Posted: 3/19/2008 8:24:18 PM EDT
Listen to an "expert" tonight on Coast to Coast AM! 
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I have two theories about this. The first is that our technological improvements and social policies have thwarted the forces of natural selection that would have removed fools from the gene pool long ago. Thus, idiots who should have died from sheer stupidity are allowed to live, flourish and reproduce. My other theory is that the collective global IQ is a constant and that as the population continues to expand, that constant is divided amongst more and more people, causing them to be increasingly stupid. That is why the ancient times produced the works of Herodotus, Socrates and Plato, and today we have American Idol and The Moment of Truth. |
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There is no such thing as 'de-evolution'. Such would imply that evolution had an end goal in mind, and that we were moving away from it. Evolution doesn't have any goal, it just happens by random chance and population selection and those chances either prove beneficial or they don't. |
I wish I was a "dissident intellectual"... How do these people get these cool jobs and I don't?  Chick #1: See that guy? He's a dissident intellectual! Chick #2: Wow. I don't know what that is, but it makes me want to have unprotected sex with him! |
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No such thing as "devolving". Populations respond to selective pressure. Valuable traits are preserved, detrimental traits are weeded out. When the selective pressure is taken off, things like congenital stupidity and physical birth defects are allowed to propagate through the population. That's evolution too. Evolution isn't a straight climb up, it's more of a circle that repeats over and over. Lots of animals get by without big brains. |
These two gentlemen get it. Natural selection has been almost completely removed from the genetic process. Only a faint shadow of it remains. Darwin is dying. Cultural/ideological darwinism still exists to an extent, but in screwy ways that have little to do with what works and what doesn't. In fact, we see a large quantity of anti-Darwinism these days... Morons with sub-standard IQs, genetic weaknesses, and a complete inability to provide for themselves are having 4-6 kids... Intelligent and genetically strong persons who are more than able to provide for themselves are having 0-2 kids... Net population loss. It's only a matter of time, in my opinion, before either civilization collapses, forcing Darwin back into the process and wiping out massive numbers of those previously sheltered from his laws, or... Well, the other alternative is either the extinction of the intelligent/strong/productive (which means the extinction of the species as a whole), or a split between the two groups into completely different species (maybe biologically... Or maybe the intelligent just say "fuck you idiots" and set up their own society where those who fail basic tests get tossed into the wild). It could happen very rapidly... Just a few thousand years... And humans could end up being two different species, if we continue this stupidity... Orks and elves for all practical purposes.  I see so many insanely stupid people every day... People not even attempting to be intelligent... And then those who are actually incapable of intelligence... Both of which are outbreeding the 5% of us who actually use our cranial volume. |
| I for one believe evolution is more of a step forward than alot of people think. I don't think the ability to think, speak, make moral decisions, question existence, design inventions by will and not just accident, perform scientific research, etc, is a mere adaption to one environment. |