From: Mark Walker (tap@cgocable.net)
Date: Mon Apr 23 2001 - 01:37:22 MDT
----- Original Message -----
From: Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 1:53 AM
Subject: Re: Flynn Effect explained?
> While obstetrics might be one factor that helps, I think one should not
> discount the better nutrition and more stimulating environment that has
> developed. If it was just an issue of birth skull size we would see
> national differences much more clearly than is currently observed in the
> Flynn effect due to differences in health care. Evolutionary pressures
> are too slow to act much over the ~4 generations ibstetrics has become
> good.
>
things):
The Storfer article I cited discusses and dismisses (sec. 5.7) the better
nutrition hypothesis.
(http://www.gbhap.com/journals/148/storfer/top.htm). The neo-Lamarkian
mechanism suggests a means to speed up evolution; very roughly, your genetic
inheritence is in part due to your parents' nurture.
>
> Apropos smaller families, this could also be a factor: I remember seeing
> in one of my psychology textborns that firstborns often exhibit higher
> IQs than their siblings. The reason for this is unclear, possibly
> because they are surrounded by a higher mean IQ.
>
> --
While I am not bright enough to respond to this, my older sister wanted you
to know that the same type of text books sometimes suggest the "teacher"
hypothesis to explain this phenomenon: the older get to play teacher to the
younger.
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