Posted: Nov 25, 2013 8:34 am
According to the doctor, humans were at their most intelligent when “every individual was exposed to nature’s raw selective mechanisms on a daily basis.” Under those conditions, adaption, he argued, was much more of a matter than fight or flight. Rather, says the scientists, it was a sink or swim situation for generations upon generations.
This is moronic. Individuals never have been exposed to nature's selective mechanisms, because selection does not act to change anything about the individual. It's only the species as a whole that is exposed to nature's selective mechanisms.
Furthermore, the species is so exposed now exactly as it always has been, and exactly the way that every species always has been and can't not be. It's just that the environment acting upon us has changed, as it too always does.
The idea that the proximity of natural peril makes people more intelligent should be easily testable (if you're one of those people who believe that intelligence itself is testable). Just compare the intelligence test results of people in societies where that peril is still a part of everyday life, with those of us pampered softies in the west.