And of course, the Flynn effect completely contradicts this, mostly because the Flynn effect is actually based on data (IQ-tests in this case) and not just assumptions like Crabtree did it.
There was literally zero stated evidence for this in the article. He mentions that intelligence is 'genetically fragile', then promotes the idea that because we don't live in hostile environments any more, that those 'fragile genetics' must be going away, and we are therefore less intelligent.
Paradoxically, though, this 'Stanford geneticist' seems to be evidence for his own findings.
The Flynn effect is the substantial and long-sustained
increase in intelligence test scores measured in many
parts of the world from roughly 1930 to the present day
I know it sounds logical, but it's not proven that we loose things that are not needed. You might _randomly_ loose features, but you'll also randomly acquire features. Especially intelligence is such a complicated trait, influenced by so many factors, that randomly loosing intelligence would be based on the random loss of a lot of factors, which is in my opinion highly unlikely.
Just look at all the vestigial crap we still carry around [1]: appendix, tailbone, wisdom teeth, inside corner of the eye, etc. We don't use these yet we don't loose them. And loosing these is propably much, much easier than intelligence, because the development of things like the appendix is controlled by much fewer factors than intelligence.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 35.5 ms ] threadHere's some reading material: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/grrlscientist/2012/nov/14/...
And there's the last HN-thread with a lot of debunking going on: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4818441
And of course, the Flynn effect completely contradicts this, mostly because the Flynn effect is actually based on data (IQ-tests in this case) and not just assumptions like Crabtree did it.
Paradoxically, though, this 'Stanford geneticist' seems to be evidence for his own findings.
Just look at all the vestigial crap we still carry around [1]: appendix, tailbone, wisdom teeth, inside corner of the eye, etc. We don't use these yet we don't loose them. And loosing these is propably much, much easier than intelligence, because the development of things like the appendix is controlled by much fewer factors than intelligence.
[1] Which might still have a purpose that we don't know yet, for example the appendix might be important in immune response: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-is-th...