Science Explains the Obvious Again

You don't have to go far to get the impression that people are getting dumber - take reality TV shows, the nightly news from Washington, or just look in the mirror, you're a numbskull who can barely get a blog post online, aren't I?

In a compelling followup to the awe-inspiring triumphs of proving that matter and energy are different physical manifestations of the same thing, landing a dozen white male Americans onto the moon while Nixon was president, and creating an aerosol scent which irresistibly attracts young women and then naming it after an implement used to murder the same types of girls in horror movies, science has now concluded that - are you ready? - people are getting dumber.

I doff my cap to this achievement.

What must have been the remnants of society's best minds have established once and for all that human intelligence 'peaked thousands of years ago, and we've been on an intellectual and emotional decline ever since'.

You may want to take a few minutes to digest this paradigm-smashing notion, but I’m quietly confident you’ll manage to take this in stride.

The basis of the Stanford University geneticist's argument is that, until recently, we depended on our wits for our very survival - coming up with clever ways to kill huge animals to feed the tribe without getting oneself killed in the process, or coping with the constant demands of raising a child without the aid of a handy smartphone equipped with the childcare app Angry Birds - required a keen intellect, without which your survival prospects were questionable at best.

Thanks to modern technology, life is easier now, thus thwarting evolution - a polite way of expressing the proposition that in these enlightened days, people outside the top few percentile of thinkers are allowed to continue living thanks to generous contributions from boffins in the past who knew how to change light bulbs, cross the street safely, and obtain food from the corner shops.

The author even makes the argument that:

"If an average citizen from Athens of 1000BC were to appear suddenly among us, he or she would be among the brightest and most intellectually alive of our colleagues and companions, with a good memory, a broad range of ideas and a clear-sighted view of important issues".

I would humbly point out that you would need to spend a not-inconsiderable chunk of time just teaching this towering egghead how to get him- or herself a Twitter account. And the average Athenian from those days was quite likely too busy buggering young boys to even care about Twitter anyway.

If you'll excuse me, I’m going to go bounce a ball now, because it makes me giggle.

P.S. lest my sarcasm prompt you to dismiss this as blatant arrogance, let me include another quote from the paper:

"A hunter-gatherer who did not correctly conceive a solution to providing food or shelter probably died, along with his or her progeny, whereas a modern Wall Street executive that made a similar conceptual mistake would receive a substantial bonus and be a more attractive mate."

Suddenly my bouncy-ball isn't funny any more.