Let's try and get 1,000,000 replies to this post

Shadow said:
There are any number of ways to adapt to an environment. There is no difference as such between evolving great body strength and evolving enough brainpower to build a gun instead. It seems to me that you're introducing a qualitative difference where there isn't any.
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I did say that such a thing was not needed for us as we found other ways to adapt :)
Neither of those things are uniquely human.
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True, but it's not particularly common amongst the animal kingdom.
Do you have any actual data backing that claim?
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Nope, and it's hard to judge based on testing etc because of course we have more collective knowledge as time goes on, so more to learn from. Going from personal experience (likewise I assume with Ariana's comment), those who I would consider to be smarter had children at a much greater age, and normally less of them too, than those I consider to be dumb.
In any case, human intelligence is simply a successful adaption, like an elephant's trunk. Nothing more, nothing less. That doesn't mean that more of it would necessarily be better for survival and reproduction, any more than having a trunk twice as long would necessarily be better for an elephant.
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Agreed. Adaption comes in all forms and we are adapting in simply a different way to most species, but it is not quite the case that the strongest of our species survive as it is with most which is what I was originally meaning, the 'less adapted' of our species are not dying off.


Anyhow, to the original subject.
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
This is crass generalising, is it not?
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My first words were "in general" :P

Again though on personal experience, from new parents I've seen who are say in their early 30's when they have the child they tend to be very happy, and will sit and play with their kids all day. Whereas so far only one of the teenagers I've known with a child has shown anything other than some sort of "sigh, I love this kid but its ruined my life" outlook, taking care of it because they have to almost. I know that sounds horrible, and I'm sure they all do love their kids and care about them, but there rarely seems to be that joy in their eyes and the whole picking them up from their grandparents with a "Hows my little boy been today!! Did you miss me?? D'awwww" excitement.
 
Intelligence vs wisdom?

I had my first kid at 20 (too early, honestly) and my last at 26. Now, at the time, I was not happy to be having kids so young. Today... I'm 41 and looking at 4 years til my last graduates high-school. At 45, I'll have all my kids in college or graduated from. I'm pretty excited about that (as long as I maintain good physical health) :)
 
Forostar said:
Perhaps you're right, Ariana, but I am not sure if intelligence is the only factor here. Lack of education, reckless behaviour, lack of wisdom, or perhaps something cultural (e.g. in Antillean communities you often see teenage mothers, but are they more unintelligent?) .. not sure if all these qualities/circumstances are connected to intelligence.
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My former classmates weren't in the Antilles, though. Lack of education is also not a good argument, because they got the same education as everybody else in that class, and they didn't get pregnant at the age of 15. In their case,it may not have been lack of IQ-intelligence, but behaviour that I would call stupid from people I would call stupid. They were just stupid and dumb.
 
And are all these "dumb" & "stupid" unintelligent people still dumb & stupid? At what age do you guys draw the line here?

The problem I have with much of what's been said here is the creeping insinuation that those who did not have children young are intellectually superior to these people, then &/or now. Are you guys seriously suggesting that other people, who you wouldn't pigeonhole into this group, didn't make other decisions equally as dumb but which just didn't have the same far reaching (i.e. into your life) consequences?

As I said, crass generalising.
 
If you drop out of general school at grade 8, fuck around and get pregnant without taking a shot at getting a professional education, yeah, I'd call you stupid.
 
Crimson Idol said:
True, but it's not particularly common amongst the animal kingdom.
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Sure it is. Mammals typically take care of their young, as do many birds. It's true, though, that humans have an exceptionally long childhood/adolescence.

but it is not quite the case that the strongest of our species survive
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Once again, you're making the mistake of thinking that there is some meaningful way to define "the strongest of our species" that is independent of the environment we live in. What you're saying here is your own value judgment, nothing else.

as it is with most which is what I was originally meaning, the 'less adapted' of our species are not dying off.
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Which means that they are not, in fact, less adapted.
 
Ariana said:
People act in a stupid way when they make stupid decisions that affect others, such as their kids.
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The capacity to see this when you are 15 or 16 is an incredibly narrow measure of intelligence though; besides the fact that the very behaviours (as Perun mentions) that lead to one consequence (having an unplanned child when you are a young teenager) & the behaviours that lead to some other outcome are in some cases probably the same. This has nothing to do with intelligence if both people exhibit the same behaviour. Most adults struggle with the consequences of their actions in respect to there effect on others. Being careless, selfish, unable to empathise, being a risk taker, making a one-off misjudgement --these do not equate to intelligence & should not result in you being labelled dumb, stupid & unintelligent.

None of you have even qualified what you've said to imply that they were stupid; everything implies you'd still think they were stupid if you met them now.
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
None of you have even qualified what you've said to imply that they were stupid; everything implies you'd still think they were stupid if you met them now.
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That was never part of the discussion, it's completely unrelated to what we were talking about. :huh:
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
Being careless, selfish, unable to empathise, being a risk taker, making a one-off misjudgement --these do not equate to intelligence & should not result in you being labelled dumb, stupid & unintelligent.
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Technically, they do. They are part of one's emotional intelligence, which in most cases matters more than whether they know three mathematical formulae or the capital of East Timor.
 
CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
You would call them stupid. Your words. Stupid and dumb. How else is one meant to read this?
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Yeah, it was related to the people I knew then who dropped out of general school at grade 8, didn't take a shot at a professional education, fucked around and got pregnant before they were sixteen. I call that stupid. The people who existed then were stupid and dumb. I don't know if they're still stupid now. Maybe they turned into rocket scientists later on. But the people I knew then were stupid. I don't know them now anymore.
 
Ariana said:
Technically, they do. They are part of one's emotional intelligence, which in most cases matters more than whether they know three mathematical formulae or the capital of East Timor.
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That's something I have a beef with. Level of knowledge is not "smartness" or "intelligence". It's just being knowledgeable. I wouldn't call a person who knows the capital of East Timor smart, I'd call him knowledgeable.
 
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People always ridicule Lamarckism, but fail to understand that without Lamarck, there had been no Darwin.
 
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