From: CurtAdams@aol.com
Date: Sun Sep 14 1997 - 22:13:08 MDT
In a message dated 9/10/97 2:17:41 PM, mountain@knoware.nl (Arjen Kamphuis)
wrote:
> CurtAdams@aol.com responded:
> >With humans, probably very *sub*optimal. A critical part of optimizing
human
> >production is improving their systems of social interaction and
> >communication.
>
>So maybe we should select on high emotional intelligence also? And improve
>communicative abilities and such.
I believe the process of deliberate selection, itself, would be highly
inimical to a healthy society, regardless of what is selected for.
> >We do not differ markedly from 35,000-year-ago human
> >physically or in innate IQ but our society is vastly more productive, from
> >being set up differently.
>
>Precisely. We have not changed, maybe we're missing out on a lot of
>growth-potential. We have not tried strong selection on traits like IQ.
>Not that I think we should, but it's an interesting thought-experiment.
Well, yes, and my conclusion is that strong selection would be catastrophic.
Selecting for a relatively narrow feature like IQ would likely be doubly
catastrophic.
> >The society you describe would greatly curtail the
> >possibilities for friendly, cooperative interaction between humans and
hence
> >likely be far less productive than the current one.
>
>Why?, it's not like our current society has no blood on it's hands. We
>allow preventable deaths and sleep very well in spite of it.
>Of course the deaths would be closer to home for us
>rich-folks-in-rich-country's
>and that might be a bit nasty (the little boy next-door failing his IQ-test
>and such...). But I don't see why 'friendly, cooperative interaction'
>between the surviving individuals would be far less.
There's little *deliberate* selection.
>Both nazi-germany and stalinist-russi performed great engineering and
>scientific feats in spite of their totalitarian nature.
I think "in spite of" is the correct term.
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