A few weeks ago, I was reading Warren Ellis’ Crecy, an amazing graphic novel for anyone who likes history, graphic novels or Warren Ellis. One line in particular stuck with me:
These things are going to look primitive to you, but you have to remember that we’re not stupid. We have the same intelligence as you, we simply don’t have the same cumulative knowledge you do. So we apply our intelligence to what we have.
Similarly, in Steven Johnson’s book, Everything Bad Is Good for You, the author mentions that IQ tests are continually adjusted to reflect a population that is becoming more intelligent, so that 100 is always the average in each generation. In other words, someone with an IQ of 120 in 1930 taking the modern test would score at 90. But given that the only thing that has changed is cumulative knowledge, perhaps the tests are a symptom of that.
When you log in to Twitter or Facebook and see that there have been over 150 updates since you last logged in, do you go back and check to see what happened? Have you read the encyclopedia lately? Do you regularly pour over newspapers, magazines and science periodicals to keep track of what’s going on? Heck, have you read the archives to this blog?
Because as much as I’d love for everyone to say “yes” to that last question, it’s extremely unlikely that anyone has done more than one of those things. Sure, there are time management strategies that you can use, but it’s impossible to devote all of your time to knowledge absorption – never mind attempting to retain it all.
With the Internet acting as a catalyst and storage system for information exchange and holding, the increase in the cumulative knowledge of Earth (combining everything on the planet) is exploding at a rapid rate. New technologies are being developed at an amazing speed. So as a species, we’re getting smarter.
But as individuals, we’re really not.
We have access to more information, but we don’t necessarily have more information. It might seem like people are more advanced, but consider that only 150 years ago (and even for a while after that), skill sets were completely different. Whereas we now know how to drive, use cell phones and computers and operate many different types of machines, our forebears knew how to build and maintain their own homes, farm and care for animals. While these skills are still used today, the majority of knowledge and experience relies on making things work, not making things. It’s why mechanics and repairmen can charge so much.
Or consider the IQ averages. Although the test is designed to fit a bell curve, the outliers on either end of the spectrum negate each other. So we still have the same percentage ratio of high- to low-IQ people.
One thing that we do have more of, though, is specialization. People are getting very specific with their job titles, career paths, college degrees and experiences. So finding an expert on any one particular topic is easier, and chances are that current experts have more expertise than experts in previous generations. However, there’s an opportunity cost to becoming an expert, which is a lack of knowledge in other subjects.
So, to summarize: we’re getting smarter as a species but staying pretty much the same as individuals (though with greater individual specialized knowledge). Then again, considering the possibilities of enhanced intelligence (see figure 1 and figure 2), maybe that’s a good thing.
