A commenter on this post writes,
Under the Hariri / Diamond theory, you would expect [foragers] and their current descendants to be some of the of the most cognitively gifted people in the world, doing great in school with high test scores, and easily punching well above their weight in all sorts of intellectual pursuits, or at least in the those areas where the hypothetical forager intelligence provides a comparative advantage versus those dull farmers. If, for example, they really need such a phenomenal memory to remember all those plants, then we should see that many of their descendants have exceptions memories and succeed in careers that leverage that special talent.
But not only do we not see this, we see exactly the opposite.
Indeed, one should be wary of just-so stories, particularly when plainly visible evidence runs counter to them.
They didn’t consider the increased cognitive requirements of living in cities.
One view may be:
The capacity for knowledge is based on the ability to perceive meaningful connections amongst bits of information and the ability to recognize and acquire information.
The expansion of knowledge can be dependent on recognizing and acquiring new (or previously disregarded) information; perceiving other meaningful connections of bits of information; developing capacities for obtaining and examining information.
It is NOT a “data storage matter.”
Right- the theory would be plausible that if you took two random groups, put one of them in a farming village and one in foraging village, over time the foragers might become more intelligent.
But thats now how it worked- there was that initial step of some foragers deciding to become farmers. That in itself represented a selection process so the selection bias kills this theory.
Now, it is possible that over time, the farmers became dumber than they were when they initially decided to become farmers. But they presumably had an advantage from the start- unless you think the decision to go into farming was more due to geography or randomness I suppose.
More evidence towards modular brain hypothesis (Kurzban), and less towards the notion that g-style abstract reasoning capability which is universally useful in the modern world is univesally useful in all worlds?
Just-so stories that are contradicted by obvious empirical evidence are socially valuable: they remind us to be suspicious of just-so stories.
Foragers lack future-time-orientation and outside the Arctic region don’t go for technology much. Indeed, many suspect the low average IQ of Australian Aborigines is a side effect of devolution as their Asian ancestors seem to have been much more savvy.
I haven’t seen it studied much, but there’s some evidence for hunter-gatherers tending to have superior direction finding and tracking skills.
I wouldn’t want to have to take THEIR intelligence tests!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kD6QWp7yoLY
That wouldn’t be surprising, but how much is either nature or nurture?
The question is whether we also see those superior talents expressed in their offspring in different cultural contexts. So, for example, before the GPS era, did we notice that forager-origin kids raised in the city almost never get lost when learning to drive, rarely forget directions, or always seem to propel themselves on subconscious autopilot on the most efficient path to even the most obscure product in the super-Target after a single visit (like my wife can, but which would take me forever), etc.?
Human intelligence is not something driven by the need to forage in the natural world. Many animals seem to do that more than adequately with far less than human intelligence.
I am far more persuaded by the theory that the selection pressure for intelligence is produced by interaction with other humans: by the need to cooperate with them in groups and to avoid being outwitted by them as competitors. Neither foraging nor farming creates such a demand for intelligence.