Public Lecture Wednesday 6th Feb

Myksyk

Below are the details of the next ISS Public Lecture.


Intelligence: A critical review of its nature and evolution
The Aston Suite, Alexander Hotel, Merrion Sq., Dublin 2. (Around the corner from the usual Davenport Hotel)

8:00pm, Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Dr. Gary O'Reilly of the School of Psychology, UCD will introduce theory and research in the field of human intelligence. The talk will present a critical view on how psychologists currently understand Human Intelligence based on research utilising IQ type tests and other sources of information. It will attempt to provide an evolutionary context to the field thus allowing us to consider key and often controversial questions such as: Is intelligence inherited? How credible are claims of racial differences in intelligence? And is there such a thing as Emotional Intelligence?

Tim Robbins

Myksyk wrote:

Dr. Gary O'Reilly of the School of Psychology, UCD will introduce theory and research in the field of human intelligence. The talk will present a critical view on how psychologists currently understand Human Intelligence based on research utilising IQ type tests and other sources of information. It will attempt to provide an evolutionary context to the field thus allowing us to consider key and often controversial questions such as: Is intelligence inherited? How credible are claims of racial differences in intelligence? And is there such a thing as Emotional Intelligence?

Hi,
I thought this was really good, well done Gary.
It's very interesting why humans are so intelligent relative to the other 10 million or so species in existence.
How come the other species could survive and pro create with much less intelligence? Why did natural selection makes us intelligent?

My reason for this is that we were and are inferior to mammals in most other survival characteristics. For example, Lions, Tigers etc are much stronger, faster etc.

Our only survival advantage was a brain with good thinking capacity and the more it was used the better the survival chance. In fact the only way we could survive was to really think, I can't think of too many homo habilius creatures winning a fair fight with a tiger or out sprinting a cheetah.

So because we are relatively poor at most other characteristics in the animal kingdom, natural selection worked on our intelligence and our thinking ability as this is the only characteristic homo habillius and homo ergaster had an advantage over its competitors.

That would explain why humans are more intelligent than wolves, elephants, horses etc. However it's still very interesting as to why one species is so much more intelligent than the other 10 million. If you look at other characteristics such as speed and compared them relatively, there is not as much difference between the maximum level and the rest.

As for differening levels of intelligence between race, I doubt that very much exists. By the time the homo sapien came along, intelligence would have reached the level above the threshold needed for survival.
There was no longer as much of a survival advantage to greater intelligence as the homo sapien was now intelligent enough.
So by the time the homosapien moves and explores into different continents and creating what we call races, things like different skin colour which are a survival advantage are changed by natural selection but intelligence is not.

Comments anyone?

tchelyzt

Originally Posted by Tim Robbins
However it's still very interesting as to why one species is so much more intelligent than the other 10 million. If you look at other characteristics such as speed and compared them relatively, there is not as much difference between the maximum level and the rest.

As for differening levels of intelligence between race, I doubt that very much exists. By the time the homo sapien came along, intelligence would have reached the level above the threshold needed for survival. There was no longer as much of a survival advantage to greater intelligence as the homo sapien was now intelligent enough. So by the time the homosapien moves and explores into different continents and creating what we call races, things like different skin colour which are a survival advantage are changed by natural selection but intelligence is not.

Hi,
I really enjoyed the lecture too. Question-time brought some interesting questions, most notably around the question of intelligence differences between human races and concerning the role of language.

On the subject of race, and the remarks quoted above, I remain unconvinced. Firstly scale ranges are much wider than the writer seems to think. Compare cheetahs and snails. Ants alone range in size by several orders of magnitude. Then, what is this "threshold needed for survival" and just how much is "intelligent enough". I thought the lecture told us that the very measurement of intelligence was still fraught with difficulty. So as a good liberal I hope there is negligible difference but sadly I believe there is no good reason to imagine that differences are not inevitable. Thankfully, the differences must be narrow enough that we have been unable to pin them down. Jean Raspail, a French anthropologist, wrote a marvellous book which was translated into English as Who Will Remember The People in which he speaks of a tribe called the Alacaluf who lived in Tierra del Fuego which was driven to extinction in the 19th Century. They struck me as unable to survive when brought into contact with intelligent modern man. That seems recent enough for me to reject any hypothesis of intelligence sufficiency.

However language is my principle reason for this post. It occurred to me during the lecture that some 15 years ago I read a very persuasive case for language as the source of human intelligence. In his book The Ape That Spoke, John McCrone puts forward a fantastic argument for the catalytic effect of language on brain size and intelligence. It seems that once language clicked in, we began to talk to ourselves and produce models of the world we live in inside our brain. Before we did something life-threatening, we could run it through the model to see if it was sensible. Hence the selective pressure.

I recall a very readable and intelligent text (although I sought out my McCrone on the web the other night and came up with his absolutely impenetrable blog). Those of you who like the sound of this argument might like to seek out the book.

regards to you all

Tim Robbins

tchelyzt wrote:

On the subject of race, and the remarks quoted above, I remain unconvinced. Firstly scale ranges are much wider than the writer seems to think. Compare cheetahs and snails. Ants alone range in size by several orders of magnitude. Then, what is this "threshold needed for survival" and just how much is "intelligent enough".

I don't think you understood my point. I was taking about the difference between the maximum and all other values in the case of intelligence,
not the difference bewteen the maximum and minimum which you have pointed out in the Cheetah, snail example.

If you look at speed, Cheetahs are fastest, then
Pronghorn Antelope, Wildebeest, Lion, Thomsons Gazelle etc.
http://www.homeworkspot.com/ask/fastestanimals.htm

In intelligence there is not so much of a steady linear increase.
The maximum intelligence (the intelligence of the homo sapiens) is much more intelligent than the 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc. Whereas in speed the maximum is only 15% approx more intelligent than the 2nd, 28% more intelligent than the 3,4,5th etc.
It's harder to get an objective barometer for intelligence, but I think it would be safe to say, that humans are more than 15% more intelligent than Chimps, more than 28% more intelligent to the Gorialla, Orangutan and Baboon etc.

As for the "threshold needed for survival", I don't see why a homo sapien needs to be as intelligent as Noam Chomsky or Stephen Hawking to survive.
The basic level of intelligence needed to outsmart the rest of the animal kingdom, I would say it much lower than this.

An exceptionally intelligent person is a byproduct of a general tendency of natural selection to favour intelligence in the homo sapien but why would natural selection favour intelligence more in one part of the world or be more favourable to one race more than another.

I can't see why Caucasians, for example, would have needed to have been much more or less intelligent than other races to survive, but I can see why the skin would need to be a different colour. The white skin helps them absorb vitamin D better from the less levels of Sun in the parts of the world they were living in, which of course had less Sun so there is a need to absorb the vitamin D more efficiently.

If there is no need for greater intelligence in one part of the world relative to another part of the world, then natural selection would not have determined one race to more intelligent than another.

Why would natural selection for human intelligence differ in different parts of the world?

Comments welcomed.

barkis

Just wanted to thank the organisers and speaker for last week's event. I'm reading Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate and I found the lecture very helpful

I agree with tchelyzt about the importance of language in the evolution of our intelligence. I'm doing a literature project on the social intelligence hypothesis, which states that complex social interactions are the main driving force behind the evolution of the brain. It assumes that reading the behaviour of conspecifics (for cooperation and exploitation) requires far more intelligence than is needed to deal with anything in the non-social environment. I imagine the birth of language resulted in a rapid acceleration in this evolutionary trajectory.

tchelyzt

Originally Posted by Tim Robbins
I don't think you understood my point. I was taking about the difference between the maximum and all other values in the case of intelligence, not the difference bewteen the maximum and minimum which you have pointed out in the Cheetah, snail example.

Hi again,

Actually I didn't get your point correctly and your observation is an interesting one and well made. It's true there doesn't seem to be a massive leap in other features (if we trust our intuition, since we're not sure about the metrics). There must be a reason but I prefer one like this:

it is plausible that there could be some phase transition here; cross some threshhold where language can click in and we get runaway evolution so that a gap opens up against the field; meanwhile all the intermediate intelligences between the chimpanzee and homo sapiens (such as Neanderthal man) are killed off in the contest since they are fighting for the same niche, while the dumber animals are spared because they live in other niches, and thus a gap appears.

It is a strange gap and maybe the correct explanation is entirely different. I think however my real problem with your argument remains as it seems to based on the notion that:

Originally Posted by Tim Robbins

So because we are relatively poor at most other characteristics in the animal kingdom, natural selection worked on our intelligence and our thinking ability as this is the only characteristic homo habillius and homo ergaster had an advantage over its competitors.

This gives natural selection a sense of intention that it just doesn't have. It operates by chance, fails frequently and occasionally stumbles on "success". I think your gap needs explanation and while the one I suggest above may be wrong, it is, I believe, well understood that the gap is not the result of some intention of natural selection to compensate for other deficiencies.

As for the "threshhold of intelligence":

Originally Posted by Tim Robbins
I can't see why Caucasians, for example, would have needed to have been much more or less intelligent than other races to survive ...

I don't buy the "need to be". I find it plausible that more intelligence means selective advantage. Races have been fighting and competing since the beginning of time and building more and more clever technology to defeat each other. I could well imagine that a lucky break on the intelligence front would give one race dominance. However, proximity and inter-racial mixing tends to prevent one race getting a lead on another ... unless ... a race gets cut off from the others (e.g. American Indians or Australian Aborigines) in much the same way as finches evolved independantly on the Galapagos.

Indeed, the aforementioned Neanderthal, believed to be intellectually inferior to Cro-Magnon Man is an excellent example. Wikipedia (as I'm too lazy to find a more authoritative source :-)) has this to say:

The Cro-Magnons must have come into contact with the Neanderthals, and are often credited with causing the latter's extinction, although morphologically modern humans seem to have coexisted with Neanderthals for some 60,000 years in the Levant and for more than 10,000 years in France.

So would I be surprised to learn that intelligence is differentiated? Not if the isolation occurred for a sufficiently long time. For the record, I think it probably doesn't exist currently to an extent that is significant or measurable using current standards, but only because there really is little room left for an isolated race to live.

Tim Robbins

tchelyzt wrote:

This gives natural selection a sense of intention that it just doesn't have. It operates by chance, fails frequently and occasionally stumbles on "success". I think your gap needs explanation and while the one I suggest above may be wrong, it is, I believe, well understood that the gap is not the result of some intention of natural selection to compensate for other deficiencies.

Ok I'll try and elaborate my point and see what you think.
I am using the standard Dawkins explaination of natural selection, "the non random selection of random variation".

So when I say: "natural selection worked on our intelligence and our thinking ability" I mean some mutations were cleverer (random part) and they survived due to surival advantage (non random part).

As for the "threshhold of intelligence":

I don't buy the "need to be". I find it plausible that more intelligence means selective advantage. Races have been fighting and competing since the beginning of time and building more and more clever technology to defeat each other. I could well imagine that a lucky break on the intelligence front would give one race dominance. However, proximity and inter-racial mixing tends to prevent one race getting a lead on another ... unless ... a race gets cut off from the others (e.g. American Indians or Australian Aborigines) in much the same way as finches evolved independantly on the Galapagos.

Indeed, the aforementioned Neanderthal, believed to be intellectually inferior to Cro-Magnon Man is an excellent example. Wikipedia (as I'm too lazy to find a more authoritative source :-)) has this to say:

By threshold I mean some sort of equilibrium. Suppose the Cheetah now has reach the threshold needed ( all it needs for it's max speed) so natural selection is not working to make it any faster but probably was a million years ago.

So would I be surprised to learn that intelligence is differentiated? Not if the isolation occurred for a sufficiently long time. For the record, I think it probably doesn't exist currently to an extent that is significant or measurable using current standards, but only because there really is little room left for an isolated race to live.

Well if we don't have reliable data, there would need to be an acceptable explaination why natural selection for the homo sapien for the characteristic of intelligence was different between one race or in one part of the world and another race / part of world.

There is an explainantion why natural selection for skin colour worked differently in different parts of the world (not too mention good data).

I can't see a good reason for why natural selection would have been different for intelligence in different parts of the world for the same homo sapien species.

Your comments...

tchelyzt

Hi Tim,

here are some further comments, though I'm not sure they add anything new:

Originally Posted by Tim Robbins
So when I say: "natural selection worked on our intelligence and our thinking ability" I mean some mutations were cleverer (random part) and they survived due to survival advantage (non random part).

Good, so far we agree. But you did introduce the above with:

So because we are relatively poor at most other characteristics in the animal kingdom ...

I neither agree that we are "relatively poor", nor that this is WHY "natural selection worked on our intelligence". If increased intelligence was selected, it was only because it gave us a relative advantage. You seem to feel that we have reached an "equilibrium" because the extent of our intellectual advantage over other creatures is so vast and you seem to imply that we compete characteristic by characteristic and that, since we appear supreme on the intellectual front, we can rest on our intellectual laurels. However, evolution is not a case of speed against speed, brain against brain, strength against strength; if I'm smarter, I can defeat your speed, so incremental advantage in any characteristic is always welcome - it's been likened to an arm's race and is called the Red Queen Effect.

Suppose the Cheetah now has reach the threshold needed (all it needs for it's max speed) natural selection is not working to make it any faster.

If the cheetah is fast enough, it seems the wildebeest must not be and so the latter must be hoping (figuratively speaking) for a speed boost from evolution, which of course would make the cheetah technologically redundant if it doesn't get it's skates on in turn. So no, there is no threshhold; you're just watching during the interval. Come back in 50,000 years and watch those buggers shift :-)

Equally, the wildebeest might solve the problem by getting smarter and outwitting the cheetah, or stronger and fighting back, or a host of other responses.

There would need to be an acceptable explaination why natural selection for the homo sapiens for the characteristic of intelligence was different between one race or in one part of the world and another race/part of world

If there are different levels of intelligence (and that has not been established with sufficient rigour to be accepted) it could be explained like any other trait; environmental differences such as a harsher climate or limited resources combined with long term isolation from other races.

Personally, I believe that this is an emotive topic (as for that matter is/was skin colour) and there is a genuine fear of making progress unless it is to disprove differences. We are all happy to attribute different emotional stereotypes to different races but baulk at the idea that the differences could be as fundamental as intelligence. I believe this is because we see, in intelligence, the key factor that has permitted man to dominate the planet and we have a legitimate fear that if significant inter-racial differences were proven, this would be the signal for a sprint for dominance by the brightest race. However, I'm also convinced that if the differences were sufficient, this sprint would happen with or without the scientific studies, so I'm inclined towards the expectation that, when we've finally found reliable means to measure intelligence, we will find that the races are distinctive, a residue from when races were more isolated from each other, but that they overlap significantly or even that there are several classes of intelligence and that no race dominates all of them.

I'm not an expert in intelligence but please consider the daily anecdotal 'evidence' that intelligence can be differentiated between races. People speak uninhibitedly of the relative intelligence of different breeds of dog. I read that the African Grey Parrot is singled out as more intelligent than other parrots but also that comparative judgements of animal intelligence is as difficult to carry out objectively (if less controversially) as comparisons between human races.

It's been years since I took an interest in this stuff, but you've fired up my interest again and I'm going to crack open a few of my old favourite books.

regards.

Tim Robbins

if I'm smarter, I can defeat your speed, so incremental advantage in any characteristic is always welcome - it's been likened to an arm's race and is called the Red Queen Effect.

That's exactly what I am saying. We are / were smarter than the other mammals who faster or stronger than us.

If the cheetah is fast enough, it seems the wildebeest must not be and so the latter must be hoping (figuratively speaking) for a speed boost from evolution, which of course would make the cheetah technologically redundant if it doesn't get it's skates on in turn. So no, there is no threshhold; you're just watching during the interval. Come back in 50,000 years and watch those buggers shift :-)

Agree, I was using the word equilibrium figuratively speaking. Some characteristics will change drastically over 50,000 years and some will hardly change at all. For example the number of limbs we have has been in equilibrium for quite a while whereas other characteristics e.g. skin colour have not.

If there are different levels of intelligence (and that has not been established with sufficient rigour to be accepted) it could be explained like any other trait; environmental differences such as a harsher climate or limited resources combined with long term isolation from other races.

Agree, that's my hole point, there would have to be an explainantion like the one you just gave (although I don't know how plausible that particular one that is) that explains the survival advantage.

We are all happy to attribute different emotional stereotypes to different races but baulk at the idea that the differences could be as fundamental as intelligence.

It would be interesting to make a list of characteristics, from intelligence to speed, to bone structure, to skin colour etc. etc. and then investigate each one to see if there is any difference. I would imagine there would be a lot of difference in some (skin colour) and very little in others (number of fingers).
I doubt very much there is a major difference in intelligence unless like skin colour it can explained why there was more of a survival advantage in one part of the world more than another part of a world.
Why did humans needed to be clever survive in one part of the world than another? I can't see a reason why.

People speak uninhibitedly of the relative intelligence of different breeds of dog.
I read that the African Grey Parrot is singled out as more intelligent than other parrots but also that comparative judgements of animal intelligence is as difficult to carry out objectively (if less controversially) as comparisons between human races.

Interesting points there.

It's been years since I took an interest in this stuff, but you've fired up my interest again and I'm going to crack open a few of my old favourite books.

regards.

Not sure if you've read this one, 'Guns, Germs, Steel' by Jared Diamond, but it explains quite well why some parts of the world are more sophisticated, developed etc. than other parts very well without using evolution theory.
I'd recommend it.