Not a chance: <Yet that’s exactly what Stanford University researcher Gerald Crabtree suggests is happening in a set of papers, published in the journal Trends in Genetics.
Crabtree suggests our intellectual and emotional abilities peaked before our early ancestors began leaving Africa, which occurred some two million years ago. At the time, he argues, intelligence was critical for survival, and thus, under selective pressure, early humans evolved to have genes that maximized brain power. >
Women select for intelligence. Genocidal battles select for intelligence. The Flynn Effect demonstrates intelligence gains over 100 years.
Scientists are certainly not as intelligent as they were 100 years ago, which might explain his idea. These days, anyone can get an easy science degree and call themselves a scientist. Climate "science" is full of them. The brightest scientists today are brighter than those of 100 or 50 years ago, but the median is wayyyy lower.
With 6 billion people now being filtered in the eugenics process, the pressure is bigger and faster than ever by an order of magnitude.
When genome analysis is developed so that women can get really good information, the process will go to warp speed.
China's one-child policy has made a huge difference too, with female foeticide meaning umpty million males are going to be selected out of the gene pool with intelligence being the main selection variable. It will be a great leap forward. Unplanned but nevertheless true. A government programme has achieved at least one good aspect [which is not to say it was a good policy overall]. Perhaps even overall it will have been good. Depending on your point of view.
A bit like slavery was a great idea for the descendants of the slaves, though being shipped from Africa was not exactly a great way of life back then. But even that was perhaps better than that alternative. Being a slave to Thomas Jefferson was doubtless better than being a slave back in Africa. Maori slaves used to be eaten. Life as a slave can be very bad. Maoris would "refrigerate" dinner by breaking their legs and arms so they couldn't escape, but would stay alive. Maori slaves had short, unpleasant lives. I don't know what it was like in Africa, but I bet the NZ Maori slaves would love to have been shipped to Washington. A Maori hobby was facial tattoos, which turned out to be a useful market. First, catch your prisoner, then tattoo their face, then decapitate them, dry the head, and sell it to some curious Europeans buying weird stuff from around the world.
Gerald has it wrong.
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