Guest Post by Malcolm Peart (first posted on CERM ® RISK INSIGHTS – reposted here with permission)
It has been suggested that Stone Age man had a higher IQ than today’s modern homo sapiens.
“That cannot be,” says the modern man, but if one thinks about such an assault on our modern-day ego and self-confessed superiority, the alleged ‘primitive’ man was able to survive in extreme conditions, traveled the planet and set the foundations for today’s societies.
Reaching capacity
However, the population of the planet is at an all-time high and is increasing. But, is the intellectual capacity of the world finite? If this is the case just like any other natural resource, the simple application of arithmetic easily tells us that the intelligence of individuals is becoming less.
Again, “that cannot be” cries our collective ego as we point to our development of modern technology, increased numbers of educational establishments, and greater numbers of ‘qualified people’.
Quite often we research narrower and narrower fields so that, ultimately, some intellectually gifted individual may in the not too distant future know everything about nothing. These people may have more than their fair share of the earth’s intellectual capacity but what about the rest.
Innovation or lack of?
We have global warming, climate change, wars, ‘economic crises’ caused by panicking traders and hedge-funders etc. which are plausibly linked to man’s use of modern technology developed by the “brighter sparks”.
However, this so-called technology that should be helping mankind is oftentimes used and abused by the race of humans who are becoming, if one believes in the concept of a finite global intellectual resource, increasingly stupid.
Finite resources
Somebody wrote about the deforestation of Easter Island and questioned what went through the mind of the person who cut down the last tree which, allegedly, ended a thriving society.
What is going through our minds when we, on a daily basis and collectively, are contributing to the possible demise of an entire planet … not just creating a treeless island in the Pacific.
There is always concern being raised somewhere about how much fossil fuel that may be left, or clean water, or melting glaciers, or urbanization, or the life expectancy of endangered species.
Finite intelligence?
But are we concerned that the reason for this could be man himself and that there is a finite amount of intelligence?
Furthermore, this finite amount of intelligence is distributed among an ever increasing population which will bring about a diminishing return on the longevity of societies as we know them, and our planet as we understand it.
IQ has been used to categorize man into classes of gifted, normal, morons, imbeciles and idiots. Similarly, other terms such as stupid, dullard or clot are used to categorize “thick” people who are intellectually challenged.
If, indeed, the world does have a finite IQ as a natural resource are our clots thickening as the population explodes, and are we collectively destroying the planet as our so called intelligentsia give us the weapons to do so?
Bio:
MBA, MSc DIC, BSc; Chartered Engineer, Chartered Geologist, PMP
Over thirty years’ experience on large multi-disciplinary infrastructure projects including rail, metro systems, airports, roads, marine works and reclamation, hydropower, tunnels and underground excavations.
Project management; design & construction management; and contract administration in all project phases from feasibility, planning & design, procurement, implementation, execution, and completion on Engineer’s Design and Design & Build schemes.
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