTmXRnEXfH3M2tZJP_ww&bvm=bv.54934254,bs.1,d.dGI)_ 3. If the most educated women tend to have fewer children then over time you’d expect the population average to shift. ---
**Author:** ![babygoat666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2acd7d/32.png) [@babygoat666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/babygoat666)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2013, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/57 "2013-10-20T23:40:53Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > For those who brought up idiocracy, I think it’s worth pointing out [this comic](http://xkcd.com/603/). The movie, while funny and insightful, has _no_ basis in reality or any real understanding of evolution. Not only are the dumb not “out-breeding” the smart, but the very concept makes no sense. Intelligence is very heavily influenced by _environment_, and IQ is hardly a measure of value to society - hence why you can end up with MENSA members with IQs off the chart who happen to be complete morons. Looking at you, Ian Juby. And all the brainpower in the world is utterly wasted if you don’t direct it well, if you don’t get a good education, if you starve half the time, if you take too many knocks to the head… Need I go on? The entire basic premise of this thread is wrong, wrong, _wrong_. And that the OP references George Carlin (political satire; while often very funny, kind of a crank and conspiracy theorist), Idiocracy (political satire; not based in reality), and a New Yorker cartoon that he fundamentally failed to understand (newsflash: it’s riffing on _you_) is pretty much par for the course. It makes perfect sense. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2013, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/58 "2013-10-20T23:47:52Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > “…unless women with higher education started producing more babies…” Wow! Lamarckism at its finest! Women with higher education will produce babies…with higher education! > > The social effects of educating women are well documented. But the genetic effects? As close to nil as makes no significance. I don’t think that’s what Flynn means. Flynn’s comment is based on the assumption that those with higher education also tend to have higher average intelligence in the first place. Which is a reasonable assumption - see the Deary paper above for example. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2013, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/59 "2013-10-20T23:53:59Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > 1. If the most educated women tend to have fewer children then over time you’d expect the population average to shift. No, because how much education you get is overwhelmingly about social class and how much money you have, not intelligence. You can be an idiot, and if you’re rich and connected you’ll be given a “Gentleman’s C” at worst; while you can be a genius and if you are poor you’ll be lucky if you finish high school. And humans are so long lived and reproduce so slowly that a transient thing like that gets lost in the noise. The family that’s rich and powerful now may well be penniless refugees in a few generations. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/60 "2013-10-21T00:13:33Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > You can be an idiot, and if you’re rich and connected you’ll be given a “Gentleman’s C” at worst… The 1950s called. They want their cliche back. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207.md?page=4)