tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35106826834272476582024-03-14T00:34:40.316-04:00Autistic AphorismsA blog dedicated to the task of transforming autism into that self it truly is.Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.comBlogger301125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-65650818283321228092024-03-05T18:55:00.000-05:002024-03-05T18:55:14.500-05:00Scientific Revolutions, Abductive Reasoning, and Autism <p>
<b>1. Introduction</b>
</p>
<p>
Thomas Kuhn's 1962 book <i>The Structure of Scientific Revolutions</i> (Kuhn,
1962) is an interesting example of a self-referencing idea. In the work,
Kuhn outlines a description of how scientific frameworks tend to
transform over time through a roughly cyclical pattern of paradigm,
anomaly, crisis, and then paradigm shift—in essence, through a series of
stasis-breaking challenges and radical reformulations. This description
runs counter to the then prevailing view that science progresses in a
more incremental and accretive fashion, using the tools of verifiability
and falsifiability to nudge the scientific community towards consensus
in the face of new and/or competing theories. Kuhn's work has received
its share of criticism over the years (Masterman, 1970; Sanbonmatsu
& Sanbonmatsu, 2017), but there is no questioning that the book has
had a profound influence on the history and philosophy of science, its
themes now deeply ingrained into the mindsets of both practicing
scientists and the general public as they survey how human knowledge has
unfolded during the past and continues to develop through the present
day (Kaiser, 2012). Which is to say, <i>The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions</i> has itself produced a meaningful and persistent paradigm
shift.
</p>
<p>
Kuhn's template for scientific revolution is similar in many respects to
the concept known as abductive reasoning. Abductive reasoning was
brought into prominence by the nineteenth-century American philosopher
Charles Sanders Peirce, who explored the topic frequently throughout his
copious writings on logic, scientific classification, semiotics and
pragmatism (Peirce, 1992, 1998). Peirce himself sometimes struggled to
nail down the exact nature of abductive reasoning, admitting at one
point that he had perhaps confused some of its characteristics with
those of inductive reasoning during the earlier stages of his career.
But Peirce was also the one who crafted, in typical Peircean fashion,
the incisive and pithy formula by which abductive reasoning is still
commonly articulated today:
</p>
<blockquote>
The surprising fact, C, is observed.<br/>
But if A were true, C would be a matter of course.<br/>
Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true.<br/>
</blockquote>
<p>
Abductive reasoning can be applied against a broad range of
circumstances, from personal events to scientific revolutions, but it
was for the latter type of application that Peirce stressed the immense
importance of abductive reasoning, noting it was the only form of logic
by which humans discover and develop anything new.
</p>
<p>
A distinctive and somewhat enigmatic feature of both scientific
revolutions and abductive reasoning is the aha moment, that sudden
perception of an effective solution to what had been previously a vexing
problem. Kuhn and Peirce say only a little about this epiphanous event,
with Kuhn likening it to a change in Gestalt—such as the drawing that
transitions suddenly from duck to rabbit—and with Peirce describing the
insight as coming to us "like a flash" and as "putting together what we
had never before dreamed of putting together." Implicit in these brief
portrayals is a corollary also evident from the history of scientific
revolutions, namely that these aha moments are exclusively the product
of individuals, and never of groups.
</p>
<p>
This essay will explore the role autism plays in both scientific
revolution and abductive reasoning, including the spawning of these aha
moments. Autism is usually regarded as a medical condition (Hodges et
al., 2020), but here an alternative approach will be given extensive
consideration, with an emphasis on how the biological, behavioral and
sensory characteristics of autism naturally give rise to an atypical
form of human perception. It will be demonstrated that it is this
atypical form of perception that catalyzes the abductive reasoning
underlying knowledge innovation, and as partial evidence for these
assertions, it will be discussed how surprisingly often autistic
characteristics have made a prominent appearance in the history of
scientific revolutions.
</p>
<p>
Finally, the paradigm under which the scientific community currently
operates will be examined with a critical eye. Kuhn's 1962 work can be
seen as being highly influenced by the circumstances of the scientific
community of that time, and because of this influence, Kuhn
misapprehends the state of science as it existed before the beginning of
the twentieth century, and also fails to anticipate the predicament into
which science would fall by the end of the twentieth century. As
scientific work has become more popular, more collaborative and more
financially rewarding—and less frequently the domain of unusual and
isolated individuals—the scientific community has found itself becoming
increasingly stuck inside the regimen Kuhn labels as normal science. In
the present day, <i>normal science</i> is producing a particularly deleterious
effect, it is systematically suppressing the revolutionary impact of
atypical autistic perception.
</p>
<br/>
<p>
<b>2. Scientific Revolutions</b>
</p>
<p>
Kuhn is best known for his introduction of the concept of paradigm
shift, but <i>paradigm shift</i> is only one aspect—and often too narrowly
understood—of Kuhn's more encompassing description of a cycle of stasis
and upheaval underlying historical scientific change. The word <i>paradigm</i>
for Kuhn is a convenient label for the circumstances of a mostly stable
and generally agreed-upon scientific practice, as embodied by the
scientific community in the form of textbooks, journals, conferences,
constructive collaboration, and so on. During this period of what Kuhn
calls <i>normal science</i>, the scientific community's efforts are directed
almost entirely towards the confirmation and shoring up of the
sanctioned framework, with little to no endeavor directed towards
overthrow. What eventually disturbs a paradigm is the accumulation
and/or significance of anomalies, problems that stubbornly defy all
effort to be resolved within the context of prevailing theories. These
anomalies foment a state of crisis within the community, with the crisis
prone to being answered by the introduction of an entirely new
framework, one often incommensurable with the old way of seeing things.
If this new framework proves to be effective at both resolving the
anomalies and clearing the landscape for future progress, the scientific
community will gradually abandon the old framework and adopt the new,
establishing the next paradigm for ongoing scientific practice. Thus,
<i>paradigm shift</i> can be seen as having two different but related meanings.
One, paradigm shift can refer to the adoption of the new paradigm over
the old one, a process that is often slow moving and happens under the
reluctant sway of the scientific community. And two, paradigm shift can
refer to the insightful perception of a new and effective framework, an
event that can occur suddenly and remains the province of just one
individual.
</p>
<p>
Perhaps the quintessential example of these concepts is Einstein's
introduction of special relativity (Einstein, 1905). The prevailing
paradigm leading up to that occasion was still mostly that of Newtonian
mechanics, buttressed by additional features to accommodate Maxwell's
already anomalous field theory of electromagnetic waves. One of these
additional features was the luminiferous ether, the hypothesized medium
through which light, electricity and magnetism could propagate, but
efforts to detect motion through this ether, including the famous
Michelson-Morley experiment (Michelson & Morley, 1887), had instead
produced an incongruous result, namely that the speed of light remained
the same in every direction measured, no matter the velocity of the
source. Several attempts were made—for instance, by Lorentz and Poincaré
(Lorentz, 1904; Poincaré, 1900)—to reconcile this outcome to the
prevailing framework, but because these efforts still clung to the
existing paradigm, they failed to provide the necessary clarification.
That task fell to the young Einstein, still a patent office clerk, who
after several years of grappling with the problem, found sudden
inspiration in the early summer of 1905 and completed his famous paper
on the electrodynamics of moving bodies in a mere matter of weeks. That
paper did not cling to the existing paradigm but instead boldly defied
it, proclaiming the ether to be superfluous and postulating an entirely
new conception of space, time, matter and energy.
</p>
<p>
As is often the case, Einstein's revolutionary ideas, despite resolving
the anomalies concisely and clearing the ground for future progress, did
not meet with immediate acceptance from the scientific community; nearly
two decades would pass before relativity became firmly established as
the basis for the next paradigm (Goldberg, 1970). Many of Kuhn's other
examples of scientific revolution follow a similar course: Copernicus's
heliocentric model of cosmology, Newton's laws of motion and gravity,
Dalton's atomic theory of chemistry, Darwin's description of natural
selection—all these innovations were the inspiration of an individual,
and all were met with initial resistance by the larger group (Barber,
1961). There exists an inherent tension in each case of scientific
revolution, the tension between the scientific community's intrinsic
adherence to the familiar way of seeing things versus an individual's
disruptive introduction of an atypical counter perception (Kuhn, 1978).
</p>
<p>
Kuhn applies his ideas almost exclusively to the domain of the natural
sciences, but in a broader sense, <i>science</i> is simply a term for the
pursuit of greater understanding, and thus Kuhn's scheme can just as
effectively be applied to knowledge acquisition in general. The first
control of fire, the first use of abstract language, the first
mathematical concept—these moments are lost to prehistory, but there is
no reason to expect they were not the inspiration of uncommon
individuals, and were met with initial resistance by the guardians of
the then current conventional wisdom. This pattern of human knowledge
advancement, accretive in its totality but reconstructive at its core,
is in many respects the primary distinguishing feature of the modern
form of the human species (Griswold, 2023a). Ever since the turn towards
behavioral modernity, humans have been increasingly distancing
themselves from their purely animal past by reassessing and
reconstructing their surrounding environment, and this activity has not
been accomplished in a sociable, gradual and piecemeal fashion, but
instead has been accomplished via dissension and upheaval, via the
constant tearing down of the old paradigm and the rebuilding of the new.
The great scientific discoveries of the last several centuries are
simply recent examples of what has actually been a long-running human
process, a process that, not coincidentally, is both unprecedented
within the biological kingdom and is also powered by the fuel of
atypical perception.
</p>
<br/>
<p>
<b>3. Abductive Reasoning</b>
</p>
<p>
Over the past decade or so, abductive reasoning has experienced a surge
in scholarly interest, so much so that the topic has become something of
an academic cottage industry: classifications of abductive patterns
(Park, 2015; Schurz, 2008), competing analyses of underlying logical
schemas (Lycke, 2012; Urbański, 2022), endless battles over whether
<i>inference to the best explanation</i> is the same thing as abduction
(Campos, 2011; Mcauliffe, 2015), etc. To sidestep some of this noise,
the focus here will remain on Peirce's original three-line formula, with
an italicized emphasis on those phrases that appear to be the most
under-appreciated within the academic community:
</p>
<blockquote>
The <i>surprising fact</i>, C, is observed.<br/>
But if A were true, C would be <i>a matter of course</i>.<br/>
Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true.<br/>
</blockquote>
<p>
The observed fact needs to be <i>surprising</i> because abduction begins when
something appears to be amiss or inadequate with the contextual
framework. New facts, or facts that can be easily assimilated to what is
already well understood, do not stimulate the kind of perturbation that
comes with abduction—a surprising fact is provocative, a
soon-to-be-explained fact is not. Furthermore, the real sting in
Peirce's formula is in the transformation C undergoes from being a
<i>surprising fact</i> to being <i>a matter of course</i>. That is no small leap. If C
is originally a surprising fact—indicating trouble with the contextual
framework—then almost by necessity the fact transitions to being a
matter of course only via a radical change to the contextual framework,
a change sometimes so sweeping as to render the new framework
incommensurable with the old. Contextual frameworks can run the gamut
from personal worldviews to the shared paradigms of the natural
sciences, but in each instance the framework's purpose is to provide
clarification and orientation, and when it fails to do so, it needs to
be discarded and rebuilt anew. Thus, the A of Peirce's formula is often
much more than just an explanatory hypothesis, the A of Peirce's formula
is what people now commonly call a paradigm shift.
</p>
<p>
Let us consider some examples. The first example is the already
mentioned introduction of special relativity. Just about any instance of
scientific revolution could serve as illustration for abductive
reasoning—special relativity happens to be particularly thematic. There
were two major anomalies, or surprising facts, that provoked Einstein's
scrutiny. One, there was the unexpectedness of the Michelson-Morley
result, doggedly indicating no detectable motion through the
luminiferous ether. And two, no one, including Einstein himself, seemed
to be able to adjust Maxwell's electromagnetic equations to make them
conform to the Galilean relativity principle (Earman et al., 1982).
Einstein's solution to these challenges, simple in conception but
monumental in its consequence, did indeed transform both of these
anomalies into a matter of course. The first anomaly was resolved by
raising the constancy of the speed of light in every inertial frame to
the level of postulate, rendering the Michelson-Morley outcome
straightforward and trivial. This also cleared up the second anomaly, by
allowing Einstein to demonstrate that his inability to make Maxwell's
equations conform to the relativity principle was ironically correct,
because in fact no adjustment was needed, the equations already
conformed as they were.
</p>
<p>
Here, the A of Peirce's formula was nothing short of the overthrow of
the contextual framework of physics, a complete reconceptualization of
space, time, matter and energy. What was gained by this disruption was
clarification, a clearing of what had been previously a problematic
landscape, a reorientation allowing scientists to proceed. Compare this
outcome to the approach taken by Hendrik Lorentz. Lorentz, prior to
Einstein, had already developed much of the mathematics describing
relativity, but had done so through a strained effort to accommodate the
perceived anomalies to the prevailing Newtonian/Maxwellian framework,
and the strain shows. Time dilation for Lorentz was in essence a
mathematical trick, a kludge to force the equations to conform to the
relativity principle. And length contraction was a mysterious property
imposed upon moving bodies by the luminiferous ether, calibrated
precisely to the Michelson-Morley result. These interpretations, <i>even if
they were true</i>, would not provide clarification, but would instead
simply shift the venue of the anomalies. A mathematical trick that seems
to work with time is itself anomalous; compression of moving bodies by a
massless ether is itself a surprising fact. Abduction—especially
ampliative abduction, the kind that produces new understanding—is less
about the search for plausible hypotheses than it is about the quest for
clarification. Both Einstein and Lorentz had offered plausible
hypotheses, but Einstein's paradigm shift produced clarification,
Lorentz's strained fit to the old paradigm did not.
</p>
<p>
To take a more everyday example, consider the following scenario. A man
wakes up on Friday morning, showers, dresses for work, has breakfast,
then walks to the bus stop and waits for the 8:30 bus. But the bus does
not arrive. The man is perplexed—this has never happened before, and he
begins to get a vague sense that something is wrong. Maybe the bus has
broken down, he thinks, and he will need to find an alternative means to
get to work, but nothing about that explanation, <i>even if it were true</i>,
seems satisfying to him. Then suddenly it hits him—today is not Friday,
today is Saturday! Of course the bus has not arrived! The man also now
recognizes the source of his vague sense that something was wrong—no one
else is at the bus stop and there is less traffic on the road.
Everything has become clear to him now and he walks home to begin his
Saturday chores.
</p>
<p>
The surprising fact in this scenario is that the bus does not arrive,
and as is often the case, many explanations can be offered to account
for this surprising fact. But explanations are not the goal here,
clarification is the goal. The hypothesis that the bus has broken down
is perfectly reasonable, probably even the most likely, but it does not
do anything to clarify this man's situation, in fact it leaves it more
messy than before. Will the bus service send a back up? Should he call
for a taxi? Do taxes need to be raised in this city to promote better
vehicle maintenance, etc.? Of course, reality is often like that, the
facts do turn out to be messy sometimes, and humans must learn to deal
with those situations too. But contextual frameworks do not have the
luxury of being messy—their sole purpose is to provide clarification and
orientation, and when one can successfully make use of them, they are
the most advantageous of tools. Thus, when the man suddenly realizes
that today is actually Saturday and not Friday—that is, when he swaps
out one contextual framework for another—his world transitions
immediately from being problematic to being crystal clear. He knows how
to proceed because he has been afforded the gift of a useful abduction.
</p>
<p>
As a final example, let us consider a present day anomaly that appears
to be in need of a scientific revolution—the Flynn effect. It was early
in the twentieth century when IQ exams were first created and
administered, and as that century progressed, it was observed that the
raw scores on these exams were significantly increasing over time
(Pietschnig & Voracek, 2015; Trahan et al., 2014). James Flynn in
the 1980s documented, with large amounts of data, that this phenomenon
was essentially universal, and the phenomenon soon thereafter would be
dubbed the Flynn effect (Flynn, 1984, 1987). The prevailing paradigm
regarding human intelligence is that it is a product of the human
brain—that is, somewhere within the cerebral mesh of neurons, synapses
and biochemical activity, the mechanisms of intelligence make their
biological home (Jung & Haier, 2007). But given this contextual
framework for intelligence, the Flynn effect emerges as a surprising
fact. Evolutionary principles generally preclude such a rapid and
population-wide improvement in a biological capacity—the expected
outcome is that the average level of human intelligence would remain
stable over time.
</p>
<p>
There have been countless explanations offered for the Flynn effect. For
instance, it has been suggested that such factors as better nutrition
(Lynn, 1989), greater access to formal education (Baker et al., 2015),
increased exposure to video games and puzzles (Clark et al., 2016),
etc.—or various combinations of the above (Jensen, 1998)—have
contributed to an overall increase in the efficiency of human brains. In
addition, several comprehensive models have been proposed hypothesizing
a combined genetic and ecological causality for changing levels of human
intelligence, intricate formulations such as the Dickens-Flynn model
(Dickens & Flynn, 2001) and Woodley's theory of fast and slow life
(Woodley, 2012). These explanations all have two characteristics in
common. One, each explanation adheres to the prevailing paradigm of a
brain-centric mechanism for human intelligence, casting its solution as
impactful upon the effectiveness of the human brain. And two, each
explanation, <i>even if it were true</i>, would provide little in the way of
clarification. For instance, it would remain entirely unspecified how
better nutrition, greater access to formal education, or increased
exposure to video games and puzzles would induce the type of intense
biological and neurological impact required to boost intelligence scores
universally. And formulations such as the Dickens-Flynn model and
Woodley's theory of fast and slow life are themselves more labyrinthine
and more undetermined than the anomaly they are meant to explain
(contrast these formulations, for instance, to Einstein's two-postulate
model of relativity).
</p>
<p>
The odd thing is, the current situation regarding the Flynn effect would
seem to provide the ideal backdrop for a Kuhnian crisis, and yet the
intelligence research community shows no indication of being flummoxed
at all. Its relentless adherence to the existing paradigm and its
continuing pursuit of non-clarifying hypotheses suggest this community
will remain in its current state for quite some time, and this raises a
further question of whether something about Kuhn's description of
scientific revolution has itself become anomalous in the twenty-first
century (more on this topic later). Nonetheless, whether the scientific
community is aware of this crisis or not, abductive reasoning would
indicate that the most promising path forward with regard to the Flynn
effect would be to transform the contextual framework, to shift the
prevailing paradigm, to reconceptualize human intelligence (Griswold,
2023b).
</p>
<p>
The first two examples—special relativity and the non-arriving bus—each
contain an aha moment: in his later years, Einstein narrated a
description of how a casual conversation on a beautiful Bern day gave
him a sudden insight into the nature of his relativity problem, opening
the pathway to his famous paper (Stachel, 2002), and of course in the
example of the non-arriving bus, the aha moment comes with the sudden
realization that the day is Saturday. These aha moments, even when
connected to widely shared paradigms, are almost always personal and
solitary in nature—the history of science is chock-full of such
epiphanies, but they are the epiphanies of individuals, never the
epiphany of an entire group. And indeed, as can be seen in the case of
the Flynn effect, the scientific community is actually inclined towards
the <i>opposite</i> of the aha moment, is inclined towards a mutual and fixed
regard for the prevailing paradigm. Thus, there appear to be two types
of perception at work within the human population, each antipodally
aligned with respect to abductive reasoning and scientific revolutions.
One type of perception is prone to being communal and conservative,
inherently friendly towards conventional wisdom and the favored
paradigm, and could be fairly labeled as <i>typical</i> perception. The other
type of perception is prone to being idiosyncratic and iconoclastic,
naturally distrustful of the popular perspective, and could be fairly
labeled as <i>atypical</i> perception. Both types of perception play important
and reciprocal roles in the maintenance and reconstruction of human
knowledge, and there is value to be gained in understanding more fully
the distinction between them. To that end, the discussion now turns to
the concept known as <i>autism</i>.
</p>
<br/>
<p>
<b>4. Autism</b>
</p>
<p>
Autism was first recognized and described in the mid twentieth
century, particularly with the publication in the 1940s of case
studies by psychiatrist Leo Kanner (Kanner, 1943) and pediatrician
Hans Asperger (Asperger, 1944), studies that highlighted the
defining behavioral characteristics of the autistic
condition—namely, social difficulties, language peculiarities, and
an intense focus on circumscribed interests. In the decades that
immediately followed these publications, autism was regarded almost
invariably as a dire medical condition, exceedingly rare and leading
to outcomes inevitably poor (Evans, 2013). However, the current view
regarding autism has changed enormously from those earlier times,
with two primary developments triggering the transformation
(O'Reilly, 2020). First, the prevalence of autism has turned out to
be much greater than was originally assumed, increasing by orders of
magnitude from initial estimates of around 1 in 2000 (0.05%) to the
current estimates of around 1 in 50 (2.0%) (Ballan & Hyk, 2019).
And secondly, along with this recognition of significantly greater
numbers of autistic individuals has come the parallel realization
that only a small percentage of their outcomes turn out to be
anything resembling the word <i>dire</i>. In actuality, autistic outcomes
constitute an extremely broad range, with indeed some individuals
experiencing serious developmental difficulties and requiring
lifetime assistance and care, but with many others leading lives of
almost indistinguishable normalcy, and some attaining lives of
exceptional achievement (Reis et al., 2022). The word <i>spectrum</i> is
now frequently employed to depict the wide variability in both
autistic presentation and autistic outcomes, and although the word
is apt to be misused at times, <i>spectrum</i> does capture an aspect of
how autism is generally regarded today.
</p>
<p>
Nonetheless, the lingering stigma from the earlier views regarding
autism does continue to have some unfortunate consequence, the most
troubling being the long-lasting impact upon the autism research
community. That community still studies autism primarily as a
medical condition, focusing nearly all of its efforts and resources
on discovering causes and cures. For many decades now, autism
research has been directed towards finding the genetic defect that
underlies autism (Reiss et al., 1986; Rylaarsdam &
Guemez-Gamboa, 2019), towards describing the neurological aberration
that explains autism (Haas et al., 1996; Pan et al., 2021), and
towards uncovering the environmental insult that produces autism
(Cattane et al., 2020; Kern & Jones, 2006), frequently with the
stated goal of eradicating, or at least ameliorating, the features
of the condition. But these many decades of research have produced
literally nothing in the way of results: there is no known genetic
defect underlying autism, there is no known neurological aberration
explaining autism, and there is no known environmental insult
producing autism (Hodges et al., 2020). When it comes to advancing a
medical understanding of autism, the scientific community stands no
differently today than it did dozens of years ago, and indeed the
verdict remains entirely open as to whether autism should be
regarded as a medical condition at all.
</p>
<p>
This essay will examine an alternative description of autism, one
that takes into full account the biological, behavioral and sensory
characteristics that define autism, but that also looks beyond the
narrow restriction of perceiving autism as just a medical condition.
This alternative description of autism begins with an account of
<i>non</i>-autism—that is to say, what it means to be biologically
typical—with an emphasis on those perceptual characteristics that
delineate non-autism. This includes a focus on the biological and
evolutionary importance of <i>conspecific perception</i>, the innate
tendency to perceive first and foremost the other members of one's
own species (Buxton et al., 2020). Autism is then contrastingly
described as a significant lack of this conspecific perception, a
lack that both produces the observable characteristics of the
condition and also leads directly to a compensatory and divergent
form of perception. These two types of perception—non-autistic
<i>typical</i> perception and autistic <i>atypical</i> perception—are then seen as
producing in tandem a revolutionary impact upon the entire human
species, including being the source of the typical/atypical
perceptual divide that characterizes the essential tension at the
core of abductive reasoning and scientific revolutions.
</p>
<p>
In outline form, this alternative description of autism can be
presented as follows (a more thorough account can be found in other
writings (Griswold, 2007, 2023a)):
</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>
<i>Non-autistic, or biologically typical, humans possess fully
those behavioral and perceptual characteristics that have
carried forward from humanity's not-so-distant animal past</i>.
Until recently in their evolutionary history, humans were
still pure animals, with their behaviors and perceptions
centered exclusively around survival-and-procreative
demand—food, water, danger, sex, etc. (Klein, 2009). Not
until the turn towards behavioral modernity, starting around
a few hundred thousand years ago, did humans begin to add
the other behaviors and perceptions that now distinguish the
species from the remainder of the animal kingdom (Klein,
2002). Nonetheless, the influence of those animal-origined
behaviors and perceptions still remains strong today. Most
members of the current population, despite living in
artificially constructed environments and despite having
most of their biological needs easily met, continue to give
a great deal of attention and effort to those familiar
targets—food, water, danger, sex, etc.—and much of current
human activity is still guided by a shared interest in these
familiar themes.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<i>Among the carryovers from humanity's animal past,
</i>conspecific perception<i> plays a central role in determining
the social and behavioral characteristics of the population</i>.
Conspecific perception is the innate tendency to perceive
first and foremost the other members of one's own species, a
tendency apparent in essentially all animal species: lions
perceive first and foremost other lions, honeybees perceive
first and foremost other honeybees, etc. Conspecific
perception foregrounds intra-species sensory experience
against a less distinct sensory background, and this
tendency is evolutionarily crucial for allowing mates to
discover mates, parents to focus on their offspring,
offspring to follow their parents, members of a pack to
track one another, and so on. Conspecific perception is
quite strong within the human species, as it would be for
any species considered to be highly social, and it has the
impact of drawing the human population together, because
most humans possess a natural and shared interest in
observing other humans and in mimicking what other humans
do.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<i>Conspecific perception also plays a critical role in the
sensory and developmental progress of human individuals</i>.
When a human child enters this world he or she must first
achieve a sensory grounding, because otherwise, the sensory
impressions a child experiences would remain chaotic and
unorganized. As is evident from the rapt, natural and
delighted attention most children give to other humans and
to human activities, conspecific perception is one of the
primary means by which human children attain their sensory
grounding. From the manifold of impressions that arises in
the sensory field, what emerges most predominantly are human
sights, human voices, human smells, human activities, and so
on. A human child then uses this human-forward sensory
grounding to pursue further developmental progress,
including first steps into the leveraging world of human
language. Thus, most children today owe their perceptual and
developmental start primarily to the species' shared and
natural interest in all things human.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<i>Biological perception in general, and conspecific perception
in particular, has the persistent impact of locking a
species into a behavioral and perceptual stasis</i>. Animal
behaviors and perceptions are remarkably stable, both across
species and across time. Nearly all wild animal species
today live lives that are essentially the same as they were
hundreds of thousands of years ago, lives similar to those
of the other animal species, lives intensely focused on
survival-and-procreative demand—food, water, danger, sex,
etc. Even evolutionary change does not alter this
pattern—the resultant species will live the same
biologically and conspecifically focused life as did the
predecessor species. With the turn towards behavioral
modernity, the human species has clearly broken out of this
rigid pattern, with its members living lives today that are
much different than they were in prior times. But it is
important to recognize that until quite recently in their
evolutionary history, humans were just as locked into the
confining consequences of biological and conspecific
perception as were all the other animals, raising the
question of exactly how it came to be that this lock was
broken.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<i>Autism can be characterized as a significant diminution of
conspecific perception</i>. In marked contrast to biologically
typical individuals, autistic individuals can be seen as
displaying a diminished awareness and attention for other
human beings. Young autistic children do not engage as
readily or willingly with other people as non-autistic
children generally do, and autistic children appear to be
much less interested in observing or participating in
human-related activities (Hedger & Chakrabarti, 2021).
These behaviors are frequently characterized as <i>social</i>
difficulties, but in a sense that phrase mischaracterizes
the trait. The so-called social difficulties of autistic
children are not the result of a particular social defect so
much as they are the result of a substantial perceptual
distancing from the species itself. That is to say, the
social difficulties of autistic children are the most
clearcut evidence of their significant lack of conspecific
perception.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<i>The diminution of conspecific perception in autistic
children thwarts their attainment of a sensory grounding by
the typical means</i>. The degree to which conspecific
perception is diminished in autistic individuals can vary,
and this may explain in part the spectrum-like nature of
autistic presentation and outcomes, but the diminishment is
always significant in the following sense: autistic
children, unlike biologically typical children, cannot
organize their sensory experience around a natural
predominance of human-centric features. Almost every
autistic child experiences sensory issues (Hazen et al.,
2014), issues that range all the way from hypersensitivity
to hyposensitivity to synesthesia, and the motleyness of
these sensory symptoms suggests they are not the product of
a particular physical cause so much as they are the
consequence of a generalized difficulty in organizing
sensory experience. From the manifold of impressions that
arises in the autistic child's sensory field, human sights,
human voices, human smells, etc., they do not emerge
predominately from the sensory background. This leaves the
autistic child without a sensory grounding, navigating what
must seem to be the near equivalent of a sensory chaos, and
if these circumstances are not resolved, the child can be
expected to encounter nearly insurmountable developmental
challenges.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<i>To attain their sensory grounding, most autistic children
adopt an alternative form of perception, one that can be
characterized as a heightened attention and awareness for
the inherent structural features that stand out from the
surrounding environment</i>. Although usually delayed compared
to their non-autistic peers, most autistic children do
overcome their developmental challenges, and this
developmental progress indicates that most autistic children
do attain a sensory grounding, a result evidenced also by
the fact their sensory issues tend to ease over time (Kern
et al., 2006). But since an autistic child's overcoming of a
potential sensory chaos is not achieved through the
predominant influence of conspecific perception, it must be
achieved by some other means. <i>Chaos</i> as a term denotes a lack
of structure, and chaos is generally dissolved by the
emergence of structural features—symmetry, repetition,
pattern, number, form. Autistic children provide abundant
evidence that they overcome their sensory chaos by focusing
not on other people, but instead by focusing on the
structural elements to be found in their surrounding
environment. Ceiling fans, spinning wheels, light switches,
the shapes of letters, sports statistics, dinosaur taxonomy,
etc., the structure-suffused interests and activities of
autistic individuals form a lengthy list. This is a core and
defining characteristic of autism, and is often referenced
by the phrase <i>restricted and repetitive behaviors</i>, a phrase
that mostly misjudges the critical necessity of those
behaviors. Whereas non-autistic children can gain their
sensory grounding through an interest in all things
human—that is, via conspecific perception—autistic children
must gain their sensory grounding through an intense focus
on the non-biological structural features that stand out
from the surrounding environment. Thus, most autistic
children today owe their developmental start primarily to an
alternative form of perception.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<i>The significant presence of autistic individuals within the
human population modifies the perceptual characteristics of
the population as a whole, thereby breaking the stasis
imposed by biological and conspecific perception</i>. Through
their repeated efforts to mirror and to reconstruct the
contextual patterns they perceive, autistic individuals
bring to the foreground the structural elements and
structural potential to be found in the surrounding
environment. Non-autistic individuals, previously blinded to
these structural elements by the constrictions of biological
and conspecific perception, yet keenly aware of what other
humans do, begin to notice these autistically inspired
patterns and behaviors, and begin to adopt them for
themselves. In this fashion, the entire human species begins
to perceive and to interact with the surrounding environment
in a manner that goes beyond just biological and
evolutionary need, thereby opening the door to behaviors
unique within the animal kingdom and unprecedented over the
course of biological history.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<i>The human turn towards behavioral modernity, including the
revolutionary advancement in human knowledge, has been
catalyzed by the ongoing symbiosis between the autistic and
non-autistic forms of perception</i>. As humans have gained a
growing awareness of the structural potential contained
within their surrounding environment, they have increasingly
reconstructed that environment in countless and complex
ways. These artificial innovations embody the advancements
in human understanding and carry forward their structural
underpinnings to future generations, leading to the
multi-faceted and intricate surroundings in which people
live today. Human experience now reflects a thorough
blending of its two major sources of influence: one, the
social, biological and communal aspect that arises out of
humanity's animal past, and two, the artificial, structural
and revolutionary aspect that has been introduced via the
presence of the autistic population.
</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>
This description of autism illuminates the essential tension underlying
scientific revolutions, with each pole of that tension corresponding to
a particular perceptual type. Biologically typical perception underlies
the communal and conservative qualities that define the normal science
of stable paradigms, and autistic perception sparks the idiosyncratic
and iconoclastic inspirations that drive abductive-style paradigm shifts
in scientific revolutions. Both poles of this tension play a critical
role in the maintenance and advancement of human understanding, with the
non-autistic tendencies of normal science serving to buttress and to
promulgate knowledge already gained, and with the autistic tendency
towards atypical perception serving to demolish and to reconstruct
knowledge in need of transformation.
</p>
<br/>
<p>
<b>5. The Atypical Individuals of Scientific Revolutions</b>
</p>
<p>
It is important to recognize that in the modern world there is really no
such thing as a purely non-autistic or purely autistic adult individual.
Each person has a natural preference—determined mostly by how that
person first achieved a sensory grounding—but as each individual
matures, he or she will be exposed to a human environment thoroughly
suffused with both biological/social influences and also with
artificial/structural influences, and will through this exposure gain
increasing familiarity and dexterity with both the non-autistic and
autistic perceptual traits. This is why a non-autistic individual can
become extremely fluent in all manner of artificial and structural
endeavor, and it is also why an autistic individual can achieve closer
connection to the human species and become accomplished within the
social realm. And in scientific practice, no individual is precluded
from either of the counterbalancing roles—each individual is capable of
engaging in normal science or in scientific revolution, or in both. The
distinction is at the perceptual level and not at the level of the
individual.
</p>
<p>
Nonetheless, it can be expected as a general rule that each individual
will gravitate more frequently to his or her natural perceptual stance.
For instance, the non-autistic individual is more likely to feel at home
in the presence of other people, and the non-autistic scientist is more
likely to be drawn to the communal and conservative aspects of normal
science. At the same time, the autistic individual is more apt to take
solitary comfort in the regularity of structured surroundings, and the
autistic scientist is more apt to be drawn to the worldview-altering
potential of abductive reasoning. Thus, it can also be expected that
over the course of scientific history, the aha moments of scientific
revolution will have been generated more frequently by individuals
giving evidence of possessing autistic-like traits, and indeed,
scientific history gives abundant evidence that this is in fact the
case.
</p>
<p>
Newton, Einstein, Darwin, Cavendish, Dalton, Dirac, the Curies—the
personalities that emerge from the biographies of such individuals stand
out in several respects, including being remarkably similar to one
another and being classifiable by a telltale collection of traits: shy,
taciturn, socially awkward, intensely focused, late talking, habitual in
routine, echolalic, etc. (James, 2003). Indeed, there is not one social
butterfly to be found anywhere upon this list. Autism was not a known
concept when these individuals lived, but if they were among the
population today, their spectrum-like characteristics would be difficult
to ignore. This is not a definitive proof that autism can be directly
applied to such individuals or that autism was solely responsible for
their innovative feats—retrospective application of autism should always
be approached with caution and care. But the consistency in the atypical
traits of so many individuals has to be more than mere coincidence, and
at any rate, the hypothesis can still be put to a future test. There
will be future aha moments, and there will be future knowledge
revolutions, and with autism now more recognizable within the
population, it will be worth some effort to observe how many of these
future cases of knowledge revolution come with autism conspicuously
nearby.
</p>
<p>
Although it has become customary to explain the atypical characteristics
of history's scientific icons as the by-product of their prodigious
genius, there is in fact no reason not to consider the opposing
interpretation, that the cause and effect at work here actually runs in
reverse.
</p>
<br/>
<p>
<b>6. The Structure of Scientific Stagnation</b>
</p>
<p>
The normal science depicted in Kuhn's 1962 work reflects a remarkably
keen eye for the scientific practice of Kuhn's day. Having originally
studied to be a practicing scientist himself, Kuhn manages to capture
accurately the many mechanisms helping to form and to maintain the
scientific community of the 1950s and 1960s: conferences, textbooks,
journals, academic associations, specialty groups, and so on.
Unfortunately, Kuhn then seems to apply this milieu to much earlier
times, with an intimation that Newton, Darwin, Einstein and others
performed their work under similar circumstances. This is an
anachronism.
</p>
<p>
Before the twentieth century, <i>scientific community</i> had a much different
meaning than it had for Kuhn, or than it has today. During those earlier
times, scientists worked almost exclusively as individuals, and
sometimes in great isolation. Textbooks were essentially nonexistent,
and journals were used not for publication acclaim but instead as a more
efficient means of sharing results and ideas than could be had through
the redundancy of multiple correspondences. Scientific associations,
such as the Royal Society, were relatively few in number, and by and
large they kept their doors open to the public, serving as an
opportunity for both enthusiasts and dabblers to come together
(Schofield, 1963). Science was not then a lucrative profession, in fact
quite the opposite. The biographies from those earlier times are filled
with anecdotes about struggling to make ends meet and about entering the
profession against the express wishes of family, more in favor of the
financial security to be had with something like business or law. To be
a scientist back then was to be literally not normal, and thus it would
not have been surprising to find science's ranks permeated with a fair
number of atypical individuals.
</p>
<p>
Those circumstances began to change during the nineteenth century, and
that change accelerated rapidly at the beginning of the twentieth
century. Spurred by the needs of both war and commerce, governments and
businesses alike began putting much greater value on scientific work,
elevating the profession to both higher status and higher pay (Agar,
2012). This attracted a different kind of scientist, one who would not
have been comfortable at all within a neglected isolation, but who was
perfectly at home inside a lauded and burgeoning crowd. Scientists now
worked less frequently as individuals and began forming into ever
enlarging teams. Scientific method transitioned into codified standards
of practice. And scientific associations became more insular and more
elite. This was the scientific community Kuhn was intimately familiar
with, still with a hint of maverickness from its former days of
revolutionary glory, but also settling rapidly into the large and
regulated practice Kuhn identified as normal science. What Kuhn did not
seem to appreciate was that this particular form of normal science was
only recent in its origin, and was not applicable to earlier times, and
this led also to Kuhn failing to anticipate that this form of normal
science would become increasingly entrenched, rigid and homogenous by
the end of the twentieth century.
</p>
<p>
Whereas science prior to the 1900s was receptive to an autistic-like
individual, the science of the 2000s has become a hegemony of the
biologically typical. Its ranks are now overflowing with the decidedly
non-autistic, and almost every aspect of modern science serves to foster
the communal and the conservative: affixation to a research team is
currently <i>de rigueur</i>, publication has become a mass competition for
citations, and success is measured primarily in the size of research
grants. In such a system, there is no place for an autistically minded
individual to find a productive or comfortable home. Not in the
selection of the most well-connected mentor upon entering graduate
school. Not in the paying of homage to one's superiors through a stream
of obsequious references. Not in the groupthink sessions of one's ever
present team. The autistically minded individual, the one who has a
natural proclivity for those individualistic aha moments of abductive
reasoning, that individual has been systematically elbowed out from the
community, or else has been forced to subsume his or her tendencies
under a mountain of normative rules. Try to imagine a young patent
office clerk with a nonconforming notion about space and about time, try
to imagine that individual getting published today, or being noticed by
the scientific community at all.
</p>
<p>
The consequence of this transformation is of course inevitable—the
notion of scientific revolution has almost entirely disappeared. It is
not apparent that there has been any notable knowledge innovation over
the last seventy-five years, and it seems every current form of
scientific endeavor is in a state of being perpetually stuck. Consider
human intelligence research and its continuing befuddlement over the
Flynn effect. Consider autism science and its ongoing obsession with
medical cause. Consider that king of the sciences, the domain of
physics, and its endless dysfunctional marriage with string theory. Or
try this: browse the historical list of Nobel prizes, a list that in the
early 1900s was marked with the individual names of Planck, Bohr,
Rutherford, de Broglie and Einstein, and in the early 2000s has turned
into an annual celebration of research teams and academic press
releases.
</p>
<p>
Fortunately, humanity need not despair over these circumstances. There
will still be knowledge revolutions and there will still be constructive
advancement in human understanding, even if those revolutions and that
advancement must come from someplace else than the scientific community.
Or perhaps that community will come to recognize its current state of
crisis and will begin the search for a self-correcting paradigm shift.
The exact details of such a shift remain uncertain, but its general
outcome can be anticipated: a return to something more akin to former
productive times, when there was still the essential tension between
science's two counterbalancing poles, when there was still a symbiotic
relationship between the non-autistic and autistic forms of perception.
</p>
<br/>
<br/>
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Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-23980212771042831562024-02-24T20:51:00.018-05:002024-03-05T18:52:20.604-05:00Prototypical Autism Is Transformatively Atypical <p>
<b>1. Introduction</b>
</p>
<p>
Laurent Mottron, an autism researcher based in Montreal, Canada, along
with various colleagues and co-authors (hereafter referred to as the
Mottron team), has of late introduced and promoted a concept called
<i>prototypical autism</i>. Although this concept was hinted at in earlier
writings, its main presentation has come in the form of two recent
papers. The first paper, <i>A radical change in our autism research
strategy is needed: Back to prototypes</i> (Mottron, 2021a), addresses the
motivation for delineating prototypical autism from other instances of
autism diagnosis, a motivation triggered mostly by concerns over the
statistical noise produced by too much heterogeneity within autism
research cohorts. The second paper, <i>Prototypical autism: New diagnostic
criteria and asymmetrical bifurcation model</i> (Mottron & Gagnon,
2023), outlines in some detail the Mottron team's description of how to
recognize prototypical autism among the population and how to
distinguish such cases from other forms of autism diagnosis.
</p>
<p>
There is much to appreciate about this initiative. The highlight of the
Mottron team's effort is to be found in the team's general description
of how prototypical autism presents, especially during the critical age
range of around two to five years. The behavioral characteristics
outlined in this description are more accurate, more comprehensive and
more vivid than can be found in any of the official diagnostic
guidelines, painting an informative picture of what autism tends to look
like close at hand. To this can be added the Mottron team's twofold
awareness of the potential to be found in the unusual characteristics of
autistic individuals, first with an emphasis on the fact that autistic
children can often make significant gains by <i>leaning into</i> their unusual
interests, as opposed to being forced to suppress them, and second, by
reconceptualizing autism as a non-defective and viable branch of human
development, including an explicit acknowledgement that many autistic
children go on to live relatively normal and even exceptional lives
after the age of five. Over the years, the Mottron team has been one of
the few autism research teams (perhaps the only autism research team)
willing to contemplate and to discuss the potential value arising out of
autistic atypicality, and that willingness remains on display here.
</p>
<p>
Nonetheless, there are some shortcomings in the Mottron team's effort,
two of which stand out in particular. First, although the Mottron team
does recognize the critical importance of perception in distinguishing
autistic individuals from their non-autistic counterparts, the team's
characterization of these two different forms of perception is confusing
at best, with a vague reference to the "social bias" of non-autistic
children and an incongruous reference to the "enhanced perceptual
functioning" of autistic children. These phrases fail to distinguish
clearly the two perceptual types, but more importantly, they fail to
explain <i>why</i> there is a perceptual difference between non-autistic and
autistic children. This essay will discuss a more specific and more
informative approach to making that distinction, employing the concept
of <i>conspecific perception</i>—the innate tendency to perceive first and
foremost the other members of one's own species—as the primary means
both for delineating the non-autistic and autistic perceptual traits, as
well as for explaining the contrasting genesis of each perceptual type.
</p>
<p>
The second shortcoming of the Mottron team's initiative is its complete
silence regarding prototypical autism's impact upon the entire human
species. The stated motivation for developing the concept of
prototypical autism—to improve the statistical power of current autism
research—discounts the possibility that there is a much bigger picture
to consider here, one of importance to autistic individuals themselves.
This essay will discuss humanity's turn towards behavioral modernity,
including the perceptual and behavioral transformations that stand at
the foundation of that turn, and will demonstrate that these
transformations are mirrored precisely in the Mottron team's contrasting
description of the non-autistic and autistic perceptual and behavioral
traits. That is to say, the atypicality of autistic individuals within
the human population explains much about the atypicality of the human
species itself, now perceptually and behaviorally removed from the
remainder of the animal kingdom, and perceptually and behaviorally
removed from humanity's own not-so-distant animal past. If autistic
individuals are going to be understood for who they actually are, and if
their unusual characteristics are going to be valued for the impact they
actually bring, then autistic contribution to human transformative
history needs to be recognized. And although the Mottron team has all
the information it requires to make that connection, it chooses not to
consider the topic at all.
</p>
<p>
It might be stated in the Mottron team's defense that contemplating the
conceptual leap from autistic traits to the transformative
characteristics of the human behavioral turn goes beyond the
jurisdiction of normal autism science. But the problem with this defense
is that it dooms autism science to a self-imposed tunnel vision, a kind
of group myopia that has been producing endless decades of null results
(Myers et al., 2020; Parellada et al., 2023; Whitehouse et al., 2021).
Accordingly, this essay will conclude with some thoughts on the
stultifying consequences of modern scientific practice, where focus has
shifted entirely towards cultivating professional and collaborative
craft—standards and guidelines, grants and funding, credentials and
citations, etc.—and has abandoned the type of individualistic and
revolutionary effort that used to produce breakthroughs of
understanding. Thus, it can be seen that the most significant problem
with autism research is not one of statistical noise. The most
significant problem with autism research is its perfunctory application
of normal autism science.
</p>
<p>
<b>2. Prototypical Autism</b>
</p>
<p>
A rough summary of the Mottron team's description of a prototypically
autistic child would include the following features:
</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>
The autistic child is generally indistinguishable from
non-autistic children until sometime during the second year
of life. Around the second birthday, the difference from
typical development becomes prominent and remains prominent
for the next two to three years.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
During this period of around two to five years of age, the
autistic child will display a significantly low degree of
orientation towards social stimuli. This includes a
diminished attention to human faces and to human voices, and
also includes a noticeable lack of joint-attentive
activities and human-mimicking behavior.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
During this period, the autistic child will also display a
high degree of orientation towards structural and
environmental stimuli. This includes a focused attention on
such things as patterned movement, geometrical objects,
repetitive and/or musical sounds, the shapes of numbers and
letters, etc.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
During this period, language skills plateau, or even
regress, resulting in a limited vocabulary and extremely
limited sentence formation. Language peculiarities, such as
echolalia and pronoun reversal, are also apparent in many
instances.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
During this period, certain unusual and telltale behaviors
are more common, such as lateral gaze, hand flapping, food
selectivity, resistance to change, etc.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
After this period, there is usually some degree of
developmental catch up, both in social orientation and
language ability. This developmental catch up can vary
greatly, resulting in outcomes that range all the way from
non-verbalness in adulthood and a lifetime need for
assistance and care, to promising prospects of advanced
education, career, family, etc., with many prototypically
autistic individuals experiencing outcomes that fall
somewhere on the interval between.
</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>
In advocating for its concept of prototypical autism, the Mottron
team notes there are a significant number of individuals who will
receive an autism diagnosis under the current official diagnostic
guidelines but who will tend not to have a presentation that follows
the pattern as outlined above. There appear to be three major
sub-categories of these individuals who could be described as being
non-prototypical:
</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>
<i>Individuals with specifiable neuro-genetic conditions</i>. This
would include such known instances as fragile X syndrome,
Rett syndrome, identifiable de novo mutations, or a medical
history giving evidence of neurological trauma. Such
individuals will often display similarities to autistic-like
behavior, but will also tend to deviate significantly from a
course of prototypicality, either in intensity, timing or
both.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<i>"Quirky" or behaviorally challenged individuals who possess
only a smattering of autistic-like traits</i>. Many children are
referred to specialists because of their developmental
and/or behavioral challenges, and due to the current
latitude in the official autism diagnostic guidelines, such
individuals will often receive a diagnosis of being on the
autism spectrum. But a large number of these individuals
will not follow the prototypical course—that is, they will
display a reasonable degree of social orientation, or will
have limited structural and environmental engagement, or
will give evidence of language skills that are progressing
in the usual way. The Mottron team argues that such
individuals are better excluded from certain types of autism
research (Mottron & Bzdok, 2022).
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
<i>Asperger-like individuals</i>. This forms a less clearcut case.
Until around a decade ago, <i>Asperger Syndrome</i> was an official
diagnostic category, intended to delineate children with
pronounced autistic-like characteristics but who also
possessed notable language skills. This diagnostic
distinction proved to be unworkable in practice, and the
classification was dropped for the current diagnostic manual
(Gamlin, 2017). Nonetheless, there are a significant number
of children who appear to fall within this category, and
their relationship to the remainder of the autism spectrum
remains unclear. The Mottron team suggests these individuals
could be formed into a second "prototypical" group (Mottron,
2021b), with characteristics similar to those of the first
prototypical group but without the language plateau or
regression. However, it could be argued that Asperger-like
children are simply choosing linguistic structures as one of
their preferred circumscribed interests—that is, instead of
an intense focus on something like ceiling fans or calendar
calculation, Asperger-like children choose to concentrate on
spoken and/or written words. This is evidenced to some
degree by the fact that Asperger-like language skills are
usually not typical (Saalasti et al., 2008); that is,
Asperger-like children do not employ language primarily for
social purposes but instead make use of language in
idiosyncratic ways (for example, perseveration). If this is
an accurate depiction of what is actually taking place, then
it would appear these two prototypical groups are far more
similar than dissimilar, and the Mottron team's separation
of Asperger-like children from the team's main prototypical
definition is perhaps just a case of splitting hairs.
</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>
What does finally emerge from the Mottron team's lucid description
of prototypical autism is a class of individuals remarkably similar
to one another and yet identifiably distinct from the biologically
typical population. Furthermore, this is a class of individuals who
have been giving no evidence of possessing any underlying defect—not
genetic, not neurological, not environmentally caused—and this
despite the fact the autism research community has been assiduously
searching for these defects for dozens of years. The Mottron team
highlights this apparent biological benignity of prototypical autism
by suggesting the condition would be more effectively understood as
a minority but otherwise normal bifurcation of human development,
analogous to similar asymmetrical bifurcations, such as
left-handedness or twin pregnancy. This opens the door to embracing
autistic characteristics for their potential constructive value,
including making full use of these characteristics to support
developmental progress. Such a viewpoint would stand in stark
contrast to the standard approach taken towards autistic traits,
where these traits are routinely suppressed instead of being
productively employed, suppressed through an assortment of
disruptive interventions that would appear to be no more effective
than attempting to turn left-handedness into right-handedness
(Brignell et al., 2018; Sandbank et al., 2020).
</p>
<p>
<b>3. Atypical Autistic Perception</b>
</p>
<p>
In attempting to explain the source of the bifurcation between
non-autistic and autistic individuals, the Mottron team highlights
the differential targets of interest and attention during
information processing, assigning a label of "socially biased
processing" for the preferential interests of non-autistic children
and a label of "non-socially biased processing" for the preferential
interests of autistic children. The Mottron team also tends to
reserve use of the words <i>perception</i> and <i>perceptual</i> for the latter
type of preferential interest, and this leads in turn to frequent
employment of the phrase "enhanced perceptual functioning" to
describe autistic cognitive traits. This approach seems confusing in
several respects. First, it implies that non-autistic children lack
perceptual characteristics, or at the very least are experiencing
<i>diminished</i> perceptual functioning. It also suggests that autistic
children possess a kind of fortuitous brain capacity that gives them
perceptual skills beyond those of ordinary experience (Poulin-Lord
et al., 2014), and yet somehow this fortuitous brain capacity proves
disruptive to developmental progress. Although the Mottron team's
highlighting of information processing and perceptual
characteristics is very much on target, the team's odd labeling
works to derail the discussion. Under any commonsense use of the
words <i>perception</i> and <i>enhanced</i>, it would be difficult to reconcile
the phrase "enhanced perceptual functioning" to the developmental
pathways of autistic individuals.
</p>
<p>
For the purpose of this discussion, <i>perception</i> is to be understood as
the filtering, foregrounding, and organization of the manifold of
impressions arising from the sensory field. Perception creates targets
of cognitive attention and provides the potential for a directed and
productive reaction to environmental stimulus. Consider the example of
three men sitting together in the grandstands at a football game. One
man is intently following the plays on the field, scarcely aware of the
crowd—he can accurately predict the play that is coming next. The second
man is mesmerized by the workings of the scoreboard—he is counting down
in his head the seconds until the yardage and downs are updated. The
third man is flitting a gaze from person to person—cheerleader, then
referee, then that cute snuggling couple three rows down—and he would be
unable to tell you the score of the game if his life depended on it.
Each individual has access to the exact same sensory stimuli, but each
individual perceives something entirely different, foregrounding certain
aspects of the sensory experience and backgrounding everything else.
This is a commonsense approach to the word perception, and by its means,
it should be abundantly clear that <i>both</i> non-autistic and autistic
individuals possess perceptual characteristics, with <i>neither</i> of those
perceptual types being ultimately enhanced or diminished relative to the
other. Given the same sensory environment, non-autistic and autistic
individuals simply tend to perceive different classes of things.
</p>
<p>
The genesis of each perceptual type begins in earnest by the second year
of life. When human newborns enter this world, they must soon achieve a
sensory grounding, because otherwise the manifold of sensory impressions
would remain chaotic and unorganized, thwarting all effort towards
productive action and developmental progress. The emerging components of
this sensory grounding are what determine the perceptual type. For both
non-autistic and autistic individuals, biological demand will bring
certain environmental features to the fore—that is, the need for food
and water, a fear of danger, and eventually the desire for sex will
bring into cognitive attention certain ecologically critical aspects of
the surrounding world, providing some of the means by which sensory
experience can be differentiated and organized. As the Mottron team
notes, prototypically autistic individuals give little to no evidence of
having a diminished capacity in these basic biological domains, even
when life circumstances cause the expression of these capacities to be
manifested in alternative ways.
</p>
<p>
What does turn out to be the distinguishing characteristic between the
non-autistic and autistic types of perception is that non-autistic
perception is fundamentally human centric, and autistic perception is
not. From out of the manifold of sensory impressions, what tends to
foreground naturally and frequently for non-autistic individuals are
human faces, human voices, human touch, human smells, human laughter,
human activities, etc. Non-autistic children provide abundant evidence
of their human-forward attentive awareness, responding with consistent
delight to human interaction, joint-attentive sharing, and
people-mimicking behavior. Even when their attention is drawn to the
non-human aspects of the surrounding environment, it is usually done so
through the means of human prompting and human encouragement. Thus, in
addition to its basic biological components, non-autistic perception can
be characterized by its human-forward content, meaning that non-autistic
children tend to organize their sensory experience primarily around the
species itself, and around the species' shared and natural interest in
all things human.
</p>
<p>
There is of course nothing unusual about this non-autistic perceptual
tendency. The foregrounding of species-specific sensory experience is
not just typical within the human population, it is typical across the
entire animal kingdom (Lickliter, 1991; Nunes et al., 2020). Lions tend
to perceive first and foremost other lions, honeybees tend to perceive
first and foremost other honeybees, etc. This widespread tendency can be
given the label of conspecific perception, and it can be defined as the
innate tendency to perceive first and foremost the other members of
one's own species. Conspecific perception's ubiquitous appearance
throughout nature can be attributed to its biological and evolutionary
necessity. If mates are going to be able to recognize and discover
mates, if parents are going to be able to keep track of their offspring,
if members of a pack are going to be able to follow one another, then a
foregrounded perceptual attention for the other members of one's own
species is nothing short of essential. Conspecific perception has
evolutionary roots that reach very far back in time, and conspecific
perception is one of the more prominent carryovers from humanity's
not-so-distant purely animal past.
</p>
<p>
With this as backdrop, autistic perception can be characterized as a
significant diminution of conspecific perception. Autistic children—by
the Mottron team's own definition of prototypical autism—do not have a
natural and favored interest for human faces, human voices, human touch,
etc., and autistic children do not frequently engage in human
interaction, joint-attentive sharing, or people-mimicking behavior.
There are two different approaches to depicting this autistic diminution
of conspecific perception. As the Mottron team would have it, the
characteristics of autistic perception arise from a strong and positive
interest in the non-socially biased and raw informational aspects of
various environmental features (Mottron et al., 2006). This "enhanced
perceptual" interest is the result of a presumed alternative
neural-cognitive mechanism (Kéïta et al., 2011; Mottron et al., 2014;
Soulières et al., 2009), and its effects are powerful enough to eclipse
the usual people-focused foregrounding of conspecific perception.
Although this depiction is not an unreasonable hypothesis, it does
appear to lack for parsimoniousness. Not only must this explanation
postulate a special and mostly unspecified neural-cognitive mechanism,
that mechanism must also be capable of producing for each autistic
individual a particular and distinctive set of interests chosen from an
extremely broad range of perceptual targets. Some autistic children are
focused primarily on the auditory domain, others on the tactile domain,
and still others on the visual domain. Some autistic children
concentrate on geometric objects, such as ceiling fans and lined-up
toys, while others concentrate on the repetitions of music and
television scenes, while still others hone in on the properties of
numbers, letters and words. What brain mechanism, special within the
species, could produce such a selectively targeted set of interests
across such a motley range of potential targets? And furthermore, why
should it be expected that this "enhanced" brain mechanism would drown
out the usual conspecific attachment to the other members of the
species? If a population were almost entirely right-handed, but a
portion of that population had special neural abilities to make extra
use of the left hand, why should these special abilities result in
exclusive left-handedness, why not instead ambidextrousness? If autistic
children have a special neural ability to engage with the non-socially
biased aspects of the surrounding environment, why should this special
ability preclude their willingness to engage in the usual ways with
other people?
</p>
<p>
The alternative approach to depicting autistic diminution of conspecific
perception would be to accept this diminution as a definitive and
fundamental fact, and then work out the consequences from there. To
begin, since autistic children do not possess as strong a sense of
conspecific perception as non-autistic children do, autistic children
are more in danger of experiencing an ongoing sensory chaos. For
autistic children, human-centric features do not emerge prominently from
the manifold of sensory impressions, and this means that, other than
some basic biological components, sensory experience for autistic
children has the potential of remaining unorganized and ungrounded, a
near jumble of undifferentiated sensory noise. The potential for this
sensory chaos is evidenced by the frequent reporting of sensory issues
in autistic children (Hazen et al., 2014; Kern et al.,
2006)—hypersensitivity, hyposensitivity, synesthesia—with the wide
variety of these sensory symptoms suggesting they are not the result of
a particular physical defect so much as they are the result of a
generalized difficulty in organizing sensory experience. And indeed, it
can be surmised that the most troubling cases of autism, those in which
developmental progress remains minimal, are those cases in which the
attainment of a sensory grounding is insufficient to support timely
developmental gains.
</p>
<p>
Nonetheless, most autistic children do not become stuck inside a sensory
chaos and most autistic children do go on to make significant
developmental progress. Since conspecific perception is not providing
the primary means by which sensory experience can be organized, autistic
sensory grounding must be getting attained by some other means. Chaos as
a term denotes a lack of structure, and chaos can be dispelled by the
foregrounded presence of structural properties—symmetry, repetition,
pattern, number, form. Needing a sensory grounding to dispel their
potential sensory chaos, and lacking a natural human-forward attentive
focus, autistic children begin to latch onto those structural features
that inherently stand out from the surrounding environment, features
that serve to break the background sensory noise. Note the <i>symmetry</i> of
ceiling fans and lined-up toys, the <i>repetition</i> of flapping, humming and
predictable routines, the <i>patterned</i> and <i>formal</i> properties of calendars
and television shows, the <i>shapes</i> and <i>sequences</i> of numbers and letters.
Autistic children provide abundant evidence of a structure-forward
attentive focus, responding with consistent delight to artifact
interaction, pattern-oriented exploration, and form-mimicking behavior.
Each instance of an autistic child's so-called restricted and repetitive
behavior is an instance thoroughly suffused with structural
underpinning, and autistic children do not just <i>prefer</i> these mostly
non-human structural experiences, autistic children <i>require</i> them—they
are what serve to organize the autistic child's sensory world.
</p>
<p>
Thus, a special or enhanced neuro-cognitive mechanism is not needed to
explain autistic perceptual characteristics—all that is needed is the
diminution of conspecific perception, the requirement of a sensory
grounding, and the presence of inherently structural features within the
surrounding environment. The artificially constructed modern world
contains an abundance of these structural targets, and it can be
surmised that an autistic child latches onto his or her particular
subset of these potential targets through a combination of personal
proclivity and random exposure to particular environmental elements. For
some it will first be ceiling fans and spinning wheels that emerge from
the sensory field, for others it will be rhythmic and musical sounds,
and for still others it will be numbers, letters and words. Any
circumstance that an autistic child happens upon that boosts that
child's sensory grounding will become a circumstance likely to be
returned to again and again. And to increase the range of an autistic
child's perceptual domain, frequent exposure to a wide variety of
structural features, along with encouragement to explore freely, can
only be beneficial (Jacques et al., 2018). This is the strongest
argument that can be made for aiding the developmental progress of
autistic children by <i>leaning into</i> their autistic characteristics,
instead of mistakenly suppressing them.
</p>
<p>
In summary, the significant presence or diminution of conspecific
perception determines the non-autistic and autistic perceptual types.
Non-autistic perception has deep biological and evolutionary roots,
continuing the species-specific perceptual focus evident throughout the
entire animal kingdom and accounting for the non-autistic child's
natural affinity for human interaction and human engagement. In
contrast, autistic perception, lacking this influence of conspecific
perception, produces little natural affinity for human interaction and
human engagement, but in compensation nudges the autistic child to hone
in on those structural features that inherently stand out from the
surrounding environment, leading to a structure-forward perceptual
focus. This distinction is most apparent during the critical age range
of around two to five years. Sometime during this period for
non-autistic children, and by the end of this period for autistic
children, each perceptual type will begin to overlap with the other.
Following the encouragement and instruction of the humans that fascinate
them so much, non-autistic children will begin to explore a world of
non-human structural features, thereby expanding their perceptual
horizons and furthering their developmental course. At the same time,
and with their sensory grounding now more firmly established, autistic
children soon discover that many of the structural features they have
taken such interest in also have human connections and human origins,
and this discovery will eventually prompt a secondary interest in the
workings of the species itself, including the leveraging powers of
language and personal interaction. Given enough time and opportunity,
both types of perception can become broadly effective.
</p>
<p>
Nonetheless, the difference in the genesis of each perceptual type is
not to be ignored. There is great significance to the fact that one of
these types of perception is biologically typical, and the other type of
perception is thoroughly atypical.
</p>
<p>
<b>4. The Autistic Influence on Behavioral Modernity</b>
</p>
<p>
The fascinating and stubborn question facing humanity is how did this
species transform from being pure animal not more than a few hundred
thousand years ago to being the modern creature observed today—talking,
writing, calculating, constructing, innovating, driving, flying, and so
on. What launched human behavioral modernity, and what sustains its
operations today? Many vague suggestions centered around the concepts of
evolution and brain intelligence mechanics are frequently tossed around
(Klein, 2002; Pinker, 1994), but these suggestions clearly lack for
specificity, seldom reaching the level of detailed hypothesis.
Furthermore, there is an obvious problem with the timeline. For sake of
argument, assume that the beginning of the human behavioral turn
happened around two hundred thousand years ago. By fifty thousand years
ago, although the evidence of this turn was now unmistakeable—control of
fire, structured tools and weapons, cave paintings, etc.—human life was
still extraordinarily primitive, a hunter-gatherer's bare subsistence,
with virtually nothing of modern culture to be found anywhere within the
human environment (Christian, 2018). By ten thousand years ago,
agriculture and civilizations were only on the verge of getting started,
and by a mere five hundred years ago, the revolutionary impact of modern
science had yet to be seen. Almost everything that humans experience
today—electricity, fast transportation, effective medicines, vast stores
of readily available information—nearly all this has appeared within
only the last century or two. Thus, the human transformation has been
continuous but it has never been uniform. The human transformation has
instead been accelerating, and it continues to accelerate through the
present day, its ongoing effects now experienced almost immediately
population wide. Vague suggestions centered around the concepts of
evolution and brain intelligence mechanics will never fit the dynamics
of this unprecedented scenario.
</p>
<p>
A more effective answer is to be found in the extraordinary expansion of
human perception. When humans were still in the state of being pure
animals—a period of time lasting for millions of years—their perceptual
characteristics would have been the same as those of all the other
animal species. Responding to the pressing demands of biological and
evolutionary need, human attentive focus would have been directed
exclusively to those environmental features crucial for survival and
procreation—food, water, danger, sex, etc. Within this biologically
driven attentive focus would have been found also the workings of
conspecific perception, allowing humans to foreground naturally and
frequently the other members of their own species, a trait essential for
the various activities promoting survival and procreation. For these
ancient humans—as is the case for all the wild animal species—this
powerful combination of biological and conspecific perception helped
foster the continuation of the lineage, directing all attentive
awareness and all resulting behavior towards the essential requirements
of evolutionary demand.
</p>
<p>
However, there is a significant limitation that accompanies this type of
perception. As humans have come to realize and to take advantage of in
recent years, the surrounding environment contains a plenitude of
inherent structure that can provide benefit to a species when used in
the right way—for example, the linear forces of gravity, the patterned
repetitions of celestial objects, the framework of numerical and
symmetrical groupings, and so on. Yet despite these available benefits,
no other animal species has ever displayed a perceptual awareness for
any of these underlying structural features, and neither did humans for
a very long time (Klein, 2009). The powerful combination of biological
and conspecific perception is such that it locks each organism into a
perceptual and behavioral stasis, leaving the organism fixated entirely
on the immediate needs of survival and procreation, and utterly
oblivious to everything else. This is why the perceptual and behavioral
characteristics of all the wild animal species are so remarkably
similar, both across species and across time. With each organism bound
to the exact same way of perceiving its environment, each organism is
bound also to the exact same set of responsive behaviors—eating and
drinking, fighting and fleeing, mating and rearing. Each organism within
the species, and each species within the animal kingdom, lives out
essentially the same biologically driven existence, again and again and
again. It is an existence determined primarily by the restricted
attentive focus imposed by biological and conspecific perception.
</p>
<p>
Therefore, to explain the human turn towards behavioral modernity, it is
necessary to explain how this perceptual and behavioral stasis has been
broken within the species, and how this stasis has been replaced with
the types of expanded perception and resulting behavior that can be
observed broadly within the human population today. Vague suggestions
centered around the concepts of evolution and brain intelligence
mechanics do not even go to the heart of the matter—they specify nothing
about the recent dynamics of human perceptual properties. Instead, the
question to be asked is as follows: are there any observable
characteristics, significantly present within the human population, that
can account for a diminishment in the restrictive power of biological
and conspecific perception, while at the same time introducing an
expanded awareness for the underlying structural properties that humans
now take advantage of in overwhelming abundance? The answer to this
question is yes. There are such observable characteristics, and they
have already been identified earlier in this essay. They are the same
perceptual and behavioral characteristics that the Mottron team has
outlined in exquisite detail in defining the distinctive nature of
prototypical autism.
</p>
<p>
It remains unclear how and when the size of the autistic population
became significant within the human species, but once that significance
was reached, its impact would have been persistent and predictable. Not
bound by the combined restrictive power of biological and conspecific
perception, and driven by sensory need to an awareness of the structural
features to be found in the surrounding environment, autistic
individuals would have begun to bring these structural features to the
perceptual fore, mostly through engagement in the so-called restricted
and repetitive behaviors, behaviors that mirror and reconstruct the
underlying structural properties autistic individuals naturally
perceive. In turn, the non-autistic population, previously locked inside
the restrictions of biological and conspecific perception, and yet
keenly attuned to what other humans do, would have begun to notice these
atypical autistic behaviors and the artificial constructions they
engender, eventually adopting these behaviors and constructions for
themselves.
</p>
<p>
This symbiotic process would have been slow and halting at first, but
because it results in a permanent and artificial reconstruction of
various aspects of the human environment, its impact becomes accretive.
The increasing amount of artificial construction accruing within the
environment gives autistic individuals an ever-growing array of
perceptual targets to latch onto, and the survival-and-procreative
efficacy of many of these artificial features—for instance, structured
tools and weapons—gives non-autistic individuals an ever-growing
incentive to adopt these atypical constructions for themselves. This
symbiotic and accelerating process defines the historical pattern of the
human behavioral turn, a pattern of increasing environmental
reconstruction, built upon an increasing and autistically originated
perceptual awareness of the environment's underlying structural
properties.
</p>
<p>
This pattern continues unabated through the present day. It can be seen
in the developmental course of non-autistic children, a course
established first through the powerful and species-connecting
consequence of conspecific perception, and furthered through a
species-forward introduction into a broader world of artificial
construction, a world valued precisely for the advantages it continues
to bring to the species. And the pattern can be seen also in the ongoing
discovery of previously unseen underlying structural attributes, a
process notably and remarkably dominated by individuals possessing an
abundance of autistic-like traits—Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Gauss,
Dostoyevsky, Beethoven, Wittgenstein, Turing, to name just a few (James,
2003; Snyder, 2004). The human behavioral turn is still ongoing, and any
search for its causal mechanism inside a genetic sequence or a neural
signature would be nothing short of folly. Much easier would be to
observe the process as it unfolds right before one's very eyes, unfolds
in the symbiotic and productive relationship between the non-autistic
and autistic types of perception.
</p>
<p>
<b>5. Normal Autism Science</b>
</p>
<p>
It was Thomas Kuhn who coined the phrase <i>normal science</i> to denote those
stable periods of scientific practice during which revolutionary ideas
are seldom considered or explored (Kuhn, 1962). As Kuhn describes it,
the work of science during such periods tends to be more technical and
incremental in nature, directed towards a shoring up and a promulgation
of the prevailing paradigm. In Kuhn's world of the 1950s and 1960s,
normal science was embodied in its textbooks, journals, conferences,
academic associations, and so on, with these routine proceedings
balanced to some extent by the fresh memories of recent upheavals, such
as relativity and quantum mechanics. Thus, an equilibrium between normal
science and scientific revolution seemed to have been established, and
Kuhn was eloquently capturing its outline.
</p>
<p>
But what Kuhn failed to anticipate was that this particular form of
normal science would soon grow into a cancer. Heavily influenced by the
twentieth-century surge in governmental and commercial interests, the
scientific community had been rapidly transforming from a relatively
isolated domain of individuals into a mass operation gainfully employing
many millions (Agar, 2012). And to keep this burgeoning crowd under
paradigmatic control, science quickly transitioned into a system of
professional and collaborative craft. Individuals stopped being
individuals and became members of ever-enlarging teams. Scientific
method morphed into countless codified standards of practice. Intricate
networks of funding were established and soon became a primary and
necessary goal. And credentials and citations began to form into a
currency of status, the price of admission to the more elite corners of
the field. Trampled in this march towards professional and collaborative
craft was any interest directed towards individualistic and iconoclastic
innovation, the kind of innovation that used to spawn scientific
revolutions. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, for all
intents and purposes, science had turned into nothing <i>but</i> normal
science.
</p>
<p>
Nowhere is this circumstance more apparent than in the field of autism
research. Having established early on a paradigm of autism as a dire
medical condition, the autism research community has been leveraging
this framework to grow by leaps and bounds (Jiang et al., 2023). The
size and number of research teams, the catalogs of practice guidelines,
university and government grants, citations and self-congratulatory
awards—all have expanded exponentially over the last fifty plus years.
And to keep this expansion under professional and collaborative control,
autism projects and hypotheses are restricted to an acceptable domain:
the search for the genetic markers of autism (Wiśniowiecka-Kowalnik
& Nowakowska, 2019), the quest for the neural signatures of autism
(Hernandez et al., 2015), the hunt for the metabolic insults of autism
(Cheng et al., 2017), and of course the development of treatments and
cures (DeFilippis & Wagner, 2016). Perhaps with just a few more
research teams, perhaps with just one more set of practice guidelines,
perhaps with the essential increase in government grant funding, or
perhaps with some additional journal opportunities for self-citation, a
breakthrough in an understanding of autism will appear around the corner
just about any day. And so goes fifty plus years of normal autism
science.
</p>
<p>
In the meantime, the plight of autistic individuals remains unchanged.
Misunderstood and mistreated, autistic individuals continue to be
subjected to a broad range of corrective activities: applied behavioral
analysis (Gitimoghaddam et al., 2022), depressive drug therapies
(LeClerc & Easley, 2015), stem cell experimentation (Siniscalco et
al., 2018), and so on—each treatment costing a pretty penny and each
treatment designed to <i>suppress</i> autistic characteristics instead of
making productive use of them. Normal autism scientists benefit greatly
at the hands of normal autism science; autistic individuals suffer.
</p>
<p>
The Mottron team might be seen as pushing against the boundaries of
normal autism science, and to a certain extent this characterization is
valid. The Mottron team has been the one autism research team
consistently arguing for the potential value of autistic
characteristics, and the Mottron team has been the one autism research
team willing to offer new theoretical approaches to the condition. But
over the years, these efforts have amounted to little more than a
chipping at the edges, a token stab at the idea of being revolutionary,
with the team ultimately unwilling to venture far from modern science's
career-protective walls. So when it comes to embracing a truly atypical
conception of autism, and when it comes to considering and exploring
autism's monumental impact upon the human species, the Mottron team
maintains a comfortable silence. For autistic individuals, such
reticence is a tragedy. Because for autistic individuals, of what value
<i>is</i> a description of prototypical autism, if its primary purpose is to
boost the statistical power of normal autism science?
</p>
<br/>
<br/>
<p>
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Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-24275120375735436162023-10-22T18:10:00.000-04:002023-10-22T18:10:06.783-04:00A Field Theory of Human Intelligence<div>
<p>
<b>1. Introduction</b>
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
The brain-centric depiction of human intelligence is so widely accepted
it has become in essence the primary, and usually unstated, assumption
backing nearly all intelligence research. In the standard model of
intelligence, the human brain is described as producing intelligence
behavior, and the brain is typically portrayed as hosting intelligence
within the material confines of its assorted lobes (Barbey, 2018; Colom
et al., 2010). That is to say, the human brain and its mechanisms embody
the substance of human intelligence. This deep adherence to a
brain-specific model of human intelligence is evidenced these days at
the very frontiers of intelligence research, where there are now many
ardent attempts being made to record intelligence in action, through a
broad assortment of increasingly sophisticated neuroimaging techniques
(deBettencourt et al., 2023; Kristanto et al., 2023; Zacharopoulos et
al., 2023). For nearly every intelligence researcher practicing his or
her craft today, there is no questioning that the human brain forms the
locus of human intelligence.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
Nonetheless, despite this nearly universal acceptance of a brain-centric
depiction of human intelligence, the standard model does face some
serious challenges. In particular, there are two major challenges, that
if left unresolved, could be seen as casting significant doubt on the
validity of any brain-specific model of human intelligence. The first
major challenge is the lack of specificity. Although it is widely
presumed that somewhere within the cerebral mesh of neurons, synapses
and biochemical activity there must exist a describable set of
structures and dynamics that correspond and link directly to actual
intelligence behavior, to date essentially no element of this set of
structures and dynamics has been detailed in any degree (Goriounova
& Mansvelder, 2019). The current situation regarding specificity for
brain intelligence mechanics can be likened to that of someone having
inventoried the many parts composing a clock or watch, but then being
unable to say anything definitive about how those parts actually come
together to represent time.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
The second major challenge to a brain-centric depiction of human
intelligence is the Flynn effect. The Flynn effect is the phenomenon
first observed in the twentieth century—and observed nearly
universally—that each generation has been scoring significantly better
than previous generations on intelligence exams (Pietschnig &
Voracek, 2015; Trahan et al., 2014). In other words, measurable human
intelligence, as represented by the raw scores on intelligence tests,
has been steadily increasing over time. This persistent and sizable
increase has been so puzzling and so unexpected that many intelligence
researchers have taken to insisting that the Flynn effect must be little
more than a twentieth-century aberration, a temporary circumstance soon
to disappear or even reverse (Dutton et al., 2016). But in fact, it can
be easily demonstrated that an increase in measurable intelligence has
likely been with humanity for a very long time, ever since the species'
turn towards behavioral modernity, and in consequence, there is no
reason to expect that the Flynn effect will end anytime soon (Griswold,
2023b). And if this is indeed the case, it poses a deep challenge to any
brain-specific model of human intelligence. For if the human brain is to
be described as physically producing and hosting intelligence, and if
the level of that intelligence has been consistently and significantly
increasing over time, what biological agency could account for such
rapid and population-wide improvement? Taken at its face value, the
Flynn effect would appear to defy almost every known biological and
evolutionary principle.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
Given the existence of these major challenges, it is not unreasonable to
consider alternative models of human intelligence. In particular, any
model that could provide greater specificity regarding the material
structure of human intelligence, and could untangle the enigma of the
Flynn effect, would be a model worth some serious consideration. One
pointer to outlining such an alternative model can be found in the above
statement regarding the brain and its mechanisms embodying the <i>substance</i>
of human intelligence. By example and by analogy from the domain of
physics, it can be noted there was a period of time, following the
publication of Newton's <i>Principia</i>, when mechanistic, substance-based
models of natural phenomena were the standard approach—indeed, the only
approach—to explaining observed events of the physical world. Heat, for
instance, was generally conceived of as a caloric substance, materially
transferable from body to body. Magnetism and electricity too were
similarly hypothesized as consisting of different kinds of fluid, fluid
tangibly housed within the entities producing and experiencing the
corresponding effect. Eventually, however, these substance-based models
began running up against a series of disquieting challenges, with
scientists ultimately unable to describe in detail how the proposed
fluids and substances could account for observed outcomes in a broad
range of experimental trials (Einstein & Infeld, 1938).
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
This impasse was resolved beginning in the nineteenth century, first
through the work of Michael Faraday and James Maxwell, who proposed that
phenomena such as magnetism and electricity could be better described
not as fluids or substances, but instead as dynamic properties of the
contextual environment, as dynamic properties of a spatial-temporal
field (Forbes & Mahon, 2014). This alternative approach to
describing physical phenomena became known as <i>field theory</i>, and it broke
the logjam that was holding up a deeper understanding of the material
world. Among the many milestones that field theory has produced are
Maxwell's differential equations detailing the characteristics and
propagation of electromagnetic waves (Maxwell, 1865) and Einstein's
gravity-solving formulas underlying general relativity (Einstein, 1916).
Indeed, field theory has proven to be so effective within the domain of
physics, that today almost no physical phenomena are studied as
substance or material, but instead are studied almost entirely as
characteristics of a corresponding field (Wit & Smith, 1986).
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
Human intelligence too can be modeled as a field. In a field theory of
human intelligence, intelligence is identified with the structural
properties of the human spatial-temporal environment, and in particular,
with the structural properties of the <i>artificial aspects</i> of that
environment. The symmetry, pattern, repetition, logic, form and so on
that undergirds buildings, roadways, books, tools, etc., all this can be
seen as constituting the properties of a surrounding intelligence field.
The human neural system, including the brain, now released from any
presumed need to produce and to host intelligence, can be restored to
its customary biological role of being a stimulus/response system,
responsive in this case to the stimulus of a surrounding artificial
environment, to the stimulus of a surrounding intelligence field.
Furthermore, this field is dynamic, it has undergone, and continues to
undergo, an intensification. Several hundred thousand years ago, humans
lived in an entirely natural setting, free of all artificial influence,
which could be described as the equivalent of living in a zero-strength
intelligence field. But today, as can be experienced at the heart of any
modern city, humans find themselves literally surrounded by an ocean of
artificiality, with the structural aspects of that artificial
environment forming an extremely strong—and ever
strengthening—intelligence field.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
A field theory of human intelligence clearly runs counter to the
standard brain-centric model, but a field theory of human intelligence
does have some distinct advantages. For one, field theory provides a
specified description of the material structure of human intelligence.
Since intelligence is now being identified directly with the structural
aspects of the surrounding artificial environment, describing those
structural aspects is no more difficult than detailing the
characteristics of the constructed world, characteristics that are
entirely open to observation and readily enumerated. This is in sharp
contrast to brain intelligence mechanics, which to date remain almost
entirely unobserved and unspecified. Also, a field theory of human
intelligence untangles the enigma of the Flynn effect. Because
intelligence is now being identified directly with the structural
aspects of the surrounding artificial environment, and because
throughout human history—ever since the turn towards behavioral
modernity—the amount, type and complexity of these structural aspects
has been continuously increasing with time, this ongoing intensification
of the surrounding intelligence field provides for an extremely
straightforward and observable explanation of the Flynn effect.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p> </p>
<p>
<b>2. Challenges to a Brain-Centric Depiction of Human Intelligence</b>
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
<i>Lack of Specificity</i>
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
Picture if you will a modern computer on a table in the office of a
Chief Financial Officer (CFO). On a daily basis, this computer performs
the following set of tasks: it reads documents from the company's
network containing recent billings, receipts, payroll, investment
income, etc., then it updates the company's ledger with this new
information, and finally it prints out a summary of current assets,
liabilities, revenue, costs and profit. The CFO recognizes that this
computer is displaying a type of accounting intelligence, an
intelligence that the CFO could also display if needed. The CFO is
curious about how this machine works, and one day asks a specialist from
the technology department to explain the computer's underlying
operations. "It seems like magic to me," the CFO says.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
"Oh, it's not magic at all," the specialist replies. "There are very
specific technologies underlying each step of the process. Here, let me
demonstrate." The specialist then brings in some extremely sophisticated
imaging equipment and arranges it around the computer. Then as the
computer performs its daily set of tasks, the imaging equipment makes
recordings of all the activity it can detect. Finally, the specialist
provides an explanation of the computer's operations with the help of
the pictures the imaging equipment has produced: "You see here, when the
computer is performing payroll, this area gets much brighter, over near
the fan, and there are some streaks of red color by the hard drive.
Those are the operations of the payroll module. Now here, in contrast,
when the computer is summarizing liabilities, the pattern of activity
changes: it's darker near the fan but much brighter over there by the
network card, and those red streaks of color have turned blue. That's
the liabilities circuit running under the guidance of the balance sheet
module."
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
The CFO looks quizzically at the specialist. "I appreciate what you've
done, but that's not exactly what I meant. I still don't know how the
computer works."
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
The specialist grins back at the CFO. "I know. I was just pulling your
leg."
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
In way of apology for the joke, the specialist then goes on to explain
and to demonstrate, in great detail, the actual operations of the
computer. It is not an easy or a quick task. To give a thorough
explanation of how a modern computer performs something like an
accounting task requires a multi-leveled and painstakingly intricate
description of many particulars: NAND gates, system-level caches,
encodings, machine language, voltage sources—to name just a few of the
technologies involved. Nonetheless, despite all this hierarchical
complexity, the task of explication can still be sufficiently performed.
There is not a single element of a computer's operation or architecture
that cannot be outlined and explained in adequate detail (Hennessy &
Patterson, 2012).
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
Now recall what was said of the CFO, that the CFO could also display
accounting intelligence if needed. Here too, one could inquire about the
CFO's underlying operations, how is it that the CFO can turn receipts
and investment statements into an organized and meaningful financial
summary? Where does this intelligence come from? If you ask intelligence
researchers to explain how the CFO manages to perform these activities,
here is what they would do. They would bring in some extremely
sophisticated neuroimaging equipment and arrange it around the CFO. Then
as the CFO performs accounting tasks, the neuroimaging equipment would
make recordings of the CFO's cerebral activity. And finally, the
intelligence researchers would explain the CFO's accounting intelligence
with the help of the pictures and data the neuroimaging equipment has
produced, including descriptions full of references to brain modules and
neural pathways. But this time, unlike with the joke played by the
technology specialist, everyone will be satisfied and impressed (Haier,
2021).
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
It might be argued that this comparison is not quite fair, that
intelligence researchers do not have the luxury of tearing down a human
brain and examining its parts and connections while searching for the
intelligence inside—especially while the brain is in operation. But in
fact we do already know a great deal about how the human neural system
works, knowledge that comes both from post-mortem analyses and from
experiments conducted on a wide range of other animal species. And what
we do know is this: in general, the human neural system, just as is the
case with the neural systems of other animal species, is primarily a
stimulus/response mechanism (Simmons & Young, 2010). Certain aspects
of the neural system are associated with receiving environmental
stimulus, such as those nerve pathways connected to the eyes. Other
aspects are associated with giving response, such as those nerve
pathways that provoke muscle movement. And some aspects of the neural
system connect and coordinate stimulus and response, allowing the
organism to act productively as a biologically cohesive whole. It is
true that we do not yet know in complete and perfect detail every
component of this stimulus/response mechanism, but as an evolutionary
artifact that is shared in common across nearly the entire animal
kingdom, neural systems, including brains, are not magical or
mysterious. They are, by and large, stimulus/response mechanisms that
have been finely tuned to support survival and procreative demands.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
Intelligence, however, seems to be something quite different, an
augmentation beyond just stimulus and response. Indeed, if we are
talking about language production, arithmetic problem solving, logical
reasoning, etc.—abilities that can be assessed via an intelligence
exam—then we are no longer talking about a system shared across the
entire animal kingdom. Even among hominins, measurable intelligence is
an activity—historically and evolutionarily speaking—that is really
quite new (Klein, 2002). So the question is, exactly what could it be
inside the human brain, an organ originally and biologically designed to
be part of a stimulus/response mechanism, that would allow it to assume
this supplemental role of producing and hosting intelligence? The
standard model of intelligence assumes that these supplemental
operations must exist. But without tangible evidence and without
specificity, how is it that we can be so sure? No matter how convinced
intelligence researchers have become that somewhere inside the human
brain-and somewhere inside those neuroimaging pictures-there is to be
found the material source of human intelligence, could it not be just as
likely that the opposite is true, that these brain-based,
neuroimaging-driven assumptions are just the latest form of an old
practice, are just the twenty-first century version of phrenology
(Uttal, 2001)?
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
There is a further problem for the standard model. Recall the comparison
to a modern computer, for which every aspect of its operations can be
described and explained in adequate detail. That comparison also
suggests that even if we were to understand every intelligence operation
within the human brain, that knowledge alone would not be enough for
explaining intelligence. As any computer scientist could tell you,
understanding every component and every procedure of a modern computer
is not by itself sufficient to explain fully the computer's overall
behavior. <i>On its own</i>, a modern computer will not display intelligence at
all—be it accounting intelligence or otherwise. To perform tasks that
can be seen as the equivalent of intelligence tasks, a computer must be
primed with additional structure, additional structure that comes not
from the machine itself but instead comes from the outside. This
additional structure might be in the form of a program uploaded into the
computer's memory, or nowadays, this additional structure might come in
the form of machine learning, in which the computer is trained to
perform various tasks via the influence of large amounts of ambient data
(Mohan et al., 2021). But either way, in order for a computer to display
something that could be likened to intelligence, it must first be
organized into a structural system, a structural system that is not
derived from the machine itself but is instead derived from the external
environment. This raises the question of whether a computer's
intelligence should be attributed to the machine or instead to the
machine's contextual surroundings. And if this question is pertinent for
a modern computer, why would it not be pertinent for a human brain?
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p> </p>
<p>
<i>The Flynn Effect</i>
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
The first iterations of the modern IQ exam began to appear early in the
twentieth century, and as that century progressed a curious artifact
began to emerge from the growing collection of IQ exam results: the
average raw scores on these exams were getting consistently and
significantly better over time. Several researchers had made note of
this phenomenon, but it was James Flynn in the 1980s who demonstrated
convincingly, with large amounts of data, that the phenomenon was
essentially universal, and shortly thereafter it would be dubbed the
Flynn effect (Flynn, 1984, 1987). The Flynn effect remains surprising
and perplexing to this day.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
Because raw IQ scores have been increasing since they first began to be
measured, the question arises as to whether this increase would have
been apparent during earlier times, had IQ exams been available prior to
the twentieth century. In other words, for humans, when did this
increase in measurable intelligence begin? Oddly, it seems the general
consensus from the intelligence research community is that the Flynn
effect began sometime near the start of the twentieth century, the
coincidental timing with the invention of IQ exams apparently
notwithstanding. A few researchers, including James Flynn, have
suggested that the Flynn effect could trace its origin back to somewhat
earlier, to around the time of the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions
(Flynn, 2007; van der Linden & Borsboom, 2019). But no researcher it
seems is willing to entertain the possibility that the Flynn effect has
been operative for a much longer period of time. And coupled with these
suggestions of a recent start for the Flynn effect are further
suggestions that the Flynn effect soon must end—if indeed it has not
ended already. One of the latest trends in intelligence research has
been the diligent hunt for evidence that the Flynn effect has plateaued
or even reversed (Dworak et al., 2023).
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
What is driving this insistence that the Flynn effect must have a recent
origin and an imminent demise is the standard model of intelligence. In
order for the standard model to continue to make biological sense, the
Flynn effect must be temporary. If the Flynn effect were not temporary,
if it were instead to be seen as operative over an extremely long period
of time, then any brain-based depiction of human intelligence could be
seen as violating biological and evolutionary principles and boundaries.
For instance, the type of raw intelligence gains that were apparent
throughout the twentieth century, when extrapolated over a much longer
period of time, would be akin to the average human body doubling in
weight every century or two, a biological and evolutionary
implausibility. If the human brain is to be depicted as producing and
hosting intelligence, then in some sense intelligence must be biological
and organic, and thus must also adhere to biological and evolutionary
principles. This means that, according to the standard model,
intelligence cannot grow indefinitely, and population wide, by leaps and
bounds.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
The need for the Flynn effect to be temporary is evident also in the
many hypotheses that have been offered in way of explanation for the
phenomenon. Better education, better nutrition, increased exposure to
video games and puzzles, increased exposure to science, etc.—all these
suggestions, explicitly or implicitly, are intended as recent and
short-term boosts to brain productivity, boosts that ultimately have a
limited shelf life. Nutrition and education cannot be improved forever,
exposure to video games and science eventually becomes routine, and thus
intelligence inevitably returns to something more steady. The apotheosis
of these attempts to explain the Flynn effect as a fleeting phenomenon
on top of a long-term trend towards intelligence stability can be seen
in both the Dickens-Flynn model (Dickens & Flynn, 2001) and in
Woodley's theory of fast and slow life (Woodley, 2012). These are
parametrically complex models that attempt to reconcile a broad
assortment of environmental influences—such as education, family size,
nutrition, pathogen stress, social motivators, etc., influences that
purportedly can account for short-term surges and pullbacks in
measurable intelligence—reconcile these to genetic and physical factors,
factors critical for determining the biological basis of intelligence
and for ensuring the long-term stability demanded by the standard model.
Thus, the labyrinthine complexities of the Dickens-Flynn model and the
Woodley theory are motivated ultimately by the presumptive need for the
Flynn effect to be temporary.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
But in fact, there is no conclusive evidence and no compelling reason to
assume that the Flynn effect is temporary. IQ scores prior to the
twentieth century do not exist, so we cannot know for certain what the
characteristics of measurable intelligence were before that time, and as
for recent studies suggesting that the Flynn effect is ending, the data
remains preliminary and is contradicted by continuing gains in various
countries (Colom et al., 2023; Liu & Lynn, 2013; Nijenhuis et al.,
2012). Perhaps more importantly, a straightforward analysis of human
history indicates the opposite of what researchers apparently expect,
indicates that far from being temporary, the Flynn effect has actually
been operative within the human population for quite some time, ever
since the turn towards behavioral modernity (Griswold, 2017, 2023a). The
easiest way to see this is to consider what the species would have been
like at the moment of that turn, somewhere around a few hundred thousand
years ago. Humans were still in the state of being pure animals, focused
solely on survival and procreation, and were not in possession of a
single characteristic that could be measured by a modern IQ exam: no
language, no arithmetic, no abstract reasoning, no construction (Klein,
2009). Administering an IQ exam to a human of that time would have been
no more successful than administering an IQ exam to a wild animal today,
and this means that measurable intelligence for humans a few hundred
thousand years ago would have been quantifiable as absolute zero, the
same as measurable intelligence for wild animals today. And since
measurable intelligence has clearly progressed for humans to something
more substantive right now, that overall increase, <i>by definition</i>, is a
Flynn effect. It is in fact a <i>massive</i> Flynn effect, one that has been
operative over an extremely long period of time.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
What is also notable about this analysis of human history is that it
points to an alternative source of human intelligence, one that is
consistent with a growth in intelligence over the course of that
history. A few hundred thousand years ago there was no artificial
construction in the human environment, humans lived in an entirely
natural setting. But as humans advanced towards behavioral modernity,
the amount, type and complexity of the artificial construction contained
within the human environment continued to accumulate over time. From
simple tools, animal skin clothing and makeshift shelters to highways,
electricity and towering skyscrapers, humans have found themselves
increasingly surrounded by the ubiquitous influence of artificial
construction. And this artificial construction must have something to do
with human intelligence, because the content of an IQ exam is composed
itself entirely out of artificial construction—words, numbers, puzzles,
matrices, etc. (Wechsler, 1997). When one takes an IQ exam, one is in
essence demonstrating one's dexterity with artificial construction.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
Thus, if intelligence could be associated to the characteristics of the
artificial construction contained within the human environment—instead
of to the biological characteristics of the human brain—then explaining
the Flynn effect would be no more difficult than explaining the
historical increase in artificial construction. But the reason no one
considers associating human intelligence to the human environment is
that the standard model of intelligence insists otherwise, insists that
human intelligence is to be associated directly and solely to the human
brain (Jung & Haier, 2007). But is this insistence justified, does
the standard model actually capture the true nature of human
intelligence? Is there a reasonable and effective alternative available,
a means to model human intelligence that associates intelligence not to
the human brain, but instead to the structural impact of the artificial
aspects of the human environment?
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p> </p>
<p>
<b>3. Field Theory</b>
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
It is important to begin by noting that a field theory of human
intelligence is not the same thing as other field theories that have
been proposed in the domains of psychology and sociology (for example,
those of Lewin and Bourdieu), theories that appear to have closer
relationships to Gestalt philosophies and socio-political doctrines
(Fernández & Puente, 2009; Lewin, 1951). Instead, a field theory of
human intelligence is more akin to its physical science counterparts,
such as those describing the phenomena of electricity and magnetism. Of
the different ways to characterize this type of field theory, perhaps
the most straightforward is to focus upon the reactions of responsive
objects to the presence of a relevant field. For example, different
kinds of metallic shavings are moved and aligned by the presence of a
magnetic field, with some types of metals more responsive to that field
than others. Nonetheless, the dynamic properties of magnetism are not
determined by the characteristics of the metals themselves, which remain
essentially constant over time, but are instead determined by the
dynamic properties of the surrounding magnetic field. In a weak magnetic
field, every metal will display proportionally less reactivity, and in a
strong magnetic field, every metal will display proportionally more
reactivity, even though the metals themselves remain unchanged. Thus,
the overall intensity of the magnetic effect is determined by the
strength of the magnetic field (Black & Davis, 1913).
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
In a field theory of human intelligence, the strength of the
intelligence field is determined by the amount, type and complexity of
artificial construction contained within the human environment. In other
words, the more artificial construction there is, the greater the
intensity of the intelligence field and the greater the amount of
intelligence that can be measured (for instance, via an IQ exam). The
responsive object in this scenario is the human neural system—or more
particularly, the human brain—and just as some metals are more
responsive to a magnetic field than are others, some human brains are
more responsive to an intelligence field than are others. But the
dynamic properties of human intelligence are not determined by the
characteristics of these brains—characteristics that remain essentially
stable over time. Instead, the dynamic properties of human intelligence
are determined by the changing strength of the surrounding intelligence
field, by the changing amount, type and complexity of artificial
construction contained within the human environment.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
A few hundred thousand years ago, when humans were still pure animals
and there was no artificial construction to be found in the human
environment, the strength of the intelligence field would have been
essentially zero. Human brains of that time, despite being as capable of
responding to an intelligence field as are the human brains of today,
would have found no artificial stimulus with which to engage, meaning
there would have been no corresponding response and thus no measurable
intelligence. By around twenty-five thousand years ago, instances of
artificial construction had begun to make frequent appearance within the
human surroundings—structured tools, ornamental jewelry, cave paintings,
abstract sounds, etc.—and the human brains of that era, responding to
the stimulus of this newfound artificial construction, would have
thereby been capable of displaying intelligence behavior (Christian,
2018). Administering an IQ exam to that population would have been
conceivable, even though the exam would have needed to be crude and
simple by modern standards, because of limited vocabulary, primitive
numeracy, etc. Indeed, a corollary of field theory for human
intelligence is that an IQ exam, in order to be an effective and
accurate measure of the intelligence of a given population, would need
to reflect and to serve as a proxy for the amount, type and complexity
of artificial construction to be found in that population's particular
environment. A modern IQ exam such as Stanford-Binet or Wechsler would
overwhelm an ancient population, but an appropriately simpler exam would
be able to assess that population's intelligence characteristics.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
By the later era of the Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Greco-Roman empires,
the artificial construction in the human environment had swelled to an
even greater magnitude—permanent abodes, irrigation techniques, written
words, advanced numeracy, etc.—and the human brains of that era, still
biologically the same as human brains of previous eras, would have been
responding to this increased stimulus of artificial construction by
displaying still greater degrees of measurable intelligence. And today,
in the twenty-first century, in a world now thoroughly suffused with
buildings, roadways, computers, streams of structured data, etc., human
brains find themselves responding ever more continuously to a growing
and fast-paced array of artificially constructed stimulus, so much so
that today's human brain—still biologically the same as previous human
brains—can now easily handle the increased and increasing complexities
of modern IQ exams.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
Because the intelligence field is an observable and structured feature
of the human environment, this field is in theory quantifiable.
Unfortunately, there are some practical difficulties to actually making
such a quantification. For one, the quantification process would be
self-referencing, since quantification and measurement are themselves
instances of artificial construction. Perhaps even more challenging is
the fact that in the modern era, the depth, breadth and hierarchy of
artificial construction contained within the human environment has
reached such expansive proportions as to make the quantification task
nearly overwhelming—on an order perhaps of cataloging and numbering all
the organic and inorganic molecules contained within the oceans.
Nonetheless, despite these practical difficulties, it is still possible
to make accurate and meaningful statements about the dynamic properties
of the human intelligence field. For instance, it should be clear from
human history that the strength of the intelligence field has been
continuously and significantly increasing over time, ever since the
human turn towards behavioral modernity. The number and type of
constructed artifacts contained within the human environment, as well as
their underlying complexity, has been continuously on the rise,
something that was quite observable across the course of the twentieth
century, with the advent of airplanes, automobiles, electronic
communication, computers, and the like, a torrent of additional
environmental construction coming at the same time evidence was first
appearing that measurable intelligence was significantly increasing
within the population.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
The simplest assumption that can be made regarding the dynamic
properties of the human intelligence field would be to say that growth
in artificial construction is proportional to the amount of artificial
construction existing at any given time. This assumption is captured in
the differential equation <b>di/dt=ki</b>, where <b>i</b> is the intensity of the
intelligence field, <b>t</b> is time, and <b>k</b> is a positive constant of
proportionality. This differential equation has a solution, <b>i=e<sup>kt</sup></b>,
indicating that the intelligence field strengthens exponentially
(Trench, 2013). This assumption is perhaps not unreasonable in the
modern era, when the deep interconnectedness of the entire human
environment allows for innovation and new construction to spread rapidly
and uniformly around the globe. Nonetheless, a longer look over the
course of human history indicates that growth in the human intelligence
field has generally been less regular, with localized surges and
intermittent plateaus. And given that there are biological aspects to
human intelligence, it cannot be expected that its underlying formulas
will display the same mathematical exactitude as do physical
phenomena—the true differential equations describing the human
intelligence field will likely be somewhat messy. This does not,
however, invalidate the overall message of the theory, namely that the
dynamic properties of human intelligence can be derived from the
artificial aspects of the human environment.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
While a field theory of human intelligence clearly runs counter to the
standard brain-centric model, field theory does have several advantages
that speak in its favor:
</p>
</div>
<div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<ol start="1">
<li>
<p>
<i>A field theory of human intelligence does not require
extraordinary biological and evolutionary assumptions
regarding the functionality of the human brain.</i> In a field
theory of human intelligence, the human neural system
retains its traditional biological role of being a
stimulus/response mechanism, and what changes is not the
brain itself, but instead the environmental stimulus to
which the brain responds. This means that the brain does not
need to take on the supplemental and biologically
extraordinary role of producing and hosting intelligence,
and this further implies that the human neural system has
not needed to transform biologically in any significant way
since the beginning of the human behavioral transformation,
an implication more consistent with the principles of
evolution. Also, since what changes is the environmental
stimulus, and not the brain itself, there is no biological
restriction on the rate of intelligence gain, no organic
hindrance to having intelligence grow indefinitely, and
population wide, by leaps and bounds.
</p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
<ol start="2">
<li>
<p>
<i>A field theory of human intelligence provides a specified
and observable description of the material structure of
human intelligence.</i> Because intelligence is now being
identified with the structural aspects of the human
artificial environment—and not with the neurons in the human
brain—the material structure of intelligence is entirely
open to observation. The symmetry, pattern, repetition, form
and so on that underlies most types of intelligence
behavior—language, arithmetic, problem solving, and the
like—these characteristics exist right before our very eyes,
there in the human environment. Indeed, most of these
characteristics have already been cataloged and explained,
using the tools of mathematics, logic and science. Precise
descriptions of the structure of the artificial aspects of
the material world are in essence the same thing as precise
descriptions of the material structure of human
intelligence. This means that any attempt to uncover a
<i>neuronal</i> structure for human intelligence would be to engage
in nothing but a redundancy, an attempt to find something
that we have already perceived. In a field theory of human
intelligence, the locus of intelligence is not to be
searched for inside the human skull; instead, the locus of
intelligence can be found within the expanding artificial
structure of the human environment.
</p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
<ol start="3">
<li>
<p>
<i>A field theory of human intelligence offers a
straightforward and elegant explanation of the Flynn effect.</i>
Measurable human intelligence, represented by the raw scores
on intelligence exams, is the result of the orthogonal
combination of two different factors. One of these factors
is general intelligence ability, the strength of an
individual's intelligence scores across an assortment of
correlated intelligence tasks (Spearman, 1904). Effectively,
an individual's general intelligence ability is a measure of
that individual's general responsiveness to the presence of
an intelligence field, an ability that differs from person
to person, the difference being driven mostly by genetic
factors (Gottfredson, 1998). General intelligence ability is
the biological component of intelligence, and as such, it
can be assumed that the average general intelligence ability
within the human species has remained nearly constant over
time, as would be expected for a biological trait. But the
same cannot be said of the second factor contributing to
measurable intelligence. The second factor is the total
amount, type and complexity of artificial construction
contained within the human environment, the target towards
which general intelligence ability is applied. The amount,
type and complexity of artificial construction has been
significantly and consistently increasing ever since the
beginning of the human turn. And because measurable
intelligence is the result of the orthogonal combination of
both general intelligence ability (stable over time) and the
amount, type and complexity of artificial construction
(increasing over time), measurable intelligence also
increases over time. This is a precise description of the
Flynn effect, and it marks the increasing amount of
artificial construction contained within the human
environment—that is to say, the growing strength of the
intelligence field—as the sole driver and the sole
explanation of the Flynn effect.
</p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div>
<p>
In addition, a field theory of human intelligence gives rise to
certain predictions about the future course of human intelligence:
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<ol start="1">
<li>
<p>
<i>Field theory indicates that there is no reason to expect
that the Flynn effect is ending or reversing.</i> Since field
theory suggests that the Flynn effect has been operative
within the human species for many millennia—ever since the
turn towards behavioral modernity—it would be too much of a
coincidence to have the phenomenon come to a screeching halt
right at the very moment of its discovery. More importantly,
barring a human catastrophe (such as civilization collapse),
it can be expected that the amount, type and complexity of
artificial construction will continue to accumulate within
the human environment, and future generations, responding to
this increased level of artificial construction, will
thereby go on to demonstrate greater levels of intelligence
performance on future intelligence exams. Therefore, it can
be predicted that the average level of measurable
intelligence at the end of the twenty-first century will
exceed by a significant amount the average level of
measurable intelligence from the beginning of the
twenty-first century.
</p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
<ol start="2">
<li>
<p>
<i>Field theory indicates that the content of intelligence
exams will need to undergo significant alteration as time
goes by.</i> The content of an IQ exam is a proxy for the
artificial construction contained within the human
environment. The structure underlying questions regarding
vocabulary, arithmetic, puzzles, matrices, etc., this
structure mirrors the artificial structure that humans
navigate and master in their everyday lives. Thus, an
individual's performance on an IQ exam is an indirect
measure of that individual's ability to navigate and to
master ambient artificial construction, and since the
amount, type and complexity of that ambient artificial
construction continues to increase over time, the content of
IQ exams must be similarly altered in order to remain
effective. In general, future questions must take on greater
variety and greater complexity, because if IQ exams were not
altered in this fashion, they would gradually begin to fail
in their purpose, becoming less able over time to detect
individual intelligence differences and to predict
accurately the life circumstances impacted by intelligence
ability. Therefore, it can be predicted that the content of
IQ exams at the end of the twenty-first century will differ
significantly from the content of IQ exams at the beginning
of the twenty-first century, mostly through the
incorporation of greater variety and greater complexity, in
an attempt to mirror and to proxy the increasing amount,
type and complexity of artificial construction to be found
within the human environment.
</p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
It is perhaps not out of place to mention that both of these predictions
could have been made at the beginning of the twentieth century, and
would have been verified by the end of the twentieth century. And unless
one is convinced that the Flynn effect must be temporary, there is no
reason to expect that the current century, or future centuries, will
turn out to be any different.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p> </p>
<p>
<b>4. Conclusion</b>
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
The standard model of human intelligence is a brain-centric depiction of
intelligence, and it enjoys nearly universal acceptance within the
intelligence research community. Nonetheless, the standard model does
have some serious shortcomings, including a lack of specificity and an
inability to account for the Flynn effect, other than to assume that the
Flynn effect must be a temporary aberration.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p>
What has been presented here is an alternative model for human
intelligence, one that identifies intelligence with the growing
artificial structure contained within the human environment. Although
this field theory approach to human intelligence runs counter to the
widely accepted standard model, field theory does offer some advantages,
including an eschewal of any extraordinary biological or evolutionary
assumptions regarding the functioning of the human brain, a specific and
observable description of the material structure of human intelligence,
and a straightforward and elegant explanation of the Flynn effect. For
these reasons, a field theory of human intelligence merits serious
consideration.
</p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
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</div>Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-24085050038341401082023-06-03T14:36:00.000-04:002023-06-03T14:36:12.527-04:00Rethinking the Flynn Effect<p><strong>1. Introduction</strong></p>
<p>During the twentieth century, several researchers noticed that overall raw performance on intelligence exams seemed to be generally increasing over time. Then it was James Flynn in the 1980s who provided abundant evidence that this phenomenon was essentially universal, thereby drawing greater attention to it, and the phenomenon would be eventually dubbed the Flynn effect (Flynn, 1984, 1987). Since its discovery, the Flynn effect has remained a scientific mystery, an unexpected result defying the many attempts to explain it (Trahan et al., 2014). And perhaps due in part to this intransigence, the Flynn effect has also been the target of an unease and mistreatment, everything from an initial dismissiveness of the phenomenon's significance by James Flynn himself, to an ongoing tendency towards overfitting by models distinguished for their parameterized complexity, to a more recent groundswell of anticipation for the Flynn effect's apparently imminent demise.</p>
<p>Ironically, the one approach to the Flynn effect that seems not to have been given serious consideration by the intelligence research community is to embrace the phenomenon as a fundamental and enduring property of human intelligence, as consequential in impact as say Spearman's <em>g</em> (general intelligence ability). I believe this neglect will prove to be a mistake. Afforded a reasonable degree of presumptive acceptance, the Flynn effect emerges as not a twentieth-century aberration, not a temporary quirk to be solved with labored explanations. Instead, the Flynn effect can be demonstrated as having been with humanity for an extremely long period of time, ever since the beginning of the human behavioral transformation, and there is no reason to expect that the Flynn effect will end anytime soon. Thus, far from being a candidate for unease and mistreatment, the Flynn effect should be recognized as foundational to a complete understanding of human intelligence.</p>
<p><strong>2. Various Forms of Dismissal</strong></p>
<p>In reading through the intelligence research literature, one seldom comes across the Flynn effect being described with such terms as <em>foundational</em>, <em>fundamental</em> or <em>permanent</em>. Instead, the words <em>aberration</em>, <em>not real</em> and, above all else, <em>temporary</em> are more frequently applied. One of the earliest attacks on the Flynn effect came from James Flynn himself, who having inferred that the IQ gains he was seeing in the data would classify his nineteenth-century ancestors as mentally deficient and would render today's children as observably smarter than their parents, opined that the Flynn effect was not indicative of a true increase in human intelligence (Flynn, 1987, 1998, 2007).</p>
<p>Flynn would later waver in this opinion, eventually devoting many articles and entire books to exploring the Flynn effect as a serious topic for human intelligence (Flynn 2007, 2012), even going so far as to collaborate with William Dickens to develop a labyrinthine model for explaining how the Flynn effect can be reconciled to <em>g</em> (more on this in a moment). Nonetheless, throughout his career, Flynn never seemed to come to peace with his namesake subject, remaining confused by its apparent paradoxes and troubled by its disruptive implications. In this, Flynn was certainly not alone. Unease with the Flynn effect is practically palpable within the literature, almost the entirety of which can be summed up in the following manner:</p>
<ol>
<li>The Flynn effect is puzzling and unexpected, to the point of being surely an aberration.</li>
<li>The Flynn effect began likely sometime during or just before the twentieth century, and certainly no earlier than the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions.</li>
<li>The Flynn effect cannot go on forever.</li>
<li>Therefore, there must be a cause (or a set of causes) that both explains how the Flynn effect recently came into being, and how the Flynn effect will of necessity soon go away.</li>
</ol>
<p>The list of suggested causes is nearly endless—heterosis, better nutrition, expanded education—to name just a few (Mingroni, 2007; Lynn, 1989; Baker et al., 2015). But the problem has always been that these suggestions lack sufficient spatial and temporal reach to match the nearly ubiquitous impact of the Flynn effect. Thus, unable to explain the phenomenon easily, intelligence researchers have turned to two alternative approaches. The first approach has been simply to wait out the Flynn effect, to begin looking for the signs of its predicted and requisite end. And perhaps not coincidentally, no sooner has this strategy been adopted than the evidence has begun to pour in supporting the anticipated result, even to the point of considering online surveys as evidence for the Flynn effect's reversal (Pietschnig & Gittler, 2015; Dutton, van der Linden & Lynn, 2016; Dworak, Revelle & Condon, 2023).</p>
<p>The second approach has been to subdue the Flynn effect with complexity and multiplicity. There have been three prominent attempts along these lines. The first has been the multiple causation theory (Jensen, 1998), the suggestion that although no one cause by itself can produce the Flynn effect, many causes in combination can adequately do the trick; in essence, <em>everything</em> causes the Flynn effect. The second attempt has been the Dickens-Flynn model (Dickens & Flynn, 2001), a complex gathering of mathematical formulae and parameterized concepts—social multipliers, rolling triggers, amplified feedback loops—all tunable to whatever IQ data one might happen to obtain. Indeed, Dickens and Flynn have been known to tout their model's ample knobs and levers as one of its primary virtues (Dickens & Flynn, 2002). The third attempt has been the life history model of intelligence (Woodley, 2012), a conceptually intricate collection of statistically representable life history speed factors—such as pathogen stress, nutrition, family size, education, etc. These life history speed factors could presumably, and in the right combination, produce the Flynn effect, and then in a different combination make it disappear.</p>
<p>The problem with this second approach is the concept known as overfitting. It is well understood within the practice of data science that given enough complexity and/or enough free parameters, a model can always be developed that will fit snuggly to any given set of data (Hawkins, 2004). Unfortunately, such models thereby lose all their explanatory and predictive power, rendering them empty of consequence. The multiple causation theory, the Dickens-Flynn model, and the life history model—these are all classic examples of overfitting. They tell us everything we could possibly want to know about the data, but leave it problematic as to whether they are telling us anything insightful about human intelligence.</p>
<p><strong>3. Human History and the Flynn Effect</strong></p>
<p>The notion that the Flynn effect is only a recent phenomenon is contradicted by the entire course of human history. Although we are not exactly certain when the human species first began its turn towards behavioral modernity, any reasonable estimate would put this moment at no earlier than a few hundred thousand years ago (Henshilwood & Marean, 2003), and until that time, the human species was pure animal. Not a single concept to be found on a modern intelligence exam would have been present in the species—no language, no arithmetic, no geometric patterns, no logic, no anything. Try to imagine administering Wechsler to one of those ancient humans—it would be no more successful than administering Wechsler to a wild leopard. But this means that measurable human intelligence was at that time quantifiable as absolute zero, and since measurable human intelligence today has clearly advanced to a more substantive number, that overall increase, <em>by definition</em>, is a Flynn effect. Indeed, it is a <em>massive</em> Flynn effect.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the increase in measurable intelligence over that time has been continuous and not sudden. For instance, by the time of the out-of-Africa hunter-gatherers, the human species had begun to display an observable degree of intelligence—controlled fire, crafted weapons, ornamental jewelry, cave paintings, etc. (Klein, 2002). Administering an intelligence exam to that population would be conceivable, although the contents of such an exam would have to be simple and crude by modern standards (because of limited vocabulary, primitive numeracy, etc.). Sometime later, by the era of the early farmers of the Fertile Crescent, a more advanced level of intelligence had become apparent within the species—permanent abodes, irrigation techniques, pottery making (Christian, 2018)—and an intelligence exam appropriate for that population would be more sophisticated and more varied than the one appropriate for the hunter-gatherer population; and yet still, such an exam would have to remain simple by modern standards, because writing and arithmetic, for instance, were still on the verge of being invented. It has only been through recent times, an era increasingly dominated by such artifacts as books, cities and automobiles, that humans have gained enough proficiency to allow them to tackle the complexities of Stanford-Binet and Wechsler. Thus, the current level of measurable human intelligence has not come into existence suddenly, but instead has been steadily progressing ever since the first days of the human turn, and this means that the Flynn effect has been operative within the human population for a very long time.</p>
<p>And although conceptualizing intelligence exams for ancient populations does require some imaginative reasoning, do note that this reasoning remains entirely consistent with what actually took place during the twentieth century, on actual intelligence exams. The only way that an average IQ test taker from the late twentieth century could have equaled the raw score of an average IQ test taker from the early twentieth century would have been for the later exams to be altered to be more varied, more complex and more difficult (which in many instances they actually were). Increasing sophistication in the contents of intelligence exams is a palpable indicator of a progressive increase in the overall level of measurable intelligence, an increase that was evident in actuality during the twentieth century, and has been demonstrably evident across the entire course of human history, ever since the beginning of the human behavioral transformation.</p>
<p>But if this is indeed so, then it also puts to rest any notion that the Flynn effect is ending or reversing. What an incredible coincidence it would be to come across a phenomenon operative within the species for tens of thousands of years, and then now suddenly, right at the very moment of its conscious discovery, the phenomenon screeches to an abrupt halt—that makes no sense at all. Whatever has been driving the Flynn effect over the course of human history, including right through the entirety of the twentieth century, it must still be operative within the human population today.</p>
<p><strong>4. A Model of Acceptance</strong></p>
<p>In other works (Griswold, 2017, 2023), I have outlined a model of human intelligence that accepts the Flynn effect as valid, fundamental and enduring. The model's salient features include the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>Measurable human intelligence is best described as the orthogonal product of two different factors: one, individual general intelligence ability (such as that quantifiable by <em>g</em>); and two, the total amount of artificial construction contained within the human environment, the target towards which general intelligence ability is applied.</li>
<li>The contents of an IQ exam are themselves artificial constructions—words, digits, sequences, puzzles, matrices, etc. As such, they serve as a proxy for the artificial construction contained within the human environment. That is, an individual's performance on an IQ exam is an indirect assessment of that individual's ability to navigate and to master the artificial construction to be found in that individual's everyday world.</li>
<li>The overall level of general intelligence ability remains stable within the population over time. This is exactly as to be expected for an ability driven primarily by genetic and neural characteristics.</li>
<li>On the other hand, the amount of artificial construction contained within the human environment has been continuously increasing ever since the beginning of the human behavioral transformation. Humans have progressed steadily (and successfully) from living in an entirely natural setting to living in a world now dominated by accruing amounts of artificial construction.</li>
<li>Since measurable human intelligence is the orthogonal product of these two different factors, one of which has been continuously increasing over time (and the other of which has remained entirely stable), measurable human intelligence has also been continuously increasing over time. This is a precise description of the Flynn effect, and it marks the accruing amount of artificial construction contained within the human environment as the sole driver and the sole explanation of the Flynn effect.</li>
<li>The above statements demonstrate that there is nothing contradictory (or paradoxical) about a stable general intelligence ability coexisting with increasing levels of measurable intelligence. Our nineteenth-century ancestors were not mentally deficient, nor are today's children smarter than their parents, because general intelligence ability remains stable over time. Nonetheless, later generations, by virtue of living in environments containing increased levels of artificial construction, and by applying their general intelligence ability to that increased level of artificial construction, will thereby demonstrate greater levels of performance on intelligence exams.</li>
<li>The above statements also demonstrate that the widespread presumption that intelligence is primarily a function of the human brain is in essence incorrect. The brain plays a role—by being responsive to artificial construction—but the locus of intelligence is the expanding structure of the artificial environment, and not the neurons of the human brain.</li>
<li>Since the contents of IQ exams serve as a proxy for the artificial construction contained within the human environment, and since the amount and type of that artificial construction is constantly changing over time, the contents of IQ exams must themselves be adjusted on a regular basis, typically towards greater variety, greater complexity and greater difficulty, to reflect the growing challenge humans must face in navigating the increasing amounts of artificial construction contained within their surrounding world.</li>
<li>Barring a catastrophe (such as civilization collapse), the amount of artificial construction within the human environment will continue to increase into the foreseeable future, and future generations will be obliged to navigate and to master this increasing amount of artificial construction, and will thereby also go on to demonstrate increasing levels of performance on future intelligence exams. Therefore, there is no reason to expect that the Flynn effect will end anytime soon.</li>
</ol>
<p>If I were to characterize this model succinctly, I would say it is an effort to employ the Flynn effect to challenge our preconceptions about human intelligence, as opposed to an application of our preconceptions about human intelligence to wrestle the Flynn effect into submission.</p>
<p><strong>5. Conclusion</strong></p>
<p>From the history of science, we have an analogous circumstance to that of the current situation regarding the Flynn effect. In the late nineteenth century, the Michelson-Morley experiment was conducted in order to detect the presence of the luminiferous aether, by measuring the difference in the speed of light in the direction of Earth's motion versus the speed of light at right angles to that motion (Michelson & Morley, 1887). But the result of the experiment turned out to be entirely unexpected, with the speed of light measuring the same in every direction observed. Scientists spent the next twenty years flailing against this result, first with insistence that the experiment was flawed, and then with later implication that the verified outcome was incomprehensible or inconsequential or both (Swenson, 1970). On a different front, by around the year 1905, Hendrik Lorentz and Henri Poincaré had worked out the complex mathematics needed to reconcile a stationary aether to the presumed spatial and temporal contractions experienced by moving bodies, equations and models derived specifically to fit to the Michelson-Morley results (Lorentz, 1904; Poincaré, 1900). But as with all cases of overfitting, what the Lorentz/Poincaré equations and models revealed was only information about the data itself, not providing any useful elucidation about the processes <em>underlying</em> that data.</p>
<p>So how was this circumstance resolved? It was resolved when a naive young gentleman dared an approach that had eluded the scientists of that day, namely accepting the Michelson-Morley outcome as both valid and fundamental, postulating that the speed of light was indeed the same in every inertial frame, and then working out the consequences from there. I would encourage everyone to read Einstein's original paper on special relativity—it is a paradigm of simplicity and straightforwardness (Einstein, 1905). And because Einstein's approach was so simple and straightforward, it retained its predictive and explanatory power, unveiling a host of compelling insights into the characteristics of space, time, matter and energy.</p>
<p>I believe a similar fate awaits the Flynn effect. When researchers come to accept the phenomenon as valid, fundamental and enduring (which perhaps requires a certain amount of naiveté), they will have the context for a model of human intelligence not encumbered by too much parametric complexity. And as with all simple and straightforward models, this one will retain some of its predictive and explanatory force, perhaps unveiling useful insights into the course of human history and into the nature of human intelligence.</p>
<br/>
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<p>Trahan, L. H., Stuebing, K. K., Fletcher, J. M., & Hiscock, M. (2014). The Flynn effect: a meta-analysis. <em>Psychological bulletin</em>, <em>140</em>(5), 1332–1360. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037173</p>
<p>Woodley, M. A. (2012). A life history model of the Lynn-Flynn effect. <em>Personality and Individual Differences, 53</em>, 152-156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.03.028</p>
Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-5281717480194390392023-04-24T20:12:00.002-04:002023-04-24T20:12:35.625-04:00Autistic Rhapsody - Final Version<p style="text-align: left;">
<p style="text-align: left;">The final version of <i>Autistic Rhapsody</i> can be found <a href="http://www.grizzalan.com/autisticrhapsody/index.html" target="_blank">here</a>. The entire book is available through the web site, and there is also purchase information available for those interested.</p>
<p> </p>Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-83056926111980979362023-03-04T12:25:00.001-05:002023-03-04T12:25:48.549-05:00Consequences<!DOCTYPE html>
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<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">6.
Consequences</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Humanity
finds itself standing between two extremes. On the one hand, there
has been no other time in history when humans have experienced so
much benefit from the fruits of their transformation. For the vast
majority of us, we lack essentially nothing in the way of physical
and biological needs and comforts. We have an abundance of food and
drink to sustain and to nourish us, so much so that we usually can
luxuriate in the broad range of tastes and smells available to our
plate and cup. We enjoy nearly complete safety from predators and
from the elements, living in dwellings that not only provide us with
adequate protection but also give us pleasure and a fulfilling sense
of family and community. We engage in sex usually at our leisure and
mostly for the sheer delight of it, able to plan procreation for when
it is the most convenient. And nearly one hundred percent of our
children survive into adulthood, experiencing upbringings full of
education and enrichment, eyeing a future that foreseeably will be
even better than the one we experience now. We travel with ease, even
to the far reaches of the planet. We experience health and lifespans
previously unheard of. Compared to the lives of the earliest of </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
and compared even to the lives of our ancestors from just a few
hundred years ago, we live in a near paradise. It washes over us so
thoroughly we can easily take it for granted.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> In
addition, we also live in an age where the level of knowledge and
understanding regarding the surrounding environment has reached a
nearly unimaginable depth and scope. Quantum theory, genetics,
artificial intelligence—we seem to be on the verge of obtaining the
keys to the entire kingdom, and it is entirely appropriate to think
that the universe is somehow coming into consciousness entirely
through human means. It is an amazing time to be part of human
existence.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> But
on the other hand, the accelerating pace of change brought forth by
the human transformation, along with the immense and growing power of
that change—a power that now overwhelms any form of biological
defense—this has put humanity into the most precarious of
situations. We stand on the precipice of irreversibly ruining the
climate for ourselves and for all the other life forms on the planet.
We have brought to extinction such a large number of species that we
threaten to destroy the balance of life itself. And we have developed
and deployed so many weapons of mass destruction that we now have
little choice but to merely hope that someone does not pull the
decisive trigger and blow the whole thing up. I would liken
humanity’s current circumstance to that of a teenager driving a
souped-up car on county roads, thrilled by the speed, thrilled by the
rushing wind, thrilled by the music blaring from the stereo, but
racing faster and faster around every bend and swerving more and more
erratically from lane to lane. How much longer before careening out
of control?</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> I
believe humanity has come to this precarious situation in large part
because humanity is lacking two useful pieces of information. One, as
claimed at the beginning of this essay, humanity does not as yet
understand itself, it does not yet have a grasp on what has caused,
and continues to cause, the transformation that has brought this
species to its current place. And two, humanity cannot as yet
envisage where this transformation might be heading, or what could be
its purpose. We are moving ever faster but without knowing why and
without knowing which direction we might take.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
value of accurate knowledge and understanding is that it untangles
difficulties and provides useful signposts, allowing us to proceed
forward with greater control and mastery, with a greater likelihood
of taking future actions that will be constructive instead of
destructive. Humanity has seen the benefits of this kind of knowledge
and understanding in so many different areas—physics, mathematics,
engineering, medicine—and if we were to gain a similar level of
knowledge and understanding regarding humanity’s history and
humanity’s endeavors, we might come to find that we can proceed
forward as a species with greater assurance and much less
recklessness, maintaining all the benefits of the human
transformation while minimizing the risks.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> One
place to begin is with a greater awareness—a greater degree of
collective consciousness—regarding the dual source of influence
that underlies modern humanity. As has been described and emphasized
previously, modern humans are to be characterized as being double
origined, first as pure animals and then more recently as organisms
responsive to the impact of artificial construction. But few humans
actually sense or are aware of this dual origin. This may be due in
part to the fact that the species has been extremely successful in
blending its original influences, giving the overall impression that
human perception and behavior operates as a cohesive whole. For
example, this blending can be observed in almost every government and
corporate institution. These institutions are typically formulated
around known patterns of structure, rule and design, and there is a
certain degree of objective logic often guiding how these
institutions are organized and run. But they are not machines. Weaved
among this disinterested structure can be found a broad assortment of
activities, protocols, and conventions that are clearly derived more
directly from humanity’s tribal origins. For instance, there is the
totemic importance of the org chart, crucial for knowing who controls
what piece of turf and who is to be giving deference to whom. There
is the steady hum of gossip around every corner and throughout every
channel of communication. There are the countless meetings, even when
there is nothing of importance to discuss. And then there is the
aphorism about how one manages to get ahead, namely that it is not so
much </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>what</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
you know as it is </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>who</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
you know. These institutions, when stripped down to the motivations
that undergird them and allow them to function, can be seen as
microcosms of the broad human talent for blending both biological and
non-biological influences, of displaying what might be described as
an effective mixture of autistic and non-autistic traits.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> But
I believe the biggest reason that humans are not generally aware of
the dual origin of their nature is that they have convinced
themselves that human intelligence is innate, that is to say, that
human intelligence is predominantly neurological and biological. Thus
intelligence, the core characteristic underlying the human
transformation, is categorized in the minds of almost everyone as
being similar to the rest of the human instincts. We think we have
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>evolved</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
our intelligence, instead of having </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>built</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
it, and thus we regard our modern perceptions and behaviors as simply
a natural extension of our biological and animal selves. But this is
a fundamental mistake, a deep misapprehension of who we are and how
we operate. It is a self-deluding myth.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
danger of this myth is that it obscures the inherent tension that
exists between the two different sources of human influence, between
on the one hand the animal aspect of humanity, and on the other hand
the constructed aspect of humanity. Despite this species’
effectiveness at blending these two aspects when necessary, it still
needs to be recognized that in general these two aspects do not
always play so well together. They come from entirely different
histories and possess entirely different characteristics, and they
pull this species in opposite directions. This in turn creates
conflict, confusion, turmoil and obstacles to human progress,
problems that will not get resolved by misunderstanding what has
given rise to them.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> The
animal aspect of humanity is of course deeply ingrained, and also
ever present, because even in the modern era humans must respond to
their biological needs and demands. The key word to this aspect is
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>immediacy</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
everything operates in the here and now, and the morality of this
aspect is the morality of survival and procreation. But if this seems
a bit too brutish and selfish, note also that the animal aspect of
humanity has provided much of the vitality spurring this species into
productive action. How much artificial construction has been
instigated by a personal desire for immediate or near-term gain.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> The
constructed aspect of humanity, more recent and also constantly
shifting, faces the daunting challenge of having to overcome entropy,
of having to marshal and to infuse additional amounts of energy and
complexity into the existing environment. The key word here is
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>expansiveness</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
an ever enlarging engagement with time and space. And the morality of
this aspect centers around the need to contain the natural urge
towards immediacy, a corralling of the beast within. But if this
seems a bit too onerous, take another look at the cornucopia of
benefit that has been thereby gained, including the most fundamental
benefit, that of human freedom. Ask yourself, would we really want to
return to the circumstances of being pure animal.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> This
ongoing tension between these two different aspects of humanity might
seem at first to be equally and well met, but this is also something
of a myth. Over the course of human history, one of these aspects has
been gaining steadily in ascendency, while the other aspect has been
scrambling to retain its relevance. Before the out-of-Africa
migration, and even for some time thereafter, the animal aspect of
humanity continued to reign supreme. Human life then was still mostly
a battle for survival and procreation, even when increasingly aided
by the growing influence of artificial construction. But eventually,
the constructed aspect of humanity began to take greater and greater
control, and today most humans live lives dominated by the artificial
construction existing all around them, with their animal selves being
little more than appeased. This is a result that seems to be
acceptable to many, but it is also a result that seems to be
disturbing to some, and I believe a good deal of the pushback against
human progress is motivated by a genuine and felt reluctance to let
go of our animal selves.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> And
at any rate, are we even aware of these aspects that are driving our
preferences and desires, are we individually and collectively
conscious of the history that has forged us into the modern humans we
are today? Do we as yet understand ourselves?</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> As
challenging as it can be to understand ourselves today, it is even
more difficult to foresee where it is that we might be heading. We
could ask, does the human transformation have a purpose or an
ultimate goal? Using the context and perspective of Big History, we
might ask the same question about all the previous thresholds. The
Big Bang, the formation of the chemical elements, the coming together
of galactic systems, the origination of life—did these moments have
a purpose or an ultimate goal, or were they instead merely a sequence
of events connected benignly from one to another? The thing is, these
previous events from Big History seem to us to have been
predetermined, whereas we also feel that humans today have the
freedom to make choices. And indeed, from the modern perspective,
there are many different directions this species might take:</font></font></font></p>
<ul>
<li><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">We
could mindlessly slide into eventual destruction. Much like the
teenager driving the souped-up car on county roads, we could just
simply enjoy the ride until it finally comes to an end.</font></font></font></p>
<li><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Noting
the harm we are doing to the planet and to the other forms of life
on Earth, we could magnanimously declare ourselves to be a cancer
upon this planet and voluntarily extinct ourselves. This would give
Earth the opportunity to heal and to return to its previous
evolutionary state.</font></font></font></p>
<li><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Noting
the fragility of biology against the power of artificial
construction, we could pursue the possibility of non-biological
life, employing gained knowledge in physics, robotics, artificial
intelligence and the like to create sentient entities more hardy
than ourselves. These entities could then continue the process of
accruing artificial construction, safe from the risks that come with
biological entanglement.</font></font></font></p>
<li><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">We
could continue in much the same way as we are doing right now, but
with greater awareness and a deeper understanding of what has
brought us to this place. This would include appreciation and
respect for the needs of our fellow species and for the
contributions of autistic individuals.</font></font></font></p>
</ul>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> I
admit to being biased, but my personal preference is for the latter
choice. I cannot see the advantage of either an eventual destruction
or of a voluntary return to an evolutionary past. These paths go
backwards in time, to circumstances this universe has already known.
I would much rather take the opportunity to experience something new.
Plus I am struck by how the depth and breadth of recent
understanding—the expansion of knowledge that ranges all the way
back to the beginning of time itself, and all the way across the far
reaches of space, and all the way down to the most minute of
subatomic particles—I am struck by how this deep and growing
awareness has the character of the universe coming to consciousness
about itself, an occurrence I believe needs to be respected. And
finally, I cannot accept the placing of this responsibility into the
care of a non-biological entity—I worry there would not be enough
vitality to keep the pursuit going and not be enough awe in the
presence of its more sublime results.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
human transformation has put our fate into our own hands. This was
not always the case. We were once entirely determined and constrained
by evolution’s rules and bounds, we were not the master of our own
destiny. But humans today enjoy freedom from evolutionary constraint,
and they have gained the power of artificial construction, and they
have the ability to increase their own intelligence. Thus we humans,
whether we like it or not, we are now responsible for ourselves and
for our decisions, from which we will reap the inevitable
consequences. I believe there is good reason to maintain hope and
cheer. By coming to a greater understanding of ourselves and by
taking responsibility for our future, we can continue to experience
the splendor of that sentence with which this essay began:</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
human species, our species, is extraordinary.</font></font></font></p>
</body>
</html>Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-62165614323038855162023-03-04T12:16:00.003-05:002023-03-04T12:27:38.429-05:00Shedding Light on the Riddle<!DOCTYPE html>
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<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">5.
Shedding Light on the Riddle</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Several
hundred thousand years ago, the dynamic of biological life on Earth
would have had a familiar and predictable quality to it. All
organisms were earnestly engaged in the struggle for survival and
procreation, as had been the case for many hundreds of millions of
years, and other than the usually slow-moving drift afforded by
geological change and genetic alteration, each species would have
found itself proceeding with a remarkable similarity and an
unyielding regularity. Birth and death, </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">eating
and drinking, fighting and fleeing, procreating and nurturing—day
after day, generation after generation, millennium after millennium.</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
Much like today’s TV nature shows, the plot line was always the
same. Caught in a vice grip of evolutionary constraint, each member
of each species remained locked inside the same general set of rigid
behaviors, behaviors absolutely essential for biological
continuation, but also utterly tyrannical towards any alternative.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> At
the heart of these rigid behaviors was to be found a set of sensory
and perceptual characteristics just as constrained as the activities
they engendered. Each organism was keenly focused on those
evolutionarily essential features to be found in the surrounding
environment—food, water, predators, rivals, sexual targets—and
this intense sensory focus included the notion of conspecific
perception, the tendency for each organism to have an enhanced and
preferential awareness for the other members of its own species. The
upshot of these sensory and perceptual characteristics was a constant
reinforcement of a universal consistency. Cognizant of only those
environmental features satisfying biological demand, and taking its
cues from and copying the behaviors of the other similarly
constrained members of the species population, each organism was
experiencing its world in nearly the exact same way. Each organism
was perceiving its surrounding environment through the same
biologically filtered lens, a lens helping to enforce the strict
regularity and unrelenting continuity than can be observed across
nearly every animal species. And note what was </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>not</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
being perceived. The non-biological structure contained in the
surrounding environment, those many instances of symmetry, pattern,
repetition, etc.—the regulative impact of gravity, the recurrent
cycles of celestial bodies, the logical causation of meteorological
events—it would appear that these many instances of non-biological
structure were seldom reaching any organism’s ken, certainly not to
the degree to have any significant impact on either organism or
species behavior. Thus whatever useful information the non-biological
structural world might have had to impart to biological life on
Earth, that information was remaining entirely shrouded within an
undiscerned sensory background.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> It
is important to remember that several hundred thousand years ago,
these statements would have applied just as equally to humans as to
every other animal species. For nearly seven million years by then,
the hominin lines had been living a purely animal existence, with no
indication their behavioral or perceptual experience was
fundamentally different from that of the other creatures.
Biologically captivated, and corralled into a generational constancy
via conspecific perception, humans found themselves tightly ensnared
inside a familiar cycle. B</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">irth
and death, eating and drinking, fighting and fleeing, procreating and
nurturing—day after day, generation after generation, millennium
after millennium.</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
And at several hundred thousand years ago, all that could have been
anticipated for humans would have been a continuation along this same
path, a continuation for perhaps many more millions of years, with
only the subtlest of change being allowed through evolutionary means.
Nothing else could have been anticipated because evolutionary
constraint had never allowed a significant deviation even once, not
for hominins over millions of years, and not for any other species
since the beginning of life itself.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> That
humans did not continue along this same path is biologically
extraordinary. That humans freed themselves from evolution’s
behavioral and perceptual constraints is biologically radical. And
that humans, in such a short period of time, managed to reconstruct
their environment into the artificial dominion we live within today
is nothing short of biologically shocking. Whatever sparked
humanity’s radical deviation, it could not have been subtle, and it
was almost certainly not evolutionary. Whatever sparked humanity's
radical deviation could have only been atypical and
subversive—atypical and subversive enough to smash evolution’s
formidable chains.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> What
I would propose is this. Humans became the first species to sustain a
significant percentage of autistic individuals within its population,
significant enough to allow the perceptual characteristics of those
individuals to begin to influence the perceptual characteristics of
the population as a whole.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Without
an autistic influence, it can be expected that human perception would
have remained tightly and biologically constrained, just as it had
been for quite some time, with each individual’s sensory focus
directed almost exclusively towards the biological features contained
within the surrounding environment and towards the other members of
the species. Humans still experience the impact of this form of
perception to this very day—it is the reason so much of our current
attention is still given over to food, danger, sex and the like, and
also to other people. What has changed today is that humans now also
perceive so much more—symmetry, pattern, repetition, number, logic,
etc.—all the structural scaffolding that underlies the artificial
construction that has been accumulating all around us. But where
could this supplemental form of perception have come from, how did it
originate? Biologically typical humans are not prone to perceiving
the non-biological structure contained within the surrounding
environment, because the restrictive power of biological and
conspecific perception is such that it has always relegated
alternative forms of structure to the sensory background. Thus on
their own, biologically typical humans do not naturally perceive
underlying symmetry, pattern, repetition, number, logic, etc.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> But
autistic individuals do naturally perceive this underlying
non-biological structure. The ironic cunning of the nature of autism,
a condition that presents significant survival-and-procreative
challenges, is that it also attacks evolutionary constraint right at
its very core. Weakened in their degree of conspecific perception and
needing somehow to organize their sensory world, autistic individuals
end up evading the usual sensory constraints, and instead become
naturally drawn to perceiving the non-biological structure in their
surrounding environment. Furthermore, autistic individuals do more
than just perceive this surrounding structure, they are also driven
to recreate it, through their so-called repetitive behaviors and
interests. If we could see back to the beginning, we might witness
the effects of gravity being mirrored in straight lines drawn upon
the ground, or the repetition of dripping water being echoed by
rhythmically clapping hands—perhaps the first instances of
artificial construction to be introduced into the human environment.
It is of course not possible to say for certain just exactly how the
first instances of autistic influence manifested within the
population, a process that was likely slow and halting at first. But
if we are looking for the subversive spark that sent humans cascading
down this alternative perceptual path, it cannot be to the
biologically typical population that we turn our gaze, a population
that had been enjoined from any alternative form of perception for
millions of years. Instead we must turn to the autistic population,
where we find exactly the characteristic we are looking for, namely
an inherent compulsion towards non-biological perception and towards
artificially structured behavior, a compulsion we can witness with
our own eyes today.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Although
autistic individuals are almost certainly the originators of
non-biological perception in humanity, it is also important to
recognize that autistic influence is such that it catalyzes
non-biological perception in the population as a whole. That is,
given a large enough and stable enough presence of autistic
individuals, the non-autistic members of the population will also
over time begin to perceive underlying non-biological structure and
to adopt many of the autism-inspired artificially structured
behaviors.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> There
are two major factors driving this non-autistic adoption of autistic
perceptions and behaviors. The first factor is conspecific
perception. Biologically typical humans have a keen eye for noticing
what other humans do. Of course when every human is biologically
typical, then what each observes is the same set of restricted
biological and evolutionary behaviors, and nothing generally changes
over time. But if there is a significant presence of autistic
individuals within the population, those individuals will be
providing something entirely new to observe. Thus when an autistic
individual draws a symmetrical figure upon the ground, or claps his
hands with staccato, or pantomimes the motions to spark a fire, or
points incessantly in the same direction as the wind, there will be
other humans standing nearby and paying rapt attention, perhaps
preparing themselves to imitate the behavior. Furthermore, if some of
these new behaviors suggest the opportunity for better eating or for
better shelter or for better sexual and nurturing result, the
biologically typical humans, ever alert for survival-and-procreative
advantage, will find themselves paying even more attention, with an
even greater incentive to copy the behavior. The strength of
conspecific perception in biologically typical humans means that
autistic behaviors will seldom go unobserved. Neither will go
unobserved the products of those autistic behaviors, the many
varieties and instances of artificial construction.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
second major factor driving non-autistic adoption of autistic
perceptions and behaviors is that the artificial construction created
thereby tends to be more-or-less permanent, meaning that it can serve
as an ongoing and accumulating signpost for present and future
generations. For instance, a tool or weapon honed into a more
symmetrical point or patterned shape becomes itself an enduring
fixture in the surrounding environment, with its underlying structure
now continuously on display for anyone who uses the artifact or
observes its use by others. Thus over time, these examples of
underlying non-biological structure begin to amass within the human
world, with each generation becoming increasingly practiced at both
seeing and mastering this structure. Note how different this is from
the passing along of biological and evolutionary perceptions and
behaviors. Very little about biological behavior is actually etched
with any permanency into the surrounding environment; most biological
behavior is either instinctive or is learned via the mechanism of
conspecific perception, meaning that each generation essentially
starts afresh, with no accretive changes over time. In contrast, the
enduring nature of artificial construction means that each new
generation is born into a world with a larger amount of
non-biological structure than was available to previous generations,
and this has the persistent impact of nudging the population to
greater perception and greater mastery of this structure. We should
in fact recognize the concept—this is exactly the process
identified previously as the essence of human intelligence, and in
the very early days of autistic influence, these first instances of
increased recognition and expanding mastery of accumulating
artificial construction would have marked the very beginning of the
Flynn effect.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
result of these two factors is that over time overall human
perception becomes more and more a blend of its two separate sources
of influence. Biological perception of course remains strong, as it
must for a species that still needs to survive and procreate. But
alongside biological perception there now grows a new way of
perceiving the world, a way that focuses more on non-biological
structure and leans heavily upon accumulating artificial
construction, each the consequence of autistic influence. Today, in
the modern world, these two forms of perception have become so
thoroughly blended that we might easily mistake them for one, and it
is only in the extremely young that we still encounter a purer form
of each source of influence. It is only around the age of two or
three that is still relatively easy to separate the biologically
typical, who are naturally fascinated with other humans and what
other humans do, from the autistically atypical, who are less
attentive to other humans but more comfortably engaged with the
structural aspects of their surrounding world. But as each individual
matures and comes under the influence of a human world mixing both
autistic and non-autistic characteristics, each individual becomes
increasingly dexterous with each type of perception and each type of
behavior, making it more and more difficult to tease the influences
apart. In today’s world, it is extremely rare to find a human adult
that can be described as being purely autistic or purely
non-autistic; most humans today display perceptual and behavioral
characteristics that combine the traits of both, even when it remains
obvious which of these traits is the more natural bent.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> This
might be a good time to remind ourselves that the consequence of this
blended form of perception has not been trivial. No longer locked
into just a biological/evolutionary way of perceiving its world,
humanity has unleashed upon the planet Earth the most stunning of
revolutions, a revolution on par with the formation of the chemical
elements, the coming together of galactic systems, and the
origination of life itself. The products of this revolution are all
unprecedented: freedom from evolutionary constraint, an immense
landscape of artificial construction, an ongoing growth in human
intelligence—all the result of unveiling and making use of the
non-biological structure contained within the surrounding
environment, an ability sparked at the very moment humanity began to
experience the autistic way of perceiving its surrounding world.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> As
intriguing as it is to consider the earliest days of autistic
influence, it is still more informative to recognize that this
influence has remained ongoing ever since and continues unabated
through the present day. Artificial construction continues to
accumulate rapidly in the current environment, human intelligence
advances measurably with each new generation, and human freedom from
evolutionary constraint becomes more and more established with each
passing day. The same catalyst that introduced non-biological
perception into the species and sparked a remarkable population-wide
behavioral revolution is still driving innovation and progress in the
modern world. And thus the most straightforward way to assess the
role autism must be playing in this ongoing revolution is to observe
autism’s impact on human perceptual and behavioral change today.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> In
my opinion, one of the more fruitful ways in which to observe recent
autistic influence can be found in the distinction to be made between
the two concepts of intelligence and genius, the latter of which has
an inherent association to autism. It is commonly said that genius is
the product of greater intelligence, but in fact these two concepts
are not equivalent at all. From prior discussion, intelligence can be
described as the ability to understand and to master the artificial
construction contained within the environment, as measured by
performance on an IQ exam, the contents of which serve as a proxy for
environmental artificial construction. With this in mind, the phrase
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>greater
intelligence</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
can be taken in two different ways. Within a generational cohort, a
person demonstrating more mastery of the existing artificial
construction, by scoring better on that cohort’s IQ exam, can be
described as displaying greater intelligence than his or her peers.
And in cohorts separated by time, the later generations, by mastering
larger amounts of extant artificial construction—reflected in the
additional complexity and variety of later IQ exams—can be
described as displaying greater intelligence overall than the earlier
generations. But both of these instances of greater intelligence
correspond only to greater mastery of the artificial construction
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>already
contained</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
within the human environment, they do not touch in any way upon the
question of how does artificial construction get </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>inserted</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
into that environment. For instance, an individual could achieve a
better IQ performance than any of his or her peers, and yet
contribute nothing further to the environment that would boost later
generations. And any generational cohort, while displaying greater
overall intelligence than each prior cohort, could then in theory
neglect to insert any additional artificial construction into the
existing environment, effectively plateauing growth in human
intelligence. Thus greater intelligence does not account for how new
artificial construction gets added into the human environment. For
that operation, we must turn to the word </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>genius</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Genius
does not require great intelligence. Although an ability to master
existing artificial construction certainly can help, the essential
requirement for adding new types of artificial construction into the
surrounding environment is an ability to discern formations that do
not already exist, to perceive structure that no one has perceived
before. Over the course of human history, the occasions where
humanity’s understanding and mastery of its surrounding environment
has taken a quantum leap—control of fire, development of
agriculture, the Copernican revolution, Newton’s laws of motion and
gravity, evolutionary theory, the Turing machine, etc.—all these
occasions have served to increase the scope and range of humanity’s
non-biological perception, paving the way to massive advancement in
new types of artificial construction. </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Genius</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
is the correct word for describing this process. Genius opens a vista
onto a previously unseen world, it breaks the existing mold, it
shifts the paradigm. Genius therefore is all about perception, and in
particular, all about </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>atypical</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
perception. And this is the reason genius has an inherent association
to autism.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> It
is not that biologically typical individuals cannot create products
of genius. As stated previously, most human adults today display
combined autistic and non-autistic perceptual and behavioral
characteristics, and thus a biologically typical individual would
have access to the type of perception that can give rise to genius
(just as, in the same way, an autistic individual would have access
to the type of perception that can give rise to social success).
Nonetheless, those individuals who are born autistic have something
of a head start and a natural advantage when it comes to producing
genius. From their very first days, autistic individuals are
continuously perceiving their surroundings in a way that differs from
that of most other individuals—that differs, sometimes greatly,
from the existing norm—and autistic individuals must often organize
their sensory world in a way that can only be described as novel.
Thus atypical perception is the essence of the autistic way of being,
and defying the norm is the cornerstone of autistic habit. So when a
new vista is to be opened onto the surrounding environment, when the
existing mold needs to be broken, when the paradigm has to shift, it
can be expected that this process will occur more frequently under an
autistically minded influence.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> History
would appear to provide evidence that this is in fact the case. Those
individuals responsible for many of the more famous instances of
human genius constitute what can only be described as a rather
curious list: Socrates, Archimedes, Newton, Kant, Beethoven, Darwin,
Dostoyevsky, Einstein, Turing, and many others. Autism of course was
not yet even a concept when most of these individuals lived, and so
it would be with some peril and difficulty that we might attempt to
apply the term </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>autism</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
retroactively to any of these historical figures, an attempt made
even more perilous by how how poorly we still understand autism
today. Nonetheless, the biographies of these individuals have a
surprisingly similar character, they are often filled with behavioral
terms and descriptions that suggest a degree of separation from the
human behavioral norm—eccentric, iconoclastic, awkward,
misanthropic, single-minded, odd, isolated—terms and descriptions
that in the twenty-first century are frequently associated with
autism. This does not constitute definitive proof that autism has
been at the heart of these prior instances of human genius, but it
does appear to be more than mere coincidence that so many of these
influential and genius-producing individuals have also possessed an
assortment of autistic-like traits. And at any rate, the hypothesis
can still be put to a present and future test. Over the course of the
twenty-first century there will be new instances of innovation, new
vistas to be opened onto the non-biological structural world, new
paradigm shifts. And it will be worth some observation to see how
many of these new occasions of genius come also with autism lingering
somewhere nearby.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Whether
it is looking for evidence of autism’s connection to genius, or
whether it is attempting to assess autism’s impact on the other
aspects of human endeavor, an honest and dispassionate observation of
autistic individuals and their influence upon the human species would
be certainly worth some merit. And yet the greatest current obstacle
to actually making these observations is the autism research
community itself, which in fact has made very few attempts at such
observations over the many years. The autism research community has
been too busy, too busy to take time to understand autistic
individuals for who they actually are, too busy treating autism as a
medical condition, even to the point of cure and eradication. This is
the ultimate irony in my opinion, since in my way of perceiving the
situation, the entire notion of research itself would be utterly
inconceivable without the presence of autistic individuals and the
legacy of autistic influence.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> The
one remaining question is, why humans? Why has the species </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
gained a significant presence of autistic individuals within its
population, thereby realizing the impact of that presence, when it
would appear no other species has ever experienced a similar
circumstance? For that matter, how did humans first gain their own
autistic presence, given that such presence seemed to be lacking for
quite some time? This is not an easy question to answer, in part
because we still do not understand exactly what it is that produces
autism. The little that we do know suggests there is a hereditary
component to the condition, but whatever the genetic underpinning is,
it appears to be general and not at all specific—there is no such
thing as an autism gene. So trying to figure out why autism has taken
hold in </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
but in no other species, feels somewhat akin to stumbling about in
the dark.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Here
would be my suggestion, although I freely admit it to be speculative.
It begins with the notion of conspecific distance, a theoretical
measure of the amount of separation between two organisms with
respect to their ability to achieve conspecific perception for each
other. That is, two organisms that have a large conspecific distance
between them would also likely have no mutual conspecific perception,
whereas two organisms who have a short conspecific distance between
them would probably experience a strong degree of conspecific
perception. Although there are perhaps many different traits that
could contribute to increasing conspecific distance—blindness or
deafness in one of the organisms, for instance—I suspect the
predominant influence on conspecific distance is the amount of
similarity or dissimilarity in each organism’s respective genetic
makeup. A lion and a leopard, for example, because of their genetic
dissimilarity, </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">would
have a large amount of conspecific distance between them</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
and therefore no mutual conspecific perception, whereas a lion and a
lion would have a small amount of conspecific distance, because the
two lions are nearly genetically alike.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> But
note that even within the same species, there is still going to be a
certain amount of conspecific distance between all the members of the
population—it is almost never the case that two organisms are
genetically the same. So when it comes to achieving a strong degree
of conspecific perception, such as that commonly experienced within a
given species, a certain amount of conspecific distance can
apparently be tolerated. But if conspecific perception remains strong
when the conspecific distance is relatively small and yet becomes
nonexistent when the conspecific distance becomes rather large, this
implies that somewhere in between can be found a threshold, an amount
of conspecific distance that goes just beyond the toleration limit
and begins to produce significant impact upon the ability to achieve
conspecific perception. And if we consider the circumstance of an
organism being genetically different enough from the other members of
its own species to find itself somewhere near or on the other side of
that distance threshold, then the consequences are going to be
predictable. Such an organism would almost certainly have a weakened
sense of conspecific perception relative to the other members of its
own species, and this is precisely the circumstance we identified as
the primary characteristic of autism.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Assuming
that the above description is accurate, it also strongly implies that
autism is not unique to humans. It can be expected that any species
would at times, due to genetic churn, have members within its
population that are conspecifically distant from the others, even to
the point of inducing autistic characteristics. Thus the question
becomes not how does autism get introduced into a population—this
would appear to be possible for almost any species—but instead, how
is it that autism can </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>take
hold</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
within a population, how does it remain persistent, so that a
significant autistic presence can be maintained over time. Autism
presents an assortment of survival-and-procreative challenges. Having
a weakened sense of conspecific perception means that an organism
would have diminished ability to participate successfully in many
crucial population activities, activities such as group defense,
group hunting, group observation and group learning. Furthermore,
assuming that survival still remains possible despite these many
handicaps, an organism with a weakened sense of conspecific
perception would then face increased challenges in making a
successful sexual connection, decreasing the odds for procreation.
Thus whatever genetic makeup is responsible for an organism’s
increased conspecific distance from the other members of the species,
the resulting weakening of conspecific perception makes it extremely
difficult, if not downright impossible, to propagate those traits.
This would explain why autism, although individually possible within
almost any species population, nonetheless has almost no chance of
obtaining significant and persistent presence within that population.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> And
this brings us back to the original question—why humans? Why has it
been that only in humans, and only quite recently, that autism has
managed to gain for itself a significant and persistent presence?</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Most
animal species produce a large number of offspring. It is a common
evolutionary mechanism that each generation will produce a large
brood, of which only a small fraction will survive and go on to
propagate the next generation. Thus biologically speaking, for most
species, offspring are cheap—their generational value is not with
any one individual but is instead with the collective potential of
the cohort as a whole. If any one organism finds itself facing an
increased survival-and-procreative challenge, there is no population
incentive to provide extra care and attention to help that organism
along. If it fails to survive and procreate, then so be it, this is
nothing more than the expected evolutionary outcome, as it is for so
many others.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Also,
most types of offspring are born or hatched near the end of their
gestational needs, and come into this world fully ready, or nearly
so, to begin fending for themselves. Thus for most species,
relatively little investment is made in the early rearing of helpless
young, dampening the loss to be experienced when any one of these
offspring turns out to be less viable. So here too, there exists no
population incentive to come to the extra aid of any biologically
atypical member.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> But
for hominins the situation is quite different. For hominins,
biologically speaking, offspring are expensive, and they have become
more expensive over time. Humans generally give birth to only one
child at a time, and the total number is limited to only about a
dozen over the course of a female’s lifespan. So there is already
additional incentive to provide extra care and attention to each
individual—any one loss can be significant. And furthermore,
because of the transition to bipedalism and the resulting narrowing
of the birth canal, human children are born quite early relative to
their gestational needs, and they come into this world quite
helpless, showing first indications of being able to fend for
themselves only after the first year or two. Thus humans make
considerable investment in the early rearing of their helpless young,
an investment not to be let go of lightly. For these reasons, a </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
child is more likely to be provided with extra support and care so
that it might survive and become a participating member of the
population, and this remains true no matter what that child’s
particular situation might happen to be, including the possibility of
finding itself conspecifically distanced from the others. It may be
that it has been this extra support and care that has provided the
initial boost to allow autism to gain its human foothold and to begin
consistently propagating its traits. That initial foothold is what is
crucial. Once the initial foothold has been achieved, continuation of
autism becomes easier and easier over time. One of the more obvious
side effects of increased artificial construction is that survival
and procreation increases greatly for the entire population, so much
so that it has vaulted the human count from maybe a hundred thousand
not that long ago to a whopping eight billion today. Such an increase
in overall survival-and-procreative success helps perpetuate nearly
every subpopulation to be found within the species, including the
autistic subpopulation.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Whether
it has happened by the mechanism as outlined above, or whether it has
occurred by some other process, the one thing that is not in doubt is
that autistic individuals now constitute a significant and ongoing
presence within the human population—at least two percent according
to the most recent autism prevalence studies. And there is no reason
to think that autistic presence has not been near or at that level
for quite some time, meaning there has been ample opportunity over
the years for autistic individuals to convey their atypical influence
to the remainder of the population.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> To
summarize the road we have traveled:</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> It
began with the observation that the human species is extraordinary.
Using Big History for context and perspective, we explored just how
unprecedented and large scale the human transformation has been,
leading to the remarkable circumstances humanity finds itself in
today. But we also noted that much about the human transformation has
remained insufficiently explained, and we dubbed these unanswered
questions the riddle of humanity.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> To
begin examining these unanswered questions, we investigated first the
concept of biological evolution, the process cited most often when
attempting to explain the human transformation. But in fact we found
the reality to be just the opposite, that instead of undergoing
alteration to fit a given environment, humanity has reconfigured the
evolutionary process, making use of artificial construction to mutate
the surroundings to better fit the species’ need—a unique and
radical instance of evolution being turned inside out.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Next
we studied artificial construction in greater detail, linking it via
the contents of an IQ exam to the topic of human intelligence. A
historical investigation further revealed that human intelligence has
been consistently increasing as a consequence of the growth in
environmental artificial construction, meaning that the Flynn effect
has been with humanity for a very long time and is not the result of
any neurological alteration, but is instead due entirely to the
accumulative environmental construction of intelligence.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> We
then returned to the question of what has sparked the events of the
human transformation—what is it that has catalyzed artificial
construction, freedom from evolutionary constraint, and the growth in
human intelligence. It was proposed that the answer to this question
is the condition known as autism. Because autism is a relatively new
concept to humanity and not yet well understood, we took some time to
explore the condition more deeply. Characterizing autistic
individuals as possessing a weakened sense of conspecific perception,
weak enough to compel such individuals to adopt a non-biological form
of perception to organize their otherwise chaotic sensory world, we
settled on this description as being the true nature of autism.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Finally,
we proposed that the significant presence of autistic individuals
within the human population has had the impact of bringing
non-biological perception to the species as a whole, thereby
unleashing all the unprecedented consequences of the human
transformation. It was further suggested that the validity of this
proposal could be assessed by taking careful observation of the
impact autistic individuals have upon human perception and human
behavior today. These proposals have been offered in the hope of
shedding light on the riddle of humanity.</font></font></font></p>
</body>
</html>Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-32690190609487255512023-03-04T12:13:00.001-05:002023-03-04T12:26:59.691-05:00The Nature of Autism<!DOCTYPE html>
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<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">4.
The Nature of Autism</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Our
description and expanded definition of intelligence marks it as the
most fundamental human quality underlying the human transformation.
The intimate linkage of intelligence to artificial environmental
reconstruction, and to the human behavioral responsiveness to that
reconstruction, means that the human transformation is in essence the
equivalent of the growth in human intelligence. Other human
qualities, such as language skills or collective learning, are
important because of their leveraging effect, but they are not
fundamental. These other qualities are themselves built up out of the
constructed artifacts contained within or introduced into the
environment, and are thus less basic to the transformative process
than intelligence itself. Intelligence essentially </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>describes</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
the process, and thus human intelligence, correctly defined, lies at
the core of the human transformation.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Nonetheless,
intelligence does not explain </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>why</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
there has been a human transformation—intelligence is simply part
of the description and does not serve as its own cause. And nothing
that has been said so far gives an indication of what has prompted
humanity to head down this transformative intelligence path, and
given that Earth’s long biological history has not been witness to
any similar transformation before humanity came along, it would seem
there must be something unique that has spurred this species to head
off in this unusual direction. Intelligence therefore is the
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>consequence</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
of something, it is a resultant effect, and thus to discover what has
catalyzed, and continues to catalyze, human intelligence and the
human transformation, we are going to need to search in an entirely
different direction.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> To
summarize what has been discussed so far, recall first that humans
were once pure animals, with the same restrictive
survival-and-procreative focus that is experienced by every organism
that falls under evolution’s domain. As with the other animals,
human perception was once tightly constrained, targeted almost
entirely towards objects such as food, water, rivals, sexual targets
and conspecifics, and thus human perception would have been almost
entirely blinded to objects and concepts not serving immediate
survival-and-procreative demand. But sometime within the last few
hundred thousand years, and accelerating beginning around fifty to
one hundred thousand years ago, humans began to break free of
evolution’s constraints, by turning evolution’s process inside
out and by reconstructing the human surroundings entirely for human
benefit. These reconstructions can be characterized almost entirely
by the word </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>artificial</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
they rely heavily upon the structural concepts of pattern, symmetry,
repetition, logic, number and form. If you look deeply into any human
artifact—a building, a word, a computer chip—what you will
discover is an innovative use of pattern, structure and form not
typically seen in the biological world. Humans can now make these
innovations because humans now </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>perceive</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
the structure that underlies them; humans have become adept at
visualizing their world in a way that goes beyond just the biological
and the evolutionary, that goes beyond just a restrictive focus on
food, water, rivals, etc. So the question to be asked is, what has
sparked this broadened perceptual awareness? Is there some feature,
some characteristic, unique to the human population and observable
within that population, that has prompted humanity to enlarge its
perceptual boundaries, to break free of evolution’s perceptual
constraints, to see much further than just survival-and-procreative
demand?</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
answer to that question is yes. There is indeed an observable and
significantly present feature within the human population that has
had the impact, and continues to have the impact, of broadening human
perception. Furthermore, this feature’s perceptual characteristics
are exactly those one would expect in accounting for the
characteristics of the human transformation, namely a heightened
awareness of underlying pattern, structure and form, accompanied by a
diminished awareness of the survival-and-procreative world. This
feature can be denoted with just one word, but I hesitate to mention
that word. I suspect if every word in the English language were to be
ranked in the order of its likelihood for being the underlying
impetus behind the human transformation, nearly everyone would put
this word somewhere near the bottom of their list. It is a word that
is poorly understood. It is a word that has been mostly
mischaracterized. So our first order of business will be to examine
this word more carefully, to dig more deeply into its true nature,
and to discover why this word is the key for explaining the
perceptual changes that have been catalyzing the human
transformation.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> That
one word is </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>autism</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Autism
as a word did not come into existence until the twentieth century. It
was first used in the early 1900s by the German psychiatrist Eugene
Bleuler in describing the more withdrawn characteristics of
schizophrenic patients. Then nearly simultaneously in the 1940s,
American psychiatrist Leo Kanner and Austrian pediatrician Hans
Asperger employed the adjective </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>autistic</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
in their published case studies of children who were displaying a
distinct set of behavioral features—namely language peculiarities,
social difficulties, and obsessive engagement with unusual activities
and interests. This set of behavioral features became the basis for
the definition of what was thereafter recognized to be a distinct and
lifelong condition, the condition now known as autism.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Although
the case studies of Kanner and Asperger did include instances where
the prognosis and outcome were not all that dire, during the 1950s
and 1960s autism was recognized, studied and regarded almost
invariably as a devastating medical condition. Outcomes were assumed
to be poor, with institutionalization often regarded as inevitable,
and treatments could be draconian. Autism at that time was assumed to
be an extremely rare occurrence, with prevalence estimates running as
low as one in ten thousand (0.01%).</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> These
estimates would change greatly throughout the final three decades of
the twentieth century, with autism becoming more and more frequently
recognized and diagnosed. By the year 2000, prevalence studies were
estimating that the incidence of autism was somewhere around 1 in 150
(0.67%). The main driver in this increased recognition of autism was
a growing awareness that not every instance had to be severe and not
every outcome had to be poor. Children were being diagnosed as having
all the telltale characteristics of autism but with those
characteristics ranging widely in both detail and intensity, and
often easing, sometimes dramatically, with time. Terms such as
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>high-functioning
autism</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
and </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Asperger’s
Syndrome</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
were invented to delineate the more promising cases from those
considered to be more “classic,” although the distinction between
these terms was never clearly defined. Indeed it was a confusing era
for autism, with large disagreement over the meaning of the
condition. The increased prevalence, combined with a lingering
attitude that autism was something to be regarded as both medical and
tragic, induced general fear that autism had become an epidemic
within the population. Funding and research were exponentially
increased, targeted almost always towards discovering both a cause
and a cure. At the same time, countering voices were growing
louder—including voices from autistic individuals—saying that
autism was being unfairly demonized and grossly misunderstood.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Since
the year 2000, attitudes and prevalence have continued to undergo
major revision. Some consensus has formed around the notion that
autism should be described as a spectrum, meaning that although every
autistic individual exhibits to an observable degree the defining
features of the condition, there is an extremely broad range of
variation in both presentation and outcome. Some autistic individuals
will experience more intensely the characteristics associated with
autism, and will struggle to achieve independent lives, although this
outcome still appears to be relatively rare. Many autistic
individuals will manage to achieve some level of acclimation to their
condition and will become participating members within the
population, sometimes with additional support and sometimes with
complete independence. There are now many examples of autistic
individuals having succeeded in college, having gone on to marry and
to raise families, having gained successful careers, and so on.
Recently there has even been a movement in some industries, such as
computer software development, to actively seek out autistic
individuals for the work value of their particular characteristics.
Recent prevalence studies have indicated that nearly 1 in 50 children
(2.0%) are being identified as autistic by the age of eight. This
high level of prevalence, combined with a growing recognition that
many autistic individuals lead successful and productive lives, has
helped bolster an understanding that autism likely did not spring up
out of nowhere during the twentieth century, but instead that
autistic individuals have been a significant presence within the
human population for quite some time. Individuals once commonly
described as quirky, eccentric, isolated, etc., they are now being
more frequently recognized as autistic.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Despite
these ongoing changes in both prevalence estimates and how autism is
being generally regarded, the medical and academic communities still
seem to be struggling to catch up. Research and funding have
continued to be focused almost exclusively on autism as a medical
condition, with treatment and cure still frequently promulgated as
the ultimate goal. These attempts to uncover the medical root cause
of autism have branched off into several different avenues of
pursuit. One line of research has focused on autism as being a
hereditary disorder, a hypothesis suggested by the fact that
identical twin and other family studies have indicated a genetic
underpinning for the condition. A second line of research has
targeted autism as a neurological aberration, a thesis being tested
through an assortment of neuroimaging studies, mostly centered around
detecting atypical brain signatures in autistic individuals. Finally,
autism as a metabolic condition has also received a great deal of
attention and effort, as have theories suggesting a variety of
environmental insults, with everything from vaccines to highway
pollution being put forth as the primary trigger of disease.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> The
persistence of these efforts is reflected in the growing autism
research literature, which has expanded by at least an order of
magnitude in the last two decades alone. A recent listing of such
efforts would include the following titles: </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><i>Autism
spectrum disorder symptom expression in individuals with 3q29
deletion syndrome</i></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">;
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><i>Cortical
thickness abnormalities in autism spectrum disorder</i></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">;
and </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><i>Metabolomic
Signatures of Autism Spectrum Disorder</i></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.
These and other representative articles demonstrate the degree to
which the current research continues to focus on genetics, neurons
and metabolic pathways, as well as on the pursuit of treatment and
cure. But there is a growing irony haunting these many efforts, an
irony that can be recognized by considering a sampling of research
articles from the early 2000s: </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><i>Examination
of AVPR1a as an autism susceptibility gene</i></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><i>Neuroanatomic
variation in monozygotic twin pairs discordant for the narrow
phenotype for autism</i></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
and </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><i>Mercury
exposure in children with autistic spectrum disorder</i></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.
That is to say, not much has changed in autism research over the last
several decades, other than a great expansion in volume and a
constant shifting of the targeted culprits. Each year new candidate
genes, new targeted neural pathways, new metabolic mechanisms and new
environmental triggers are put forth with great fanfare and
considerable promise, which are then followed by years in which their
mention gradually declines. New therapies and new drugs are
frequently introduced and promoted, but then fail to deliver any
significant results in any unbiased trial. Watching this futile cycle
play out again and again, year after year, decade after decade, one
eventually gets the sense that when it comes to autism, the medical
and academic communities are essentially spinning their wheels. And
if there is to be any conclusion drawn from the autism research to
date, it is that we have every reason to suspect that autism is </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>not</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
a medical condition.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> In
my opinion, one of the more effective ways to achieve a greater
understanding of autism is to begin by exploring what it means to be
non-autistic, which is to say, what it means to be biologically
typical. This is not exactly an unfamiliar topic to this discussion,
because in a certain sense humans were most biologically typical when
they were in the state of being pure animals, with both their
behaviors and their perceptions shaped almost exclusively by
survival-and-procreative demand; the biological norm is to have all
of one’s effort and attention directed towards the immediate
essentials—food, water, rivals, sex, etc. Of course this
biologically pure state no longer entirely pertains for modern
humans, including non-autistic modern humans, but it is nonetheless
important to recognize how the carryover from this animal past
continues to influence behavior and perception in modern times. For
most humans today, despite finding themselves nearly fully immersed
in an artificially constructed environment, and despite having nearly
all their biological needs easily and abundantly met, nonetheless
still find themselves giving a great deal of attention and effort to
the familiar targets—food, water, rivals, sex, etc. Many of us can
confirm this proclivity simply by examining our own thoughts and
actions, and in addition, a general look at some of the more popular
human activities and interests will further reveal the extent to
which humans have remained strongly preoccupied with their more
primitive and natural selves. Everything from soap operas to
scatological humor to crosstown sports rivalries betrays the degree
to which humans have continued to be fascinated with the animal
aspect of humankind. Of course there is nothing surprising or
maladjusted about any of these tendencies, they are in fact entirely
to be expected. They are the natural consequence of humans being not
all that far removed from a former purely animal state.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> One
of the more intriguing components of humanity's carryover from its
animal past is the notion of conspecific perception. Conspecific
perception is the natural tendency for organisms to possess a
heightened perceptual awareness for the other members of their own
species. For instance, lions perceive first and foremost other lions,
honeybees perceive first and foremost other honeybees, and so on. And
of course humans perceive first and foremost other humans. When one
walks into a conference room, despite one’s visual field being
almost entirely filled with various non-human artifacts, one’s
attention is nonetheless drawn immediately and naturally to the other
humans already in the room. This</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
intensified intra-species recognition </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">is</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
evolutionarily </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">fundamental
and </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">essential
for a number of reasons. First, successful mating requires a physical
connection with another member of the same species, an occurrence
that would be haphazard at best without an enhanced perception for
one’s own kind. Also, the rearing of young would be</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
utterly</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
ineffective if either </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">parent
or offspring </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">could
not easily identify and perceptually </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">foreground</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">the
other—imagine the consequences of a mother unable t</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">o
distinguish </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">her</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
own brood from the broods of other species, or a</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
litter </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">unable
to discern and to imitate its elders. </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">In
addition, m</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">any
species coalesce into physical </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">and
geographical </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">groups
for warmth, </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">for
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">effective
pack hunting, </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">for
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">more
tenacious defense, </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">and
so on</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">,
</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">with</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
these groupings themselves </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">the
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">evidence
of </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">how
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">each
member </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">is</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
more greatly attuned to the presence and activities of the other</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">s</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
in the species.</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
Conspecific perception is crucial to successful survival and
procreation, so much so that it should probably be included within
the definition of what it means to be a species.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> In
humans, conspecific perception is quite strong, as would be the case
for almost any species considered to be social, and the strength of
this human form of conspecific perception is most apparent when
considering the developmental activities of the very young. Human
newborns come into this world quite early and quite helpless, and
their first year or two of development is essentially an ongoing
scramble to gain a functional foothold. Careful observation of these
early years reveals the extent to which human newborns both rely upon
and are deeply attuned to the presence and activities of other
humans: a mother’s soothing voice, a father’s reassuring touch,
the smiling gestures of familiar faces. Nearly every child responds
immediately, favorably and naturally to these intra-species
impressions. And note how critical this process must be in giving the
newborn his or her sensory grounding, because without a strong dose
of conspecific perception the surrounding environment would most
likely emerge as nothing but a cacophony of random sensations: a wild
mix of colors and shapes in the visual field, a buzzing range of
tones and intensities inside the ear, a chaos of temperatures and
impressions upon the skin, and a kaleidoscope of haphazard tastes and
smells. Which of these impressions are to be latched upon as
important, and which of them can be ignored? Which sensations should
be promoted to the perceptual foreground, and which can be discarded
into the undiscerned remainder? It is primarily conspecific
perception that provides the organizational grounding around which a
newborn’s sensory world can be arranged. From out of the chaos of
countless sensations there emerges a human-forward world: human
faces, human laughter, human touch, human smells, human activities.
Everything associable to the human species gets a natural preference
in the newborn’s sensory field, thereby guaranteeing that the
newborn’s burgeoning perceptual world will become first and
foremost a </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>human</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
world.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> In
addition to conspecific perception’s primary impact of providing
sensory and developmental grounding, an impact shared in common with
almost every other animal species, conspecific perception in humans
now also serves a secondary purpose, that of providing a species-wide
awareness of the new features and behaviors being brought forth by
the human transformation. When one thinks of the many structured
artifacts and exploits that now dominate the human landscape—a
rattle, a book, a university lecture—one might wonder at first why
humans would give any attention at all to these artificial
impressions, given that there is no natural incentive to do so. These
objects and activities are not food, they are not water, they are not
sex, etc., and thus in the natural world, in the world of pure
animals, these objects and activities would seem destined to become
part of the undistinguished perceptual background. But of course the
reason these strange artifacts and behaviors end up garnering a great
deal of human attention, including the attention of humans of a very
young age, is that these artifacts and behaviors have become
intimately connected to the human species itself. Humans touch these
artifacts, humans point at these artifacts, humans put these
artifacts into other people’s hands. Thus once an artificial object
or behavior has gained sufficient foothold to become part of the
fabric of human experience, that object or behavior gets promoted to
the human perceptual foreground, because conspecific perception gives
humans the natural inclination to pay attention to what other humans
do.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Thus
a large part of what it means to be biologically typical is to
participate in an immense and shared perceptual network of
human-centric features and behaviors, some of which date back to the
species’ purely animal past, and some of which correspond to the
changes of modern times. Humans eat what other humans eat, humans
fear what other humans fear, and humans gather where other humans
are. And furthermore, when one human makes a gesture, or utters a
word, or scribbles something down, there will be other humans
standing nearby and paying the closest of attention, supporting the
entire range of constructed artifacts and behaviors that fall under
the heading of human language. And when one human </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">points
</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">to</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
the </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">heavenly
bodies, </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">or
</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">narrates
the tribe's origin </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">story</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
or demonstrates </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">the
workings of the newest innovation</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">,
</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">there
will be </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">other
humans </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">avidly
watching and listening, reinforcing a broad array of structured
behaviors that constitute collective learning</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">.</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
The continuity of human behavior, as well as the continuity of the
human environment—including those activities and features arising
out of the human transformation—all ride on a sea of conspecific
perception, the natural glue holding together the species and its
actions.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Since
conspecific perception is so clearly crucial to both human
development and to the species-wide awareness supporting the many
features defining the human transformation, it raises an interesting
question about what would happen if a member of the species did not
possess a strong sense of conspecific perception. What would be the
developmental consequence of a newborn coming into this world less
able than other humans to perceptually foreground the human aspects
of the surrounding environment, and what would be the overall
ramifications of an individual not able to obtain his or her sensory
grounding from a human-forward world? This is not really a
theoretical question, because I believe we already know the answer.
Any member of the human species possessing a weakened sense of
conspecific perception, any human less able than other humans to
perceptually foreground the human aspects of the surrounding
environment, any individual unable to obtain his or her sensory
grounding from a human-forward world, that individual would be most
accurately described as autistic.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> One
of the chief defining characteristics of autism is that autistic
individuals experience a broad assortment of what are usually
described as social difficulties: lack of eye contact, unwillingness
to participate in reciprocal play or sharing, failure to point or to
follow the pointings of others, reluctance to engage in small talk
and in other forms of social interaction, etc. The autism research
literature has tended to blame these difficulties on presumed
deficits in some proposed biological or neurological mechanism, but I
would suggest that these long-standing conjectures are incorrect on
two different fronts—one, these conjectures are mischaracterizing
the conduct, and two, they are understating its cause. When one
observes carefully the actual activities of autistic individuals, and
especially the activities of very young autistic individuals, it
becomes quickly apparent that these individuals are to a significant
degree </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>disengaged</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
from the other humans around them. Whereas most children will readily
interact with other people—laugh with them, play with them, follow
enthusiastically their every gesture, touch and sound—autistic
individuals by contrast seem largely unattuned to the presence of
other humans. Autistic toddlers often do not respond to their name
being called, and can be seen as being reluctant and awkward with
such things as hugs and coos. Young autistic children attend less to
other people than to favorite objects and interests. Autistic
adolescents seldom pursue the range of friendships and relationships
that other adolescents usually do. And even autistic adults, many of
whom have become reasonably acclimated by then to various social
customs and expectations, will nonetheless often describe their inner
experience as one of extreme isolation and alienation. Thus autistic
individuals are not demonstrating specific social deficits so much as
they are demonstrating a broad-scale disinclination towards the
members of their own species, and it is this broad-scale
disinclination that accounts for the various social difficulties. But
a broad-scale disinclination towards the members of one’s own
species is the same thing as saying that an autistic individual is
experiencing a weakened sense of conspecific perception. Unlike
biologically typical humans, who will quite naturally perceive first
and foremost other people, autistic individuals do not possess this
natural tendency, and thus theirs is not first and foremost a </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>human</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
world.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> That
autistic individuals are dealing with a weakened sense of conspecific
perception is evidenced also by the frequency with which these
individuals experience an assortment of sensory issues. Many autistic
individuals report a wide and non-specific range of sensory symptoms:
for instance, being overwhelmed by the intensity of various textures,
noises and smells (hypersensitivity); or being oblivious to extreme
sensations, such as a shouted name or the sudden onset of hot and
cold (hyposensitivity); or a commingling of the senses, such as
“seeing” tones or “feeling” colors (synesthesia). The
motleyness of these sensory symptoms suggests that they are not the
result of any specific physical defect but are instead the
consequence of a more general difficulty in obtaining sensory
grounding. Biologically typical children rely upon conspecific
perception to organize their otherwise chaotic array of sensory
impressions, favoring and foregrounding those experiences that are in
some way connected to the human species. But autistic individuals,
not very aware of other people and not naturally favoring
human-associated impressions, find themselves dealing with what must
seem to be an overwhelming cascade of random and chaotic sensations,
with no clearcut means for achieving sensory organization or
cementing a sensory grounding, resulting in the many observed sensory
issues as well as in a delay of perceptual development.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> This
weakness in conspecific perception can vary greatly from individual
to individual, and this is perhaps one of the reasons that autism
presents as a spectrum. Some autistic individuals appear to be almost
entirely lacking in perceptual attachment to human presence, and
these individuals can be seen as facing the greater challenge in
achieving developmental gains. Other autistic individuals do seem to
retain some level of connection and perceptual awareness for other
humans—albeit much less than that of their biologically typical
peers—and these individuals would appear to have the better chance
of reaching independence and well-being. But despite the variation,
there is nonetheless a threshold that would appear to be critical in
determining the autistic/non-autistic divide. Any human individual
with a strong enough sense of conspecific perception to be able to
make use of that perception to achieve his or her sensory grounding,
that individual is to be classified as non-autistic. Such an
individual will strongly attach to the human species itself and will
begin to see the surrounding world in much the same way as other
humans do. And in the modern world, such an individual will be able
to leverage this human connection into the realms of language and
collective learning, where conspecific perception plays such an
important role, and the individual will by these means begin to
easily follow the same developmental path being traveled by the large
majority of the population.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> In
contrast, any individual with a sense of conspecific perception so
weak as to be unable to use that perception to achieve a strong
sensory grounding, that individual is to be classified as autistic.
Such individuals will find themselves dealing at first with something
akin to a sensory chaos, since there will be few prominent features,
such as other humans, naturally standing out from the manifold of
sensory impressions. Such individuals will thus be cut off from the
typical form of sensory organization and will not be able to easily
follow the same developmental path as their biologically typical
peers. Such individuals will not be able to perceive their
surrounding environment in the same way as other humans do.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> And
this at last gets us to the heart of the matter, the key to why
autism is so critical for understanding the spark underlying the
human transformation. Biologically typical humans experience a world
that is organized primarily around the human species and its members,
biologically typical humans perceive first and foremost a
species-centric world. Autistic individuals do not primarily perceive
this species-centric world, and thus what they tend to perceive is
something entirely different. And that is the critical question: what
exactly is it that autistic individuals tend to perceive?</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Another
chief defining characteristic of autism is that autistic individuals
frequently engage in what are usually described as restricted and
repetitive behaviors and interests. In young autistic children,
examples of these behaviors and interests cover a broad range of
curious activities: hand flapping, lining up toys, eating the same
food for every meal, obsession with certain objects such as ceiling
fans and light switches, resistance to furniture rearrangement or to
changes in a geographical route, strict adherence to ritual and to
order in activities such as dressing, and so on. Later on in life,
autistic adolescents will commonly focus much of their time and
energy on a limited set of particular interests, such as sports
statistics or dinosaurs or the weather, and will often perseverate
(talk constantly) about a favorite topic. Autistic adults can
sometimes be seen as leveraging their interests into studies and
careers, with the stereotypical target of these efforts being those
activities known for their rigid structure and rules: mathematics,
physics, chess, computer programming, etc. A large amount of autism
treatment is aimed at suppressing these various behaviors and
interests, because much of the autism research community still
regards these activities as anti-productive and harmful. But in a
manner ranging all the way from screaming tantrums to the most
eloquent of postings placed online, autistic individuals can be
observed forcefully resisting these many attempts at suppression. And
indeed, when one watches carefully the so-called restricted and
repetitive behaviors and interests of autistic individuals, it is
hard not to come away with the impression that for such individuals
these behaviors and interests are utterly necessary, as though
serving an essential purpose.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> That
essential purpose is the obtaining of a sensory grounding. When one
considers the circumstance of an autistic individual not possessing a
strong sense of conspecific perception, and in particular not able to
make use of conspecific perception to help with sensory organization,
one recognizes that this individual is facing the most dire of
outcomes. As has been described previously, unfiltered sensory
impressions are apt to be experienced as both chaotic and
overwhelming: the</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
wild mix of colors and shapes in the visual field, </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">the</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
buzzing range of tones and intensities inside the ear, </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">the</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
chaos of temperatures and impressions upon the skin, and </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">the</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
kaleidoscope of haphazard tastes and smells</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.
If these sensory circumstances were to remain unresolved, the
autistic individual would be unable to obtain any perceptual signal
from the sensory environment, and would be left with only sensory
noise. In turn this would mean that the barriers to developmental
progress would be set impossibly high. But most autistic individuals
do not end up experiencing this dire outcome. We know that most
autistic individuals do manage to make significant developmental
progress, even if somewhat delayed compared to their non-autistic
peers, and many autistic individuals do go on to become participating
and productive members within the general population, navigating
quite successfully the features of a modern human world. So these
individuals have not become stuck inside a sensory chaos, and must
therefore be achieving a functional degree of sensory organization.
But if that sensory organization has not been built around
conspecific perception, then what has it been built around?</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
trick here is to recognize that I have not been exactly forthcoming
by characterizing the sensory field as entirely random. On the planet
Earth, the sensory field, although indeed wildly multivariate, still
possesses within itself a great deal of inherent structure and form.
In addition to the biological structure imparted by the evolutionary
propensity towards food, water, conspecifics and the like—the
structural organization that most organisms latch onto quite
naturally—there is also a great deal of structure that arises from
such influences as gravity, chemistry, thermodynamics, celestial
cycles, etc. Trees grow tall in a straight line, mountain peaks have
a particular shape, water drips in a rhythm, the moon cycles through
regular phases, and of course in the modern world artificial
structure can be found practically everywhere. These non-biological
instances of environmental structure and form are captured in a
variety of words and concepts: symmetry, pattern, repetition, logic,
number. These concepts possess one characteristic in common, they are
all chaos-defying features. In the sensory world, these are the
elements that serve to break the background noise.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
interesting thing is, for most biological organisms, they never seem
to become aware of these non-biological structural features, never
become aware of the many instances of symmetry, pattern, repetition,
etc. It can be surmised that the reason for this lack of awareness of
non-biological structure is that it is not strictly necessary for
survival and procreation. Having successfully organized their sensory
experience into a biologically and conspecifically guided form of
perception, and having had their fitness greatly boosted by this
particular form of perception, most organisms then find themselves
locked into that way of perceiving their world, remaining almost
entirely blind to any other type of structure their world might
happen to contain.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> But
for autistic individuals, less able to organize their sensory
experience around the usual biological concepts—including most
particularly around the notion of conspecific perception—and at
risk for the dire developmental consequence that would result from a
persistent sensory chaos, will latch onto any alternative means of
sensory organization that happens to be available. Thus autistic
individuals, unlike their biologically typical peers, will find
themselves becoming directly aware of non-biological structure and
form, will find themselves becoming directly aware of symmetry,
pattern, repetition, logic, number, and so on. From the pressing need
to resolve their potential sensory chaos, autistic individuals will
begin to hone in on those environmental features that serve to break
the background noise.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> That
autistic individuals are embracing this alternative perceptual path
is most evident from their so-called restricted and repetitive
behaviors and interests. These activities are not arbitrary, but
indeed have a requisite quality to them—all promote and enhance the
non-biological structure that an autistic individual has begun to
crave. </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Hand
flapping is rhythmic to both sight and touch</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
every routine is a repetition. </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">Ceiling
fans encompass both symmetrical shape and regular motion, light
switches capture a logic. And note the distinction in the use of
toys, for instance in a set of dolls and dishes. The biologically
typical child might easily be found sharing such toys with other
children, setting out perhaps the scenario of an afternoon tea party,
the type of interactive play that rides so firmly upon the shoulders
of conspecific perception. But the autistic child is much more likely
to line up these toys, or form them into a circle or some other
patterned shape, carving out yet one more instance of non-biological
structure in the child’s sensory field. The restricted and
repetitive behaviors and interests of autistic individuals serve an
essential purpose, they bring forward the non-biological structure
inherently contained in the surrounding environment, they enhance the
perceptual experience of symmetry, pattern, repetition, logic,
number, and so on. They bring organization to the autistic
individual’s sensory world.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> These
days, biologically typical children chart a developmental path that
begins, via the mechanism of conspecific perception, with a strong
association to humankind. And because the many humans they encounter
and observe along the way are also engaged with the artifacts and
behaviors of a complex structural world—a world that has gone far
beyond just the immediate needs of survival and procreation—these
biologically typical children, naturally curious about what other
humans do, soon begin to participate in this complex structural world
too. Suppression of this developmental path would be predictably
disastrous. If a biologically typical child were to be cut off
entirely from human contact and were to be given no opportunity to
leverage conspecific perception, then not only would this child be
deprived of his or her preferred and natural way of perceiving the
environment, this child would also be deprived of his or her most
straightforward connection to the expanded structural aspects of the
modern world. Fortunately, very few biologically typical children
encounter such cruelty, with most today making excellent
developmental progress, eventually transitioning to becoming fully
contributing members of a complex human society.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> By
way of comparison, autistic children these days employ the same
developmental path as do biologically typical children, but autistic
children traverse this path in the opposite direction. Autistic
children gain their sensory grounding first through an awareness and
manipulation of the non-biological and structural aspects of their
surrounding world. And because much of this structural world has been
integrated to humankind, and because this structural world depends in
many ways upon human interaction, autistic individuals—perhaps
reluctantly at first—eventually progress to that awkward but
helpful moment when they begin to attach themselves to the members of
their own species. Here too, suppression of this developmental path
would be predictably disastrous. If an autistic child were to be cut
off from his or her structured behaviors and interests, then not only
would this child be deprived of his or her preferred and natural way
of perceiving the environment, this child would also be deprived of
his or her most straightforward connection to a human-centric world.
Unfortunately, far too many autistic children are actually subjected
to this kind of cruelty. Many of the so-called treatments and
therapies for autism are designed specifically to force the autistic
child to abandon his or her preferred way of perceiving the
environment, attempting to substitute instead the perceptual
preferences of biologically typical children. This is such a shame.
T</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">he
developmental direction from autistic perception to </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">eventual
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">engagement
with a human-centric world can be traversed successfully and yield
</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">productive</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
results.</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
It is the reason so many autistic individuals end up making </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">excellent
developmental progress, eventually transitioning to becoming fully
contributing members of a complex human society.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> This
then is the nature of autism. It begins with a weakened sense of
conspecific perception, weak enough that it will stymie the autistic
individual from organizing his sensory experience around other humans
and what other humans do. This circumstance often results in
developmental delays, it often results in sensory issues. But in
compensation, the autistic individual will find himself latching onto
the inherent structure contained within the surrounding environment,
latching onto the many examples of symmetry, pattern, repetition,
logic, number, and form. And where have we heard those words before,
what role have they been playing in the discussion? Were these not
the words considered critical for understanding the human
transformation?</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Autism
is a variable path—some autistic individuals will struggle mightily
to make developmental progress, others will do remarkably well. But
all autistic individuals have an important influence on humankind,
because all help bring to the species </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
a new and revolutionary form of perception.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
</body>
</html>Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-54895084297833461412023-03-04T11:41:00.001-05:002023-03-04T12:26:46.764-05:00The Construction of Intelligence<!DOCTYPE html>
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<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">3.
The Construction of Intelligence</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Understanding
that artificial reconstruction of the human environment serves as a
fundamental component of the human transformation does bring us one
step closer to identifying a cause for this uniquely human
occurrence. We can now recognize that humans have somehow gained a
broader perceptual awareness of their surrounding environment, an
awareness that has allowed the species to break free from a strictly
survival-and-procreative focus, and this broader perceptual
awareness, </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">centered
around the concepts of artificial pattern, structure and form</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
has helped spark an effective reshaping of the human environment and
a radical expansion of human behavior. So we are nearly prepared to
ask, what characteristic, what element within the human population,
could be the key that has unlocked this broader perceptual awareness?</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> We
will explore that question in great detail shortly, but for now I
must ask your indulgence to postpone that discussion for a bit
longer. The purpose of the delay is to take some time to examine in
greater depth the activity of human environmental construction. As it
happens, we can approach this topic from an entirely different angle
and can view it in a completely different light, one that has modern
scientific consequence. This additional analysis will prove to be
fruitful. It will provide greater information about what is the most
basic human quality that lies at the core of the human
transformation, and furthermore, this analysis will help solve a
conundrum that has been puzzling scientists for at least the last
thirty-five years.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> As
a reminder, in characterizing modern humans as both animal and
construct, the word </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>construct</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
was used to denote two separate but related characteristics:</span></font></font></font></p>
<ol>
<li><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">The artificial reconstruction of the human environment; and</font></font></font></p></li>
<li><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">The novel human behaviors resulting from that artificial
reconstruction.</font></font></font></p></li>
</ol>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> What
I am going to propose now is that there is </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>another</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
word, besides </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>construct</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
that can be used to capture the combination of these two related
characteristics, a word that is in widespread use and that is clearly
foundational to what makes humans unique. That other word is
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>intelligence</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Although
it might seem at first that I am employing the word </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>intelligence</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
in a somewhat different sense than that of the typical connotation,
rest assured that there is nothing arbitrary about my proposal. In
the discussion that follows, I will directly connect human
environmental construction to the basic tool for measuring human
intelligence, the IQ exam, and I will go on to demonstrate that
performance on an IQ exam not only assesses the traits we commonly
associate with intelligence, but also, and quite equivalently,
assesses our interaction with the artificial and constructed material
of the human world. This demonstration will directly link human
intelligence to the observable features of the human transformation,
and thus will mark intelligence as the most fundamental human quality
underlying that transformation (as opposed, for instance, to say
language ability or collective learning). But this demonstration will
also necessitate a reassessment of the word </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>intelligence</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
requiring that intelligence be understood more broadly than as just a
neurological phenomenon. We will see that to arrive at a complete
understanding of intelligence, to provide a cogent explanation for
the observed patterns of intelligence scores, we must incorporate
into our definition of intelligence an adequate provision for the
totality of constructed artifacts existing within the human
environment, the material out of which intelligence is ultimately
constructed.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> And
there will be a bonus.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> During
the twentieth century, it was discovered that each successive
generation was scoring progressively better on intelligence exams. In
other words, raw intelligence scores were consistently and
significantly increasing over time. This increase in performance was
large enough that it required intelligence exams to be modified on a
frequent basis, typically towards greater complexity and difficulty.
Several researchers had noticed this phenomenon, but it was James
Flynn in the 1980s who provided abundant evidence that the phenomenon
was essentially universal, thereby drawing greater attention to it,
and the phenomenon would be eventually dubbed the Flynn effect. Over
the past several decades there have been many attempts to explain the
Flynn effect—increasing genetic robustness, better nutrition,
expanded education, abstruse theories about fast and slow life,
etc.—but none of these suggestions have proven to be compelling,
and thus the Flynn effect has continued to remain a scientific
mystery.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> But
as it happens, our subject from the previous section—the
non-evolutionary and artificial environmental reconstruction that
lies at the core of recent human history—this turns out to have
great relevance to the phenomenon of an increasing human
intelligence. By linking the contents of an IQ exam to the observable
features of the human transformation, and by exploring the potential
for human intelligence performance throughout the course of human
history, we will come to realize that an increase in human
intelligence is not just a twentieth-century aberration, but is
indeed a fundamental property of the human transformation itself.
That is, the Flynn effect has been accompanying humanity ever since
the beginning of the human turn, with the corresponding increase in
human intelligence directly tied to the amount of artificial
construction that has been accruing in the human environment, thus
yielding an extremely straightforward and elegant explanation of the
Flynn effect.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Intelligence</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
is one of those words that does not seem to have a completely
agreed-upon definition. There are several characteristics commonly
associated with intelligence—reasoning ability, problem solving,
capacity to learn, creativity, etc.—but none of these
characteristics, singularly or in combination, quite manages to
capture everything that is meant by the word </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>intelligence</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.
There appears to be a certain</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>
je ne sais quoi</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
element to intelligence—we can easily recognize smartness when we
see it and experience it, but we seem to have a hard time putting a
finger on exactly what it is.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Scientists
sidestep this difficulty by sticking to what they can measure. The
scientific approach to intelligence focuses both on the basic tool
for assessing intelligence, the IQ exam, as well as on the
statistical analyses that can be obtained from IQ exam performance.
These quantitative efforts have been historically productive. The
first IQ tests were developed around the year 1900, and throughout
the following century, researchers kept themselves busy putting IQ
scores through a series of statistical investigations, teasing out
much of what is currently understood about human intelligence. One of
the earliest and most basic results from these efforts came in the
use of factor analysis to arrive at a </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>general</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
factor for intelligence, typically quantified in a statistic known as
Spearman’s </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>g</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
(named after Charles Spearman, its originator). In short, Spearman’s
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>g</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
captures the notion of a general intelligence ability, one that shows
up in the correlation of performance across different types of
intelligence tasks—that is, a person who can score well on one type
of intelligence test will typically also score well on the others.
Furthermore, IQ exam analysis in combination with identical twin and
other family-based studies, has shown that one’s general
intelligence ability is influenced in large degree by one’s genetic
makeup—more so than, for instance, one’s upbringing or
environment—thus pointing to a significant biological/neurological
component underlying individual intelligence differences.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> These
exam-driven conclusions famously prompted psychologist Edwin Boring
in 1923 to define intelligence as the thing that gets measured by
intelligence tests. Boring partly intended his aphorism as a warning,
noting the extremely insular nature of many intelligence statistics.
But he also seemed to suggest that in a certain sense his seemingly
tautological definition was capturing a meaningful truth, one that
could be built upon if approached in the right way. In my opinion,
Boring’s definition actually turns out to be both valid and quite
good, that defining intelligence by linking it to intelligence exams
actually has a large degree of substantive merit. I say this for two
reasons, one of which is widely known, and the other of which seems
to have been given hardly any attention at all.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
widely known reason is this. Although it is indeed tautological to
say that intelligence is what gets measured by intelligence tests, it
has also been repeatedly demonstrated that intelligence tests have a
significance that goes beyond that which they measure. This is
because performance on intelligence exams has been shown to be highly
correlated with many aspects of human life, aspects that have great
importance to people navigating their way through the human world.
Academic success, career prospects, socioeconomic circumstances, even
health and longevity—all these areas correlate significantly to IQ
exam performance, with better IQ exam performance pointing towards
cheerier prospects in actual life. So whatever quality it is that is
being measured by an IQ exam—call it intelligence if you will—it
tends to translate to happier prospects outside the exam room,
meaning that intelligence statistics serve more than just an
inward-looking purpose.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> The
less well known reason centers around the question of what exactly is
it about any particular test—that is, what observable features must
that test have—in order for it to qualify as an </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>intelligence</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
test. Consider these two possibilities. In the first instance, I
write down a dozen or so math and logic problems on a sheet of paper,
give the paper to a subject to fill out, and then afterwards sum up
the correct answers. In the second instance, I give the subject a
sheet of paper and ask him or her to crumple it up and throw it as
far as he or she can, and then afterwards I measure the distance the
paper traveled. Nearly everyone would agree that the first instance
could qualify as an intelligence test, and that the second instance
would not. But why? Both examples are a test of human ability and
both provide a numerical measure that can be compared, so why is one
considered appropriate for assessing intelligence and the other one
is not?</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> One
way of answering this question might be to note that performance on
the first test will likely have some correlation with other
intelligence tests, and that the second test is unlikely to have such
a correlation. But this just gets us back into tautology land, where
a test’s acceptance into the intelligence test club is done solely
by reference to tests that have already been accepted. This is not
really what we are after. What would like to be able to do is to
identify a test as an intelligence test by something other than
saying that it is used for measuring intelligence. In other words, if
all intelligence tests were described simply as perceived artifacts,
without reference to what purpose they serve, would there be a
characteristic or characteristics they all would have in common? </font></font></font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> This
question prompts an investigation into the </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>contents</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
of an intelligence exam, which in my estimation is the most important
thing </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>about</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
an intelligence exam</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">,
even </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">if</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
the topic seems to have been given very little attention in the
literature</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.
T</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">o
understand why it is that an </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">IQ</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
exam succeeds in measuring intelligence, we need to better understand
what it is that </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">an
IQ</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
exam </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">is</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
composed of.</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
This investigation also has a historical component to it. If we were
to contemplate the possibility of intelligence exams having been
available throughout human history, would the contents of those exams
have remained static over time, or would they have needed to be
altered? This is where the investigation connects to the broader
topic we have already been discussing, for as we shall see, the
contents of an intelligence exam cannot be arbitrary, but instead
must have a particular characteristic to them, a characteristic
intimately connected to the fundamental features of the human
transformation.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> </font></font></font></p><br />
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Some
of the earliest IQ exams to gain acceptance and application were the
Stanford-Binet and Wechsler scales, tests that are still in
widespread use today. The contents of these particular tests cover a
broad range of subjects, including vocabulary, arithmetic,
number-letter sequencing, general knowledge, similarities,
visual-spatial puzzles, and so on. The popularity of these exams has
of course influenced what is considered to be the standard content
for intelligence tests, but it should also be noted that there are
many alternatives available. For instance, Raven’s Progressive
Matrices, a test composed of a logical series of spatial/temporal
patterns, has been shown to be effective in assessing non-verbal
intelligence, and has been one of the tests displaying the greatest
amount of Flynn effect over the past century. Indeed there are
essentially an endless number of tasks that could be successfully
employed, at least to some degree, to assess various aspects of
intelligence, everything from multiplication tables to chess problems
to driver’s license exams. So what is it about the contents of all
these tests and tasks that connect them to the subject of
intelligence, what could be their common thread?</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> One
approach to discovering the type of content that an intelligence exam
must have would be to consider first those tests that are clearly </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>not</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
acceptable for assessing intelligence. Much like the example of
throwing the crumpled up sheet of paper, tests that measure for
qualities such as running speed, strength, visual acuity, agility,
fertility and so on would not be acceptable as measures of
intelligence, despite the fact these qualities are often important to
humans in their everyday lives. The contents of such tests have a
particular nature that would appear to disqualify them—namely,
these tests are composed primarily of activities that are athletic,
physical, biological, and we seem to intuitively understand that
these particular abilities and activities are exactly the ones that
need to be </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>excluded</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
when assessing intelligence. This intuition has a rational basis.
When we examine the types of tests that are being ruled out here, and
when we consider the activities and abilities that underlie them, we
recognize that we could actually administer such tests—albeit with
some difficulty—even to wild animals, and we also could have
administered such tests to humans back when they were in the state of
being pure animals themselves. The contents of such tests have an
evolutionary/biological basis, they are intimately connected with
survival-and-procreative fitness. Thus they measure the </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>animal</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
aspect of humankind, and they do not measure the aspect that has been
added to humanity in the more recent years.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> And
this gets us to the common thread underlying intelligence tests and
tasks.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> When
we examine the contents of any intelligence test, the one word that
should immediately strike us is </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>artificial</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.
Artificial patterns, artificial structures, artificial form.
Intelligence tests are composed of artificial constructions—words,
digits, sequences, puzzles, matrices, etc.—and when we score an
individual’s performance on an intelligence test, what we are
assessing is that person’s ability to understand and to manipulate
these artificial constructions. And since </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>all</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
intelligence tasks are composed of artificial constructions, it
should come as no surprise that performance across these tasks tends
to correlate, with one’s general intelligence ability essentially
being a measure of one’s overall effectiveness at manipulating
artificial construction at large.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> But
artificial construction at large is exactly the defining observable
feature of the human transformation, and human </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>responsiveness</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
to artificial construction is the telltale behavior distinguishing
humans from all the other animals. The originators of the first
intelligence tests may not have realized it, but what they were
building were assessments of human modernity, assessments of human
capacity for the non-natural and constructed artifacts that have been
accruing in the surroundings ever since the beginning of the human
turn. The artificial pattern, structure and form to be found on every
intelligence test mirrors the artificial pattern, structure and form
to be found in the human environment, and thus the contents of an
intelligence test serve as a </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>proxy</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
for the type of artificial complexity that needs to be navigated by
humans in their everyday lives. And so here too, it should come as no
surprise that performance on these proxies correlates significantly
to successful prospects in the everyday world, because for most
humans today, effective navigation and manipulation of the
environment’s artificial features is often more important and more
consequential than effective navigation in the
biological/evolutionary realm.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> A
further approach to exploring IQ exam contents and their relationship
to the artificial reconstruction of the human environment—that is
to say, to the human transformation itself—would be to contemplate
IQ exam performance over the entire course of human history. Of
course since the first intelligence tests were not created until
around the year 1900, we do not have explicit data from before that
time, neither on what characteristics intelligence exams might have
possessed during those earlier years, nor on the level of performance
such exams might have evoked. Thus we will need to resort to some
imagination. But even with this limitation, it will take very little
in the way of effort and reasoning to convince us that intelligence
exams from those earlier times would have had to be crafted much
differently than they are today, and that intelligence performance
throughout those earlier years would have been much diminished from
what can be observed in the general population now.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> To
give some visualization to the investigation, we can assume that
scientists have developed a means of time travel that allows them to
go back to earlier points in human history for the purpose of
administering intelligence tests. We can begin by going back around
five thousand years, to the agrarian villages that would soon
coalesce into the Mesopotamian civilization. Our time-traveling
scientists will have brought with them the current iteration of the
Stanford-Binet and Wechsler scales, with the hope of administering
translated versions of these tests to the agrarian population. But of
course the scientists will quickly encounter some major challenges.
In the first place, there is no hope of administering a written
version of these tests—five thousand years ago, writing was still
on the verge of being invented—and so any intelligence task would
have to be delivered orally, making many portions of modern IQ exams
essentially impossible to administer. But the problem goes beyond
just this. For instance, much of the vocabulary being tested would
have to be adjusted, because a large portion of the vocabulary
showing up on modern exams represents objects and concepts that have
only come into existence after </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Mesopotamian</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
times. Arithmetic too would have to be essentially removed, since
numeracy beyond perhaps counting up to one-two-three was not yet
widely practiced. Even something like Raven’s Progressive Matrices,
a non-verbal exam with geometric patterns that could be drawn perhaps
on tree bark—or in the dirt, for that matter—would still cause
problems for this particular population. Having been raised in a
world without the regularity of clocks, street grids, etc., the
Mesopotamians would likely find the rigidly structured patterns of
the Raven’s questions to be far outside their ken, with few having
even an inkling of what was being asked of them.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Thus
the scientists will soon find they need to abandon their efforts at
administering any modern IQ exams they may have brought with them,
and might even be wondering if </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Mesopotamian</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
performance on such exams should be essentially marked near zero. But
these scientists want to obtain an accurate and observed measure of
the overall level of intelligence for this population, and also to
assess whether there are any intelligence differences </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>within</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
the population, so the scientists scramble together an alternative
test, a spoken and drawn exam composed out of tasks that the
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Mesopotamian</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">s
can more easily relate to and understand. The vocabulary problems end
up being more basic than what is found on modern tests, but at least
a majority of the </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Mesopotamian
</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">test
takers can effectively respond. The mathematical and geometrical
questions will also seem crude by modern standards, but at least they
now correspond to what </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Mesopotamians</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
encounter in their everyday lives. More questions can be composed out
of the basic structural features arising from such activities as
simple farming, irrigation, pottery making and so on. The resulting
test might seem quite simple to the scientists—one of them might
even remark, “Almost everyone from our era would score nearly one
hundred percent”—but when administered to the </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Mesopotamian</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">s,
a familiar range of outcomes does emerge, confirming that these
scientists have done an admirable job at putting together their
makeshift exam. Some </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Mesopotamian</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">s
score well, some score poorly, and most score somewhere in the
middle. “Well, at least the </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>curve</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
looks familiar,” one of the scientists remarks. The scientists
might then leave these Mesopotamian times with a vague sense of
puzzlement over what all these results could mean, but at least they
have acquired some substantive data, and can continue onwards with
their historical quest.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> The
next temporal destination goes back to around twenty-five thousand
years ago, before the time of agriculture and villages but after the
out-of-Africa migration. These humans are still universally
hunter-gatherers, but they are not without some modern
accompaniments: crafted weapons, clothing, fire pits, ornamental
jewelry, cave paintings. Our scientists know better this time than to
bother with the Stanford-Binet and Wechsler scales, but their first
thought is to offer the makeshift exam they had crafted for the
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Mesopotamian</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">s
to this new population, to see if that exam could still coax out some
meaningful results. However, this turns out to be mostly not the
case, and this is because much of what the scientists had developed
for the </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Mesopotamians</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
was forged out of the agrarian concepts and abilities that had only
been introduced into human experience sometime just before the
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Mesopotamian</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
era, and thus would be utterly unfamiliar for these hunter-gatherer
tribes. So once again our resourceful scientists patch together a
different kind of test, one with tasks more familiar for their
nomadic subjects. Out of necessity, the vocabulary is now even more
limited than what was applied to the </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Mesopotamian</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">s,
and the numeracy and geometric questions end up seeming almost
toddler-like. Other questions are composed out of the underlying
skills the scientists can glean from observed practices of fire
making, weapon construction, animal rendering, and simple cooking.
Indeed, so naturalistic and primitive would appear to be the lives of
these hunter-gatherers that one of the scientists asks if they should
not instead being testing for such skills as speed, strength and
sexual dominance, until the other scientists object that these are
not the kinds of skills one typically associates with intelligence.
So the scientists stick with the basic exam they can manage to form
out of the material at hand, and once again they find their efforts
rewarded with a familiar set of results. Some of the hunter-gatherers
score well on the new exam, some score poorly, and most score
somewhere in the middle, demonstrating that for this population too
there is an observable degree of intelligence capacity, with the
capacity differing in the normal way from person to person.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Finally
the scientists travel back to a few hundred thousand years ago, when
humans had not yet begun to reconstruct their environment, when the
surroundings remained almost entirely natural and humans were still
essentially living the lives of pure animals. The scientists quickly
realize, with regard to intelligence testing, that there is really
nothing they can do. It is not just that the modern exams like
Stanford-Binet and Wechsler cannot be applied, and it is not just
that the exams developed for the </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Mesopotamian</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">s
and previous hunter-gatherers cannot be administered as well, it is
that these scientists cannot even craft a new kind of test, one more
accessible to this ancient population. This is because there is
nothing out of which a new test can be composed—no abstract
language, no mathematics, no crafted weaponry, no clothing, no
cooking. There is not a single artificial feature to be found in this
environment, and there is not a single human behavior that cannot be
described as being animal-like. The only abilities these scientists
could possibly test for and measure would be the kinds of abilities
that could just as easily be found in almost any other type of
creature, abilities that are entirely physical and biological,
abilities directly concerned with survival and procreation. Thus the
scientists conclude that there is no intelligence to be found or
measured in this population—at least no intelligence beyond that
which could be attributed to </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>any</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
animal population.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> But
the scientists no sooner arrive at this conclusion than they begin to
have some second thoughts. After all, the hunter-gatherers they had
just previously visited, from twenty-five thousand years ago, did
display some measurable intelligence capacity, and furthermore these
ancient humans now standing before them, from a few hundred thousand
years ago, do not appear to be, physically or genetically, all that
much different from the previously visited populations—biologically
speaking, all the visited humans have appeared to be essentially the
same. So why did the previous hunter-gatherers display some level of
intelligence, while this more ancient group seems to be displaying
none at all? For that matter, why have </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>any</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
of the visited populations displayed a different level of
intelligence from the others, or from modern norms?</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> “You
know what I wish we could do,” says one of the scientists. “I
wish we could take one of these newborns from this ancient population
back with us to modern times, and then raise him there. What I would
like to know is this: would he still display no intelligence at all,
or as he grew up in the modern world would he begin to demonstrate a
level of intelligence similar to other modern humans?” The
scientists begin to think about this question, and they end up
thinking about it for a very long time.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
conundrum of the scientist’s question is this. On the one hand, If
intelligence is just a neural ability, then these ancient humans from
a few hundred thousand years ago, because they are demonstrating no
measurable level of intelligence, must be entirely lacking in this
neural ability. Thus an ancient newborn snatched from his ancient
times and raised instead in the modern era, because he lacks the
neural ability, would continue to display no signs of intelligence.
Furthermore, this neural ability must have somehow been introduced
into the human population by the time of the hunter-gatherers of
twenty-five thousand years ago, because that population was capable
of taking an intelligence test—simple though it may have been—and
of displaying a measurable level of intelligence. Also, this neural
ability must have significantly increased by the time of the
Mesopotamians, who were capable of taking a more complex intelligence
exam, and thereby demonstrating a greater level of measurable
intelligence. And finally, this neural ability must have increased by
orders of magnitude yet once more by the time of modern humans, who
find themselves perfectly capable of handling the complexities of
Stanford-Binet and Wechsler.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> But
on the other hand, such an enormous increase in neural ability would
appear to defy almost every known biological and evolutionary
principle. There is no other human biological ability that has
undergone similar transformation in such a short period of time, and
under normal circumstances, there would be no reason to expect such a
large-scale, species-wide and progressive neural change. Biologically
speaking, the humans from two hundred thousand years ago should be
essentially the same as the humans of today. Although it has become
commonplace to say that our human brains have somehow become smarter
over time—that is to say, physically more effective—if we were to
be biologically honest with ourselves and were to detail the type and
degree of neural alteration we are actually contemplating, then we
would have to admit we are engaging in a scarcely plausible
biological leap of faith.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> And
yet still…. If physical neural ability has not been changing in
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
then what else could be driving the human intelligence differences
that are apparent across the entire course of human history? It
appears to be a conundrum.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Here
would be my proposal. If we were to spend enough time thinking about
the scientist’s question, we might eventually come to realize that
we have every reason to expect that a newborn snatched from an
ancient human population and raised instead in the modern era would
actually achieve a level of intelligence commensurate with that of
his modernly born peers. Furthermore, if that same newborn were
instead to be raised among the hunter-gatherers from twenty-five
thousand years ago, he would achieve a corresponding level of
hunter-gatherer intelligence, and likewise if that newborn were to be
raised among the Mesopotamians he would achieve a Mesopotamian level
of intelligence. This newborn, along with his fellow humans from a
few hundred thousand years ago, does not lack for intellectual
ability—biologically speaking, he should possess the same neural
capacity as do other sapiens, including modern humans. What he and
his fellow ancient humans lack is any artificial complexity in their
surrounding environment towards which they can </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>apply</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
their intellectual capacity. Human intelligence is not simply a
neural ability, human intelligence is more comprehensive than that.
Human intelligence is better described as the effective manipulation
and navigation of the artificial construction to be found in the
human environment, a skill that requires both the neural ability and
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>also</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
the environment towards which that neural ability can be applied.
Thus note the resulting consequence: no artificial construction in
the environment translates to no measurable intelligence.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Furthermore,
an </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>increase</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
in artificial construction translates to an </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>increase</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
in measurable intelligence. The quantity of artificial construction
to be found in the hunter-gatherer environment of twenty-five
thousand years ago was not zero, was not nonexistent, but on the
other hand it was still quite small by modern standards, both in
total amount and in depth of complexity. Any intelligence exam that
would be appropriate and useful for that particular population would
have to reflect this limited quantity of artificial construction. A
modern exam such as Stanford-Binet or Wechsler would be too complex
and would contain too many features with which these hunter-gatherers
would be unfamiliar, and thus would not serve as a useful proxy for
hunter-gatherer intelligence. In comparable fashion, the quantity of
artificial construction to be found in the agrarian Mesopotamian
environment of about five thousand years ago was greater than that to
be found in the hunter-gatherer environment, and yet still much less
than that to be found in modern settings. Thus any intelligence exam
intended for the Mesopotamians would need to be calibrated to reflect
their particular quantity and type of artificial environmental
construction. Stanford-Binet and Wechsler would still be too complex
and unfamiliar, and thus would likely overwhelm the Mesopotamians,
while at the same time the exam constructed for the hunter-gatherer
population would not be challenging enough, leading to mostly
excellent scores for nearly every Mesopotamian, so much so that
individual intelligence differences could not emerge. Finally, humans
of the early twenty-first century, having been raised in an
environment overflowing with buildings, roadways, televisions,
computers and countless other complex artifacts, and having from a
young age developed a broad vocabulary consistent with the broadness
of their world, and having studied algebra and configured their
phones and so on, would not find themselves challenged by exams
constructed for the Mesopotamians and hunter-gatherers. Modern humans
require an exam with greater complexity and greater variety in order
to demonstrate their impressively broad skills at navigating the
complex features of their modern world.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Of
course all this has a direct connection to the Flynn effect.
Intelligence exams with contents that contain greater complexity and
greater variety are palpable indicators of an increased level of
overall intelligence. And thus we can conclude that measurable human
intelligence has been increasing throughout human history, ever since
the beginning of the human transformation, an increase that would
have been reflected in the increasing complexity and difficulty of
intelligence exams, had such exams been available to earlier
populations. Furthermore, this increase in measurable intelligence is
directly attributable to the fact that humans have been forced to
navigate an increasing amount of artificial complexity in their
surrounding world, meaning that the accruing amount of artificial
environmental construction arising from the human transformation
serves as the sole driver and the sole explanation of the Flynn
effect.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Note
that although our time-traveling illustration does require some
imaginative reasoning, this reasoning remains entirely consistent
with what has actually taken place over the past century, with
respect to actual intelligence performance on actual intelligence
exams. Over the past one hundred years or so, ever since the
invention of IQ tests, each generation has scored better and better
as the tests have aged, so much so that individual intelligence
differences begin to disappear, rendering older exams essentially
obsolete. Intelligence researchers have realized that they need to
frequently modify their exams, adding new types of material and
making the questions generally more complex and difficult. These
researchers may be somewhat puzzled as to what could be driving these
changes, but as our historical analysis has indicated, these
researchers have not been witnessing just a twentieth-century fluke.
This increase in overall human intelligence, now dubbed the Flynn
effect, has been shadowing human existence ever since the beginning
of the human turn, and what these researchers have been witnessing is
just the modern continuation of an extremely long-running phenomenon.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> And
from the historical perspective, there really should be nothing
surprising about this phenomenon. If humans were indeed once pure
animals, then it is perfectly reasonable to say that humans at that
time displayed no intelligence at all, at least no intelligence
beyond that which could be attributed to any animal species. And
since humans today clearly do possess an observable and measurable
level of intelligence, then over the course of human history, human
intelligence has increased from absolute zero to a substantive
number, and </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>by
definition</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
that increase is a Flynn effect. The only question is whether that
change has been sudden or gradual, but any reasonable reflection on
the events of the human transformation will make it more than clear
that the change cannot have been sudden, but that the increase in
human intelligence has been progressing steadily throughout human
history, an increase driven by the accruing amount of artificial
construction contained within the human environment.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> What
I will attempt to do now is to build a quantified scenario that
incorporates the concepts and assumptions from the above discussion.
The purpose of this scenario is to demonstrate the pattern of IQ
scores that emerges when we take into account artificial
environmental construction when developing, administering and scoring
IQ exams. The pattern of IQ scores emerging from this scenario will
be exactly the same pattern that has been observed on actual
intelligence tests over the past one hundred years, and this pattern
will consist of both a stable level of general intelligence ability
(such as that quantified by Spearman’s </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>g</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">)
as well as an increase in overall measured intelligence (that is to
say, a Flynn effect). The scenario itself will make clear that there
is nothing contradictory about these two results. A stable general
intelligence ability is perfectly consistent with an increase in
overall measured intelligence, as long as our definition of
intelligence incorporates the impact of the total amount of
artificial construction contained within the human environment.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> The
scenario to be constructed arises from the following assumptions and
stipulations:</span></font></font></font></p>
<ol>
<li><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">We
assume we can investigate the intelligence characteristics at four
sequential points in time, call them Time 0, Time 1,
Time 2, and Time 3. These points in time are of course
arbitrary, marked out solely for the purpose of the demonstration,
but if it helps to visualize them, we can think of Time 0 as
being a few hundred thousand years ago, when humans were still pure
animals, Time 1 as being around twenty-five thousand years ago,
the era of efficient hunter-gatherers, Time 2 as being around
five thousand year ago, the agrarian dawn of the Mesopotamian
civilization, and Time 3 as being now, early in the
twenty-first century. Do keep in mind, however, that this is just
for visualization—the demonstration remains essentially the same
for any four sequential points in time, as long as the interval
between them allows for at least a new generation or two.</span></font></font></font></p>
<li><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">We
assume we can measure and quantify the amount of artificial
construction in the human environment at each point in time.
Furthermore, we assume, consistent with human history, that the
amount of artificial construction in the human environment increases
with time. For this particular scenario, we will stipulate that the
quantified amount of artificial construction measured at Time 0
is 0, that the amount of artificial construction at Time 1 is
10, that the amount of artificial construction at Time 2 is 20,
and that the amount of artificial construction at Time 3 is
100. Per the visualization, this would be the equivalent of saying
that there was no artificial construction in the human environment a
few hundred thousand years ago, that there was a quantified level of
artificial construction measuring 10 for the hunter-gatherers (a
reflection of fire pits, simple cooking, ornamental jewelry, etc.),
that there was a quantified level of artificial construction
measuring 20 for the Mesopotamians (a reflection of simple abodes,
irrigation techniques, pottery making, etc.), and that there is a
quantified level of artificial construction measuring 100 in the
early twenty-first century (reflecting highways, computers,
skyscrapers, etc.). This scale likely shortchanges the modern era,
but it still serves well for illustrative purposes.</span></font></font></font></p>
<li><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">We
assume that at Times 1, 2 and 3, we can construct and
administer a battery of IQ tests for the population of that era.
Furthermore, we assume that each of these battery of tests is an
equally accurate proxy for the amount and type of artificial
construction contained within the environment of that time. Thus,
the IQ tests of Time 1 have contents that reflect the measured
level of 10 for artificial construction at Time 1, the IQ tests
of Time 2 have contents that reflect the measured level of 20
for artificial construction at Time 2, and the IQ tests of
Time 3 have contents that reflect the measured level of 100 for
artificial construction at Time 3. In practice, this means that
the tests become more varied and more complex as time goes on, just
as was described for the hunter-gatherers, Mesopotamians, etc., and
just as has been observed on actual intelligence tests over the past
one hundred years.</span></font></font></font></p>
<li><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">Since
the measured level of artificial construction at Time 0 is
stipulated to be 0, we further stipulate that no IQ test can be
constructed and administered to this population.</span></font></font></font></p>
<li><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">Since
the battery of IQ tests at each point in time is assumed to be an
equally accurate proxy for that era’s artificial environmental
construction, we further assume that each population will score
similarly on its particular set of exams. Consistent with this
assumption, we stipulate that each population’s results can be
demonstrated through the scores of three representative test takers.
First, there is Test-taker Low, who answers 50% of the test
questions correctly, which turns out to be one standard deviation
below the population mean. Next, there is Test-taker Middle, who
answers 60% of the test questions correctly, which comes in right at
the population mean. And finally, there is Test-taker High, who
answers 70% of the test questions correctly, which is one standard
deviation above the population mean. We further stipulate that these
same levels of representative test-taking ability are in effect at
Time 0, even though there is no exam to administer to the
Time 0 population.</span></font></font></font></p>
</ol>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> With
these assumptions and stipulations in place, we can now work out what
would unfold over the course of this scenario, and what pattern of IQ
scores would emerge from these four populations.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> There
is not much to say about the Time 0 population. With no
artificial construction in the environment and no IQ exam to
administer, all intelligence scores would have to be marked as zero,
and this despite the fact we have stipulated that this population
does possess an intelligence capacity similar to that of the other
populations. But in this particular environment, there is nothing
towards which this population can </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>apply</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
its intelligence ability. We are in the realm of pure animals and of
no artificial environmental construction, and thus we are also in the
realm of no measurable intelligence.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> At
Time 1, the Time 1 battery of IQ tests is administered to
the population, and afterwards the results are normed by determining
the statistical mean and standard deviation, the same as is done with
real-world exams. With this accomplished, intelligence researchers
can then perform many population analyses, since relative performance
is all that is needed for this type of research. General intelligence
statistics can be gathered, correlations with life outcomes can be
scrutinized, and family studies can be conducted showing the extent
to which individual general intelligence abilities are genetically
determined. Relative and normed IQ performance within a population is
the backbone of nearly all intelligence research, and thus this type
of research can be readily accomplished with the Time 1
population.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> But
also at Time 1, an alternative type of statistic can be
determined, one that has not been attempted in modern studies.
Because this scenario has included the measurement and quantification
of the amount of artificial construction in the Time 1
environment, and because the scenario has assumed that the Time 1
battery of IQ tests reflects this level of artificial construction,
this information can be used to go beyond just working with relative
IQ performance, and can be used to determine an </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>absolute</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
intelligence score for each member of this population. It works like
this. Test-taker Low answered 50% of the test questions correctly.
Since the contents of the Time 1 tests reflect an amount of 10
for artificial construction in the Time 1 environment, we can
say that Test-taker Low is demonstrating an ability to master an
amount of artificial construction equivalent to 5 (50% x 10), and
thus we can assign Test-taker Low an absolute intelligence score of
5. Similarly, Test-taker Middle, by answering 60% of the test
questions correctly, is demonstrating an ability to master a level of
artificial construction equivalent to 6 (60% x 10), and can be
assigned 6 as an absolute intelligence score. And finally, Test-taker
High, by answering 70% of the test questions correctly, is
demonstrating an ability to master an amount of artificial
construction equivalent to 7 (70% x 10) and can be assigned 7 as an
absolute intelligence score. The following table summarizes these
results:</span></font></font></font></p>
<center>
<table>
<thead>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
<th>Time Period</th>
<th>Artificial Construction</th>
<th>Test Taker</th>
<th>Raw Score</th>
<th>Normed Result</th>
<th>Absolute Score</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td rowspan="3">1</td>
<td rowspan= "3">10</td>
<td>Low</td>
<td>50%</td>
<td>-1.0SD</td>
<td>5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Middle</td>
<td>60%</td>
<td>Mean</td>
<td>6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>High</td>
<td>70%</td>
<td>+1.0SD</td>
<td>7</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</center>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> It
would be possible to make use of these absolute intelligence scores
when doing the population analyses of individual intelligence
differences and general intelligence abilities, but of course the
conclusions would turn out to be exactly the same, since these
analyses hinge upon the relative performance of the members of the
population—and whether one starts with normed results or with
absolute intelligence scores, the relative comparisons will remain
exactly the same. Thus the incorporation of absolute intelligence
scores does not seem to add any further information when considering
the intelligence characteristics of the Time 1 population, but
as it turns out these scores will be vital when comparing
intelligence performance against </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>other</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
populations. For instance, it is already apparent that the members of
the Time 1 population are universally demonstrating a greater
level of measurable intelligence than the members of the Time 0
population, for whom all absolute intelligence scores would have to
be marked as zero:</span></font></font></font></p>
<center>
<table>
<thead>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
<th>Time Period</th>
<th>Artificial Construction</th>
<th>Test Taker</th>
<th>Raw Score</th>
<th>Normed Result</th>
<th>Absolute Score</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td rowspan="3">0</td>
<td rowspan= "3">0</td>
<td>Low</td>
<td>50%</td>
<td>-1.0SD</td>
<td>0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Middle</td>
<td>60%</td>
<td>Mean</td>
<td>0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>High</td>
<td>70%</td>
<td>+1.0SD</td>
<td>0</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
<td rowspan="3">1</td>
<td rowspan= "3">10</td>
<td>Low</td>
<td>50%</td>
<td>-1.0SD</td>
<td>5</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
<td>Middle</td>
<td>60%</td>
<td>Mean</td>
<td>6</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
<td>High</td>
<td>70%</td>
<td>+1.0SD</td>
<td>7</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</center>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2; page-break-before: always">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> At
Time 2, the entire procedure is repeated—the Time 2
battery of tests is administered to the population, the results are
normed, researchers perform various population analyses, etc. And
many of the conclusions turn out to be exactly the same as those
determined for the Time 1 population, especially conclusions
related to individual intelligence differences, correlation with life
results, and the impact of genetic factors in determining general
intelligence ability. Thus the intelligence researchers could hardly
be blamed for thinking that overall intelligence characteristics have
not changed much in going from Time 1 to Time 2, so similar
are all their studies and conclusions—studies and conclusions based
upon </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>relative</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
exam performance </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>within</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
the Time 2 population.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> But
in fact Time 2 does possess a significant difference. This
difference shows up in two different ways. First, reflecting the
increase in artificial environmental construction, the contents of
the Time 2 battery of tests are more varied and more complex than the
contents of the Time 1 battery of tests, and yet despite this
extra challenge, the Time 2 population has still achieved the
same level of raw performance on its particular tests. Second, the
absolute intelligence scores of the Time 2 population are greater
than those of the Time 1 population, doubling across the board.
For instance at Time 2, Test-taker Low answers 50% of the test
questions correctly, and since the exam reflects a level of
artificial environmental construction measured at 20, Test-taker
Low’s absolute intelligence score is calculated to be 10 (50% x
20), twice that of the corresponding test taker from Time 1.
Time 2’s Test-taker Middle receives an absolute intelligence
score of 12 (60% x 20) and Time 2’s Test-taker High receives
an absolute intelligence score of 14 (70% x 20), in each case twice
that of the corresponding test taker from Time 1. Thus based
upon absolute intelligence scores, the Time 2 population is
displaying an overall level of measurable intelligence twice that of
the Time 1 population:</font></font></font></p>
<center>
<table>
<thead>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
<th>Time Period</th>
<th>Artificial Construction</th>
<th>Test Taker</th>
<th>Raw Score</th>
<th>Normed Result</th>
<th>Absolute Score</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td rowspan="3">0</td>
<td rowspan= "3">0</td>
<td>Low</td>
<td>50%</td>
<td>-1.0SD</td>
<td>0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Middle</td>
<td>60%</td>
<td>Mean</td>
<td>0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>High</td>
<td>70%</td>
<td>+1.0SD</td>
<td>0</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
<td rowspan="3">1</td>
<td rowspan= "3">10</td>
<td>Low</td>
<td>50%</td>
<td>-1.0SD</td>
<td>5</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
<td>Middle</td>
<td>60%</td>
<td>Mean</td>
<td>6</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
<td>High</td>
<td>70%</td>
<td>+1.0SD</td>
<td>7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td rowspan="3">2</td>
<td rowspan= "3">20</td>
<td>Low</td>
<td>50%</td>
<td>-1.0SD</td>
<td>10</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Middle</td>
<td>60%</td>
<td>Mean</td>
<td>12</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>High</td>
<td>70%</td>
<td>+1.0SD</td>
<td>14</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</center>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> This
procedure is repeated once more at Time 3. The Time 3
battery of tests are administered, normed and analyzed, and here too,
the researchers find that many intelligence characteristics of the
Time 3 population are the same as those seen in the previous
populations, especially those characteristics connected to individual
intelligence differences and to general intelligence ability. This
gives the impression that intelligence is in some sense stable across
time.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> But
the researchers also note that there are differences at Time 3,
differences that are now stark. First, the Time 3 tests,
reflecting a five-fold increase in artificial environmental
construction from Time 2, are now much more varied and more
complex. And yet despite this additional variety and complexity, the
Time 3 population still manages to achieve the same level of raw
performance on its particular exams. This leads to the other stark
difference, a massive leap in absolute intelligence scores. With the
battery of tests now reflecting a level of artificial construction
measuring 100, Test-taker Low at Time 3, answering 50% of the
test questions correctly, achieves an absolute intelligence score of
50 (50% x 100). In similar fashion, Test-taker Middle at Time 3
achieves an absolute intelligence score of 60 (60% x 100), and
Test-taker High at Time 3 achieves an absolute intelligence
score of 70 (70% x 100). These absolute intelligence scores from
Time 3 are considerably greater than all those achieved by the
previous populations, suggesting that in an observable sense,
intelligence is not stable at all but is instead significantly
increasing over time:</font></font></font></p>
<center>
<table>
<thead>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
<th>Time Period</th>
<th>Artificial Construction</th>
<th>Test Taker</th>
<th>Raw Score</th>
<th>Normed Result</th>
<th>Absolute Score</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td rowspan="3">0</td>
<td rowspan= "3">0</td>
<td>Low</td>
<td>50%</td>
<td>-1.0SD</td>
<td>0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Middle</td>
<td>60%</td>
<td>Mean</td>
<td>0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>High</td>
<td>70%</td>
<td>+1.0SD</td>
<td>0</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
<td rowspan="3">1</td>
<td rowspan= "3">10</td>
<td>Low</td>
<td>50%</td>
<td>-1.0SD</td>
<td>5</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
<td>Middle</td>
<td>60%</td>
<td>Mean</td>
<td>6</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
<td>High</td>
<td>70%</td>
<td>+1.0SD</td>
<td>7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td rowspan="3">2</td>
<td rowspan= "3">20</td>
<td>Low</td>
<td>50%</td>
<td>-1.0SD</td>
<td>10</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Middle</td>
<td>60%</td>
<td>Mean</td>
<td>12</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>High</td>
<td>70%</td>
<td>+1.0SD</td>
<td>14</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
<td rowspan="3">3</td>
<td rowspan= "3">100</td>
<td>Low</td>
<td>50%</td>
<td>-1.0SD</td>
<td>50</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
<td>Middle</td>
<td>60%</td>
<td>Mean</td>
<td>60</td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor="#ffffff">
<td>High</td>
<td>70%</td>
<td>+1.0SD</td>
<td>70</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</center>
<br /><br />
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2; page-break-before: always">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
question that wants to be asked is this: is human intelligence stable
over time or is it instead increasing? But when we examine the
circumstances of the scenario, we recognize that the question itself
is ambiguous, and betrays a misunderstanding of what human
intelligence is. Intelligence is commonly thought of as just a neural
ability, but in fact neural ability is only half of the story. In
order to understand and to explain the pattern of IQ performance over
human history, both as outlined in the scenario and as seen on actual
intelligence tests over the past one hundred years, we must expand
our definition of intelligence. Measurable human intelligence
actually consists of the interaction of two orthogonal factors: one,
individual intelligence capacity (that is, neural ability), and two,
the total amount of artificial construction contained within the
human environment, the target towards which individual intelligence
capacity can be applied. Over the course of human history, one of
these factors has remained almost entirely stable, while the other
factor has been significantly—indeed dramatically—increasing.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Thus
when we ask whether human intelligence is stable or increasing, we
need to clarify first exactly what it is that we are asking. If we
are asking is </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>general
intelligence ability</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
stable or increasing, then the answer to that question is that
general intelligence ability is stable over time. This is exactly as
we might expect for an ability that is being driven primarily by
biological, genetic, and neural factors. There is little reason to
think that </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
would have undergone a major change in this biological capacity since
the earliest days of the species. Thus the first of the </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
would have had roughly the same intellectual ability as did the later
out-of-Africa hunter-gatherers, who in turn would have had roughly
the same intellectual ability as did the Mesopotamians, who in turn
would have had roughly the same intellectual ability as do modern day
humans. This stability shows up in intelligence research, which gives
no indication that general intelligence ability has been undergoing
any kind of transition over the last one hundred years.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> But
if we are instead asking is the </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>measured
level of overall intelligence</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
stable or increasing, then the answer to that question is that the
measured level of overall intelligence is increasing over time. This
is because the measured level of overall intelligence is determined
by more than just general intelligence ability. To </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>demonstrate</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
intelligence, general intelligence ability must be </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>applied</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
to something, and that something is the artificial construction
contained within the environment, or its proxy, the contents of an IQ
exam. Furthermore, the greater the amount of environmental artificial
construction, the greater the amount of intelligence that can be
demonstrated. This was seen throughout the last century, a century in
which televisions, computers, airplanes and so much more were being
introduced into the human environment, an additional amount of
artificial complexity that both was being navigated and mastered by
humans in their everyday lives, and also was driving up raw
performance on intelligence exams. Ultimately, it is the accruing
amount of artificial construction contained within the human
environment that determines the overall level of human intelligence,
and thus it is this accruing amount of artificial construction that
drives the Flynn effect.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> </font></font></font></p><br/>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> It
has become quite common in recent years to suggest that the Flynn
effect has now plateaued or even reversed. The various studies on
this matter have been somewhat conflicting, with some data suggesting
that raw intelligence scores are no longer increasing and other data
suggesting just the opposite. And of course it should be noted that
over a short period of time there is bound to be some statistical
noise. But one thing should be certain to us by now. Based upon the
above analysis and discussion, and based upon an understanding of
human history, there is no reason to expect that the Flynn effect has
ended or is reversing. Barring a catastrophe (such as civilization
collapse), the human environment will continue to accrue greater and
greater amounts of artificial construction, and the future
generations will be obliged to navigate and to master this increase
in artificial construction, and will thereby go on to demonstrate an
increased level of measurable intelligence.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> One
possible explanation for why the Flynn effect has become more
difficult to detect in recent years is that contemporary IQ tests
might be failing to keep up with the types of changes that are
currently taking place within the human environment. In order for the
contents of an IQ test to serve as an accurate proxy for the kind of
artificial complexity humans encounter in their everyday lives, those
contents must be modified over time to reflect the transitioning
environmental circumstances. The popularity of tests such as
Stanford-Binet and Wechsler could be biasing researchers on what
should serve as the standard type of content for an IQ test, leaving
those researchers somewhat blinded to any alternatives. For instance,
we already have an example in the Raven’s Progressive Matrices, an
alternative kind of test focused on geometric and logical pattern, a
type of artificiality that increased greatly in the technically and
visually enriched world of the twentieth century, and indeed Raven’s
Progressive Matrices has proven to be not only a good measure of
general intelligence ability, it has also experienced some of the
greatest Flynn effect movement throughout the last century. And even
the so-called standard content of IQ tests betrays that there is
really no such thing as a standard when it comes to the type of
content that belongs on an intelligence exam. Arithmetic, for
instance, might be considered a standard subject now, but there was a
time not that long ago when arithmetic did not even exist in the
human world. By necessity, the contents of IQ exams must be fluid
over time, because an exam’s most important requirement is that it
reflect the amount and type of artificial complexity that is
contained within the human environment, something that is always
changing over time.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> I
can think of two recent changes in human complexity and artificiality
that might not be getting adequate representation on current IQ
exams. First, there is the notion of multitasking. When I was young,
concentrating on one task at a time was considered generally the
norm—indeed it was often encouraged—but today, a great deal of
human work and play is accomplished by doing a multitude of tasks in
parallel. Think of all the office workers who can maintain several
open windows on their computer screen, moving seamlessly from chats
to emails to spreadsheets, etc. Or think of the teenagers who can
engage with multiple applications on their smartphones while
maintaining an ongoing conversation with friends. The younger
generations, having grown up in a world more suffused with these
multitasking demands, generally find such efforts to be easier to
accomplish than do the older generations, for whom multitasking still
has something of an unfamiliar feel. Nonetheless, multitasking has
become an essential skill for navigating the parallel complexity of
the modern world, and if this skill were more directly measured on IQ
tests, the results would likely reveal not only that multitasking has
become an important aspect of modern human intelligence, but also
that there is a significant difference in performance between the
younger and older generations.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> A
second area of change in recent environmental complexity is that
humans do not interact </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>directly</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
with the artificial features of their surrounding world as frequently
as they once did, but instead they provide instructions to some type
of machine which can handle the interaction for them (often with
greater efficiency and accuracy). For instance, humans these days
seldom perform arithmetic by hand, as they once commonly did; instead
they program a calculator or computer to accomplish the task for
them. This increases the amount of artificial complexity that can be
navigated, because a correctly programmed machine can produce a
massive leveraging effect. But this also means that humans, to be
effective in the current world, must acquire a new set of skills,
skills falling under the heading of coding or programming. And once
again, it is the younger generations, having been born into a world
that more frequently requires these types of machine instruction
(just take a look at the current line-up of children’s toys) that
find such coding tasks to be easier to accomplish than do the older
generations, who are in many ways still scrambling to catch up. If
machine coding skills were given more attention on the current IQ
tests, then the results would likely indicate, much like with
multitasking skills, that machine coding is now a critical aspect of
human intelligence, and that there is a significant difference in
performance between the younger and older generations.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Whether
it is through recognition that human intelligence has been increasing
in areas not yet commonly measured, or whether it simply takes the
passage of enough time, researchers will eventually realize that the
Flynn effect is still very much with us here in the early
twenty-first century, just as it has always been, and the Flynn
effect will continue to shadow humanity throughout the coming years.
The Flynn effect is not just a twentieth-century aberration. The
increase in human intelligence is instead one of the most fundamental
components of the human transformation itself, encompassing the two
essential features of that transformation, the artificial
reconstruction of the human environment, and the human behavioral
responsiveness to that artificial reconstruction. Thus in a very real
and observable sense, human intelligence is </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>built</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">—it
exists less inside our heads than it does in the surrounding
environment. The artificial construction we now observe so abundantly
all around us, this is the physical manifestation of intelligence
itself, and since the amount and complexity of that artificial
construction continues to increase over time, so does human
intelligence.</span></font></font></font></p>
</body>
</html>Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-82552379386376818822023-03-04T10:17:00.002-05:002023-03-04T12:26:30.079-05:00Evolution Turned Inside Out<!DOCTYPE html>
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<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">2.
Evolution Turned Inside Out</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> The
word used most frequently to explain the human transformation is
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>evolution</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
the implication being that humans must have evolved from pure animals
to the rational and innovative creatures they have become today. O</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">ne
</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">form
of this</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
idea </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">is
the </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">suggest</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">ion</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
that evolutionary modernization has been gradually taking place over
the entire course of hominin history, for around seven million years,
ever since the human branch broke off from the </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">chimps
and the </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">great
apes. </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">A
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">caricature
portrayal of this </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">proposal</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">would
be</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
the commonly seen rendering of a procession of increasingly
sophisticated hominins, starting with an apelike knuckle-walker, then
progressing through a series of more upright and less naked
cavemen</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">—each
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">in
turn sporting a more advanced weapon or tool</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">—c</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">ulminating
at last in a suit</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">and</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">tie</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">clad
businessman holding a briefcase.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Few
scientists actually subscribe to such an extreme form of evolutionary
gradualism for humans, because there is really nothing in the fossil
record to suggest anything modern about hominins until at least the
last one million years, and quite possibly until much more recently
than that. Nonetheless, scientists still make frequent application of
evolutionary theory to help account for humanity’s revolutionary
turn. For instance, one popular hypothesis is that humans must have
acquired something that could be called a language gene at a recent
point in their history, giving them the capacity for abstract speech,
and because language would confer a selective advantage, the mutation
and its resulting behaviors have become thoroughly entrenched within
the species. A related suggestion focuses not on language but instead
on intelligence, hypothesizing that there must have been genetic
mutations targeting human neural capacity, giving rise to brains that
can think algorithmically and logically, accounting for the
rationality that distinguishes humans from all the other animals.
Then there is the field of evolutionary psychology, which takes an
even more wide-scale approach to applying evolution to neurology,
proposing the existence of many modules within the human brain, each
the result of selective adaptations that must have arisen from the
survival-and-procreative circumstances of human ancestry.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> One
other application of evolutionary theory to human history targets not
biological change within the species but instead cultural change. The
notion of cultural evolution dates back to Darwin’s time and has
undergone many revisions and comes in a wide variety of flavors, each
attempting to explain modern human society within the framework of
evolutionary principles. The popularity of cultural evolution gained
a boost in the 1970s with the publication of Richard Dawkin’s book
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>The
Selfish Gene</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
which introduced the concept of a </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>meme</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
a proposed gene-analogous entity that can carry cultural ideas and
practices, be replicated and hosted, and compete with other memes for
selective advantage.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
desire to apply evolutionary theory to the human transformation is
certainly understandable. Evolutionary theory, in combination with
genetics, has been extremely successful in describing and explaining
the types of changes that species can undergo, and so what could be
more promising than applying these concepts to the human
transformation, in essence the motherlode of species change.
Nonetheless, there are difficulties.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> First,
the time frame for evolutionary change in modern humans is extremely
narrow, since nearly all the impact of the human transformation has
occurred within just the last fifty to one hundred thousand years.
Significant evolutionary change tends to be much slower and more
gradual, more on the order of hundreds of thousands or even millions
of years, especially in geological environments that are relatively
stable, the condition that exists on Earth in the present age. Lions,
gorillas, ants, etc.—most wild species remain much the same today
as they were many hundreds of thousands of years ago, and in such
circumstances it would be surprising to come across a species
undergoing significant evolutionary alteration in an extremely short
period of time. This concern about time also applies to cultural
evolution, which faces the conundrum of explaining why many modern
cultural changes appear to happen almost instantaneously, a
characteristic that runs counter to typical evolutionary dynamics.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Second,
there is the problem of a lack of specificity. Assume, for instance,
a mutation were introduced into the gazelle population that increased
leg muscle size and sinew strength. This is a biological change that
would create a direct behavioral consequence, namely an increase in
running speed, and in turn, this behavioral consequence would
directly confer a selective advantage, namely the ability to better
survive predator attacks. The chain of events from mutation to
evolutionary impact is unbroken—the evolutionary explanation is
direct and complete—and this is not uncommon for descriptions of
evolutionary change as applied to the plant and animal worlds. In
contrast, hypotheses regarding human language genes or human neural
mutations fail to provide any element of such a direct connection.
The presumption is that the proposed human genetic mutation produces
a physical alteration—maybe a change in vocal cords or in synaptic
connections—but at the present time these presumed physical
alterations remain entirely unspecified. Furthermore, assuming such
alterations could be identified, there would then need to be a
connection from the physical alteration to the resulting language or
intelligence behavior, and given the current state of neuroscience
and the like, such direct connection from vocal cords and neurons to
specified language and intelligence behaviors seems unlikely to be
forthcoming anytime soon. True, such connections might eventually be
discovered—science should be allowed some time to work—but until
these linkages are revealed, such hypotheses must be considered vague
and uncertain as to their correctness.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Finally,
there is the problem of applicability. Evolutionary theory and
genetics describe </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>biological</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
consequences—that is, physical changes in organisms as well as the
resulting impact on organisms’ observable behavior: a brighter
plumage to attract the sexual mate, a louder squawk to ward off the
predator, a sharper tooth to subdue the prey. But the distinctive
features of the human transformation are not in fact physical or
biological, they are instead environmental. There is actually very
little in the way of evidence to suggest that </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
has transformed biologically or physically over the last one hundred
thousand years—biologically speaking, Cro-Magnon humans appear to
be essentially indistinguishable from modern humans—and this is
exactly as might be expected for almost any species over such a short
period of time. In contrast, there is an overwhelming amount of
evidence indicating that the human environment has been transformed
dramatically over that exact same period. Compare the African
savanna, still very much like the original </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
habitat, with the streets of Manhattan, representative of where many
humans live today—you might notice there is a difference.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Of
course observable human behavior has also changed dramatically over
the last one hundred thousand years, and this changed behavior needs
to be accounted for too. But the widespread assumption that there
must be something genetic or neurological underlying these new
behaviors seems to be overlooking an explanation that is more readily
at hand. It is not just changes in biological characteristics that
can produce altered organism behaviors, changes in environmental
circumstances can </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>also</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
produce altered organism behaviors. And in humans, where behaviors
have been changing immensely in recent years, it seems downright odd
to ascribe such changes to the physical and biological realm, where
there is little evidence of any corresponding change at all. It
seems more straightforward and more parsimonious to attribute such
changes to the human environment, which has been transforming just as
radically as the behaviors themselves. Think, for instance, of
driving behavior. On the African savanna one hundred thousand years
ago, </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
would have displayed absolutely no driving behavior at all, and was
this because humans were organically incapable of the activity?
Today, driving behavior among humans is nearly ubiquitous, and is
this because in the intervening years humans have somehow acquired
the physical capacity? Why not instead state the more obvious, that
humans did not display driving behavior one hundred thousand years
ago because there was nothing in the environment to drive, and that
humans display driving behavior in abundance today because
automobiles have become a foremost feature in the human scene.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> If
evolutionary theory explains the impact of </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>biological</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
characteristics and the behaviors resulting from those
characteristics, and if the human transformation is marked by a
radical change in </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>environmental</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
circumstances and the altered behaviors resulting from those
circumstances, then does evolutionary theory even apply to the case
of the human transformation? Is this perhaps just a misuse of the
tool? Are we stubbornly pounding a square peg into a round hole?</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> If
we fear that the application of evolutionary theory to the human
transformation might indeed be a case of pounding a square peg into a
round hole, then a corrective course of action would be to modify the
shape of the peg. Note that the evolutionary process is defined by a
collection of concepts—such as organism, environment, fitness,
mutation and selection—and these concepts are described as
interacting with one another in the regulative way that defines the
process. But is evolution the </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>only</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
process that can be defined by these concepts? In other words, can
these concepts be rearranged somehow, can they be described as
interacting in an alternative way? Is there room here to be a bit
more creative, to effectively alter the shape of the peg?</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> To
analyze the evolutionary process and its underlying components in a
bit more detail, let’s consider a scenario in which the geological
environment is essentially stable and mostly isolated—not much
unlike the circumstances existing on the Galapagos Islands when the
young Darwin visited during the voyage of the </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Beagle</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.
Biological change in such an environment would be essentially driven
by two different forms of organism mutation. First, some species,
with survival-and-procreative characteristics that fit well to the
given environment, will tend to flourish, while other species, with
characteristics not so well suited, will tend to disappear. Of course
in a stable and isolated environment, this form of change will
eventually trend towards an equilibrium, leaving biological change to
then happen more frequently by way of the second form of mutation, by
way of random genetic variation. And here too, fitness to the
environment will determine the likely course of events, with gene
mutations that increase an organism’s survival-and-procreative
chances more likely to gain hold than gene mutations that do not.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> From
this description—filled with words such as </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>trend</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>likely</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>random</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
and </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>chances</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">—we
begin to see the reason why the evolutionary process tends to be more
slow and gradual, especially in environments that are relatively
stable. The prospect of success for mutations in this scenario, the
strength of their fitness, depends not on a targeted certainty but
instead on probability. No one mutation, though it indeed be
advantaged, is guaranteed particular success—the gazelle with the
larger muscle mass and greater sinew strength will indeed be faster,
and yet might nonetheless be felled. What is </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>natural</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
about natural selection is in large degree this reliance upon random
processes and probability; survival of the fittest is primarily a
function of the law of large numbers. Thus the evolutionary process
appears to have much in common with the workings of a
house-advantaged casino, where with only a few customers playing over
just a few nights, the casino might not turn a profit, but given a
multitude of customers playing over an abundance of time, the casino
is eventually going to thrive.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> There
are of course other scenarios. For instance, environments are not
always stable and isolated, and evolutionary change tends to be more
dramatic at times of major environmental shifts—such as after
asteroid hits or volcanic eruptions. But in general, the same
principles still apply. Whatever environment is given, the organisms
within that environment will mutate through survival-and-procreative
trials and through genetic variation, with the probabilities
underlying natural selection gradually nudging the organisms towards
a better environmental fit.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Such
descriptions highlighting the evolutionary process and its underlying
components are well known and have been highly successful in
explicating various cases of biological and species change. So the
question to ask now is, does anything about these descriptions
correspond to the case of the human transformation? Do the components
of the evolutionary process have correlations in the observable
features of the human turn? Do we recognize any elements of
randomness and chance, is there a heavy reliance upon the law of
large numbers? What features of the human transformation might be
described as being stable, and what features do we recognize as
undergoing sustained mutation? Or to put the entire matter a bit
cheekily, if evolutionary theory were the gene, and the human
transformation were the surrounding environment, what can we say
about the degree of fitness?</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Here
is what I would propose. The process underlying the human
transformation can indeed be described with the exact same components
used to describe biological evolution—that is to say, organism,
environment, fitness, mutation and selection—but in the description
of the human transformation these components take on exchanged roles
and operate with one another in entirely different ways, producing an
underlying process that in many respects runs </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>counter</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
to the evolutionary process, that </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>opposes</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
evolution’s effects. Thus the human transformation can be described
as not being evolutionary at all, but in fact much more like its
opposite. The human transformation is really evolution turned inside
out.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> First,
note that the focus in the case of the human transformation</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
is on just one type of organism</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">—here
when we say </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>organism</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
we mean specifically </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>human</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
organism and all its differential effects. In evolutionary
descriptions, the environment might be taken specifically, but the
organisms within that environment are usually considered collectively
and much the same. Thus</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
we can speak of fitness to the environment as a </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><i>general</i></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
rule and not make exceptions for any </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">kind.
We </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">can
speak of environments reaching equilibrium without </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">worrying
about how one particular species might continuously destroy</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
the balance.</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
The</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
characteristics of biological evolution are </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">therefore
operative for </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">every
type of organism, </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">whereas
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">the
characteristics of the human transformation are privileged to just
one species. </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">In
the human transformation, no other kind of organism directly takes a
role in the ongoing action, no other species has a similar impact as
humans do. The human transformation is essentially a one-species
show.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Second—and
perhaps this is the most important point—take notice of what is
stable and what is mutating in the human transformation. In the
scenario outlined above depicting biological evolution, it was
assumed that it was the environment that was stable, and that the
organisms within that environment underwent sustained mutation,
through both survival-and-procreative trials and through genetic
variation. In the human transformation, however, these roles are
reversed. As has been said previously, there is no clearcut evidence
and no clearcut reason to assume that humans have changed physically
or genetically over say the last one hundred thousand years, any
genetic drift could be taken as slight and insignificant. And thus
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
today is essentially the same as </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
from many years ago—biologically speaking, the organism has
remained almost entirely stable. The surrounding environment, on the
other hand, well, that is a much different story—the surrounding
environment has been anything </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>but</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
stable. From fire pits and animal skins and makeshift shelters to
electricity and automobiles and towering skyscrapers, humans have
been mutating their surroundings in the most massive of ways. There
is almost no place left on this entire planet not retouched by human
hands, and in the locations where humans typically live, such as in
numerous modern cities, nature has been practically expunged from
view, replaced everywhere by a relentless reconstruction, a
reconstruction targeted always towards human benefit. This
fundamental difference between biological evolution and the human
transformation cannot be emphasized strongly enough. In biological
evolution, the organisms mutate towards the best environment fit; in
the human transformation, the environment is being mutated to achieve
the best organism fit.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Furthermore,
the concepts of fitness and selection, as operative in the human
transformation as they are in biological evolution, are nonetheless
of an altered nature and produce a much faster paced result. Humans
mutate their environment primarily for the purpose of increasing
their survival-and-procreative prospects—that is to say, for the
purpose of increasing human fitness. Controlled fire, clothing,
structured weapons, and all that then follows—nearly every
environmental change has been targeted towards improving human
robustness. The effectiveness of these endeavors is attested to by
the fact that there are now eight billion people living on the
planet, and that nearly every square inch of the earth’s surface
has been made hospitable for humankind. But also take note of this:
these environmental mutations, so spectacularly successful for the
human species, they have been in no way random. The success of these
mutations has not been dependent upon probability. The human
transformation is not a consequence of the law of large numbers.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> When
humans attempt to make an environmental change, they do not put forth
a multitude of random variations and then wait to see which one works
out the best. What a bizarre approach this would be of making
shelters, for instance, trying out hundreds of haphazard
architectures and arbitrary materials and then observing which
experiments tend to stand up and which experiments tend to fall down;
or worse yet, observing which of these shelters’ inhabitants better
survive and procreate, and which of these shelters’ inhabitants
tend to disappear. It is not that shelter creation could not be
accomplished in this manner, at least in theory—it is after all the
tried-and-true method of biological evolution—but arriving at an
effective house in this way would take a great deal more time and do
considerably less to advance the immediate fitness of this one
particular species. Thus instead of engaging in random trials, humans
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>target</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
their environmental mutations and they </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>anticipate</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
the results. Humans do not make their selection after the fact, they
prejudge their selection at the time of the change. Therefore
selection in the human transformation is not </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>natural</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
selection, it is not a child of randomness and not a function of
probability. The word we are searching for is </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>artificial</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">—artificial
selection, artificial construction. </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Artificial</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
is the word that captures the two critical aspects of selection in
the human transformation, namely that this selection involves both a
restructuring of the given environment as well an eschewal of any
randomness. This is not to say that every human environmental change
is successful—indeed a good many are not—but an unsuccessful
environmental change is a consequence of an error in judgement, a
mistake, it is not an unfortunate spin of a random wheel.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Another
characteristic of artificial selection that distinguishes it from its
biological counterpart is that artificial selection can be accretive.
In the human transformation, most environmental mutations have
expanded upon previous mutations, enhancing the original in both
breadth and depth. Consider, for instance, the first manmade articles
of clothing, and then take a good look at what we wear today. Picture
the first tools invented for harvesting crops, and then visit the
machines in a modern farmer’s shed. Plus environmental mutations
can be immediately copied, copied to almost any degree—the
effectiveness of one can become the sudden impetus to the
effectiveness of thousands, or even millions, of others. And today
almost no environmental mutation is complete in and of itself, but
instead serves as a link in a hierarchical chain. Look at a house, an
airplane, an entire highway system, and then consider all the
connective parts of which these artifacts are composed. These
accumulative and dependent characteristics stand in sharp contrast
with those of natural selection, where nearly every
survival-and-procreative trial and nearly every random genetic
mutation is essentially an independent event.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Of
the observable consequences of this non-evolutionary process
underlying the human transformation, perhaps none is more striking
than its awe-inspiring speed. Not constrained by the lumbering
characteristics of biology, not held back by the usually glacial
movements of geology, and not delayed by the vicissitudes of random
chance, the human transformative process works many orders of
magnitude faster than its evolutionary counterpart. This is why there
is such a manifest difference in the timescales underlying, on the
one hand, biological/evolutionary events, where significant change
typically plays out over the course of millions of years, and on the
other hand, human events, where significant change has been happening
in a mere fraction of that time, and at an accelerating pace.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> In
summary, the process underlying the human transformation is composed
of the very same elements as the process underlying biological
evolution, but in the human transformation these elements come
together in an entirely different way, producing a new kind of
process with a very different impact. It is a process that favors
just one type of organism to the exclusion of all the rest. It is a
process that exchanges the mutative roles of organism and
environment. It is a process in which the selective drive towards
fitness disengages from the vagaries of chance, and it is a process
that generates accumulative and accelerating change. It is a process
that in many respects runs so counter to biological evolution that it
can be considered evolution’s opposite, even to the degree that it
effectively nullifies many of evolution’s constraints.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> It
is perhaps not entirely surprising to think that the process
underlying the human transformation would be in some way different
than the process underlying biological evolution. Humans are after
all clearly unique within the animal kingdom, and to chalk up that
uniqueness to only some standard evolutionary processes was always
going to seem a little underwhelming, given the immensity of the
consequences. We expect that unusual outcomes will be precipitated by
unusual causes, and so we anticipate that there will be </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>something</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
different behind the human story. But to say that the human
transformation runs </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>counter</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
to biological evolution, to say that it </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>opposes</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
evolution’s effects, that claim might take one aback at first,
might seem as though it is pushing matters a bit too far. And yet it
is this opposition that is the key to understanding much about
humanity’s unique and current situation, and is particularly
crucial for understanding the concept of human freedom.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> To
see why this is so, we need to take a moment to consider the powerful
constraints that biological evolution imposes upon the organisms that
fall under its domain. The most obvious constraint is that organisms
are almost entirely dependent upon their environmental circumstances,
with extremely limited ability to override the given conditions.
Having evolved to fit to a particular environment, a species and its
organisms will struggle mightily when that environment changes or
disappears. Biological history is chock-full of extinctions driven by
such environmental transitions—for instance, the dinosaurs, long
abundant and long dominant upon this planet, disappeared practically
overnight in the dramatically changed circumstances following a
massive asteroid hit. Environmental dependency also limits a species’
geographical range—sea creatures must live in the sea, forest
dwellers must live where there are trees, etc. This is why </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
was limited to certain parts of Africa until around fifty thousand
years ago. The species was fit for that particular kind of
environment, but not fit for almost any other.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> One
might wonder at this point why organisms in general do not attempt to
alter their surroundings to make their circumstances more suitable to
themselves, instead of acquiescing to what the given environment
provides. There are examples of tentative movements in this
direction: birds reconstruct environmental materials into nests,
beavers do the same to construct dams, etc. But these behaviors
appear to be the result of evolutionary pressures, and thus once
successfully in place, these behaviors do not get generalized, but
instead become rigid and attached to the given environment. The
problem here is that evolution is the most demanding of taskmasters.
The need to survive and procreate becomes so overwhelming for each
organism that it effectively hijacks every aspect of the organism’s
being, leaving essentially no latitude for discovering any
alternative approaches. Remember that evolutionary fitness is a
function of the law of large numbers, where even the slightest change
in probability can lead to a dramatically different long-term
outcome, and it would seem that any behavioral effort not acutely
focused upon survival and procreation is bound to become a loser in
the long-term game. We have noted previously how animal behavior is
remarkably similar across species and across time, and this is mostly
because all animal behavior shares this laser-like focus upon the
need to survive and procreate. This extends so far as to cementing an
animal’s perceptual characteristics, where environmental features
such as food, water, predators, rivals and conspecifics invariably
achieve the utmost in foregrounded attention, whereas almost every
other aspect of the environment—that is, every aspect not directly
concerned with survival and procreation—dissolves into background
noise. The background environment does have a great deal of helpful
information to offer—as humans have been discovering over the last
several thousand years—but for every other species the background
environment goes almost entirely unnoticed. An organism striving to
survive will keep its eye open for predators, but not for the phases
of the moon. An organism feeling the urge to procreate will be keenly
attuned to a conspecific partner, but not to the symmetries in the
surrounding landscape. Thus the evolutionary mechanism has the
self-perpetuating effect of compelling its participants into a rigid
adherence to evolution’s rules. Evolution severely limits an
organism’s perceptual and behavioral freedom.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> It
is important to recognize at this point that humans too—and not
that long ago—were limited in this exact same way. As pure animals,
humans were entirely bound by evolution’s constraints. Therefore
the most important aspect of the human transformation has been the
loosening of these binds, a loosening that could not be achieved by
just any random characteristic, but instead by a process directly
countering evolution’s constrictive effects. The primary mechanism
of this loosening has been to turn the mutative formula around, with
humans altering their surroundings instead of waiting to be altered
themselves. Originally fit just for the African plains, humans have
conquered colder climates with the mutative benefits of fire,
clothing and shelters; have conquered the expansive seas with the
transformative advantages of ships and submarines; have conquered,
most outrageously, even the darkness of space and the distant reach
of the moon, with the modifying aid of space ships, helmets and
suits. In fact, so successful have humans become at bending their
surroundings to their own personal needs, that few today would find
themselves at all comfortable left to their own devices on the
original African plains.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Furthermore,
at the core of these environmental alterations stands a perceptual
awareness that has clearly expanded from what humans experienced
before, when every ounce of their attention was given strictly to the
immediate needs of survival and procreation. Humans do still retain
much of this survival-and-procreative awareness—food, drink, sex,
rivalries, etc. still garner a great deal of human attention. But
humans, unlike every other kind of organism, are no longer </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>restricted</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
to these perceptions. Today humans perceive a great deal more about
their surrounding environment, they have slowly but surely had their
blinders removed. Humans can keep an eye open for predators, and
still observe the phases of the moon. Humans can remain keenly
attuned to a conspecific partner, and yet be aware of the symmetries
in the surrounding landscape. In consequence of this greater
perceptual freedom, humans have built up a broader awareness of the
pattern, structure and form contained within the spaces around them,
and they have made use of this broader awareness to reconstruct so
many different aspects of their surrounding world.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> None
of this yet explains how and why humans first began the process of
altering their environment, or how humans first became perceptually
aware of the environment’s expanded potential—this is a topic
that will be taken up in great detail later on. But for now it is
enough to recognize that these characteristics of the human
transformation work to nullify the constraints of biological
evolution. By mutating the environment through artificial
reconstruction, by perceiving into the surroundings beyond just
evolutionary necessity, humans have gained for themselves an
unprecedented level of biological freedom, a freedom with
revolutionary and immense consequence. Today humans can </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>sense</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
this freedom, they have even given it a name—it is called </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>free
will</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.
But it is important to understand that free will is not something
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">neurological
or psychological or even philosophical</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.
Human freedom is derived from the entirely observable actions of
humans reconstructing their environment to their own benefit, and
from the entirely observable consequence that humans have largely
unshackled themselves from the chains of biological evolution. Unlike
every other species, and unlike humans from not that long ago, humans
today find themselves no longer evolution bound.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> To
say that humans were once pure animal implies that the phrase no
longer applies. But of course humans are still animal, that part of
the terminology must remain intact—humans are born, humans die,
humans retain all the usual animal needs and instincts. So in the
phrase </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>pure
animal</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
it is the word </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>pure</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
that must disappear, implying in turn that humans in their modern
circumstances are to be described as animal </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>and</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
something else. This something else should capture what has been
added because of the human transformation, capture what distinguishes
modern humans from all the other animals and distinguishes modern
humans from their former purely animal selves. Thus I would propose
that modern humans be characterized by the phrase </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>animal
and construct</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> The
term </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>animal</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
of course requires no further explanation. The term </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>construct</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
has been chosen because it has dual effect, capturing the two
essential and related aspects of the modern human condition:</span></font></font></font></p>
<ol>
<li><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">The artificial reconstruction of the human environment; and</span></font></font></font></p></li>
<li><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">The novel behaviors resulting from that artificial reconstruction.</font></font></font></p></li>
</ol>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> What
determines the non-animal aspect of humans today is the non-natural
setting in which humans live. Ironically, many humans are scarcely
aware that they live in an artificial environment—a surrounding of
clothes, houses, schools, cars and so on seems entirely “natural,”
having been the default for almost everyone from birth. But in fact
there is almost nothing of nature left in the human
environment—literally everywhere one looks one sees instead
artificial reconstruction. To get a sense of just how enormous and
just how widespread this alteration has become, consider the North
American continent and what it must have looked like just a few
hundred years ago, when the human impact was still minimal, the land
a nearly untouched natural splendor—mountains, prairies, swamps,
woodlands, rivers, streams, nature in its most pristine abundance.
Now take a good look at what the North American continent has become
today. All across its vast area we now find a blanketing cornucopia
of artifacts: roads, houses, towers, wires, pipes, fences, shopping
malls, office complexes, airports, bridges, tunnels—the catalog of
construction goes on and on. Plus think of all the large cities,
where almost nothing remains of what stood there before. And it is
not just the expansiveness of all this change, it is also its detail
and depth. Think of just one apartment building, then think of just
one floor in that building, then think of just one room on that one
floor, and then count all the room’s artificial contents:
television, carpeting, air-conditioner, furniture, utensils,
pictures, books, computers—once again, the catalog of construction
goes on and on. We humans live in an ocean of artificiality, we find
it “natural” only because we are so thoroughly drenched in its
ubiquitous effect.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> As
extensive as all this environmental construction has become, perhaps
even more pervasive are the behavioral changes this construction has
provoked. Every environmental mutation prompts a human behavioral
consequence. Controlled fire impacts the way humans prepare and eat
food, clothing changes the range of human movement, etc. Indeed it is
something of an ongoing cycle—an environmental change prompts a
behavioral change, which in turn provides the means for further
environmental change, and thus the mutations, both environmental and
behavioral, accumulate. Today the enormous catalog of artificiality
in the human environment is matched by an equally immense catalog of
newfound and unnatural behaviors: cooking, driving, reading, writing,
calculating, showering, shaving, voting, changing channels, changing
clothes, playing video games—once again, the list goes on and on.
And every one of these newfound human behaviors can be traced back to
some new artifact introduced into the human environment, something
that did not exist there before. We drive because there are cars on
the street, we read because there are books on the shelf, we shave
because there are razors in the cabinet. Thus we see how the word
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>construct</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
and its two related components—the reconstruction of the human
environment, and the behaviors those reconstructions engender—this
captures exactly the amount of change that has been layered onto
humanity over the course of the human transformation. For if we were
to remove every artificial feature that now exists in the human
environment, and if we were to suppress every human behavior that can
trace its origin back to those removed artifacts, then all that would
then remain would be our biological and evolutionary selves, all that
would then remain would be the pure animal that </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
once was.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Finally
it should be noted that the circumstance of humans as both animal and
construct creates something of a paradoxical conflict—these two
aspects of modern humanity do not always play so well together. The
animal aspect of humanity has the insistent effect of tugging humans
backwards in time, towards an era of more restrictive biological need
and of temporal and spatial immediacy. Humans today still experience
the pressing urges of food, sex, dominance and safety, betraying the
species’ survival-and-procreative underpinnings, and we may not
fully recognize how much of our modern living has been slyly arranged
to serve as an outlet for these evolutionary demands. Hunting, org
charts, sports rivalries, beauty pageants: tear away all the
sublimation and what remains are ardent attempts to scratch the itch
of an unquenched animal need. Thoreau understood that need, having
famously included a passage in </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Walden</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
about happening upon a woodchuck on the path and wanting to seize it
in his hands and devour it raw. There is nothing surprising or
maladjusted about any of these desires, actions and behaviors, they
are the inevitable consequence of humans still retaining all the
characteristics of a biological organism.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> At
the same time, the constructive aspect of humanity propels humans in
the opposite direction, towards expanding innovation and towards a
broader temporal and spatial awareness. Environmental reconstruction
does require diligent and persistent effort, but the long-term
rewards of that effort have now become apparent to almost everyone—a
greater satisfaction of needs, abundant physical comforts, a
counterweight against boredom, and a sense of forward purpose. Plus
we should not forget the most </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>fundamental</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
reward that human construction bestows, namely a much greater degree
of human freedom. The most challenging obstacle on this path towards
human progress appears to be the overcoming of rudimentary instinct.
To expand their horizons beyond just the here and now, humans must
build up the discipline to postpone their immediate needs, must find
the strength to delay their gratifications. Abstinence, austerity,
rigor, sobriety, monasticism, willpower—so many different forms of
asceticism, all targeted to suppressing the beast within. These
strivings are, in the most fundamental sense, entirely unnatural, but
for all that they are in no way to be derided. Human progress appears
to be a noble quest, a swimming against the entropic tide, an
endeavor to build an actual paradise here on the planet Earth.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> This
inner human conflict between animal and construct is both challenging
and relentless, and it is a conflict that has been growing ever more
intense since the first days of the human turn. But this is a
conflict that is unavoidable for a species that has been fashioned by
two entirely different processes, processes that work to oppose each
other and that run in counter directions. It is the inevitable
consequence of a species originally forged in the long-running
furnace of biological evolution, and now so lately and so thoroughly
reshaped by a process that works to defy all of evolution’s
effects.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
</body>
</html>Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-61669360508904656642023-03-04T10:08:00.001-05:002023-03-04T12:26:10.865-05:00The Riddle of Humanity<!DOCTYPE html>
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<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">1.
The Riddle of Humanity</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> The
human species, our species, is extraordinary. There are perhaps an
endless variety of ways to justify that statement. Consider for
instance the immense catalog of human construction: skyscrapers,
bridges, radio towers, electrical grids, millions of cars, millions
of houses—a list that barely begins to scratch the surface. Or
contemplate the effective manner in which the members of our species
can migrate and connect, far-ranging travel by train, ship and
airplane, opening personal vistas onto essentially the entire planet.
Or ponder the efficient means by which we now communicate on a daily
basis, including hundreds of thousands of messages—written, spoken
and visual—hastening around the globe each and every second, the
life blood of businesses and so many vibrant institutions, from
schools to governments to social networks. Or think of the
unfathomably rich scientific knowledge we have come to possess
regarding our surrounding world: relativity, quantum theory, the
periodic table, evolution, genetics, to name only the most basic
components of our understanding. Or reflect upon the entire tableau
of the creative arts—so many dazzling instances of literature,
music, painting and more, artifacts that entertain us, uplift us, and
hold a mirror to ourselves.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Of
course there are problems and challenges too—poverty, war,
environmental destruction—and it remains unclear whether the glory
of humanity might eventually (and all too suddenly) become the
tragedy of humanity. But those challenges cannot negate the enormity
of the transformation this species has already wrought. It is a
transformation that began not that long ago—not that long ago, that
is, on any biological or geological timescale. It is a transformation
that arose from a narrowly confined set of climates and habitats in
which the members of this species lived out their lives as nothing
more than simple beasts, no different in nature and behavior from the
wild animals we observe today. The history of that
transformation—from the first use of fire and clothing, through the
domestication of livestock and grains, through the pyramids and the
Parthenon, through the Copernican and Industrial Revolutions, to the
many-faceted and far-reaching discoveries of the twentieth
century—that history alone would be jaw-dropping enough. But
perhaps more stunning still is the realization that this
transformation continues unabated through the present day, and
indeed, as appears to have always been the case, it continues at a
steadily accelerating pace.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Everywhere
one looks, one sees a human environment overflowing with the most
amazing complexities, an environment brimming with intricacies that
would have been unimaginable in any previous era. And everywhere one
looks, one sees humans nimbly navigating those complexities and
intricacies, displaying skills that would have been inconceivable to
any prior age. Watch the child poking her fingers into her electronic
learning toy. Marvel at the teenager high-fiving his friend in
virtual space. Stand over the shoulder of the animator constructing
landscapes more detailed and more dynamic than any actual landscape
could manage to sustain. And listen to the men and women clacking at
their keyboards, programming machines to perform a broad assortment
of tasks, from the purest forms of drudgery to the most delicate of
medical procedures. We find ourselves literally awash in an
environmental and behavioral transformation, one that bathes us ever
more thoroughly with each passing day, and one that has removed us
far far away from our former purely animal selves.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
odd thing is, we humans are mostly immune to any sense of awe and
wonderment regarding our own species. Having been born into these
circumstances, having learned from a young age to speak, to read, to
write, to calculate; having driven a car, having taken airplane
flights, having traversed hundreds of shops, offices and boulevards;
having rocked the town in the latest fashion, having anesthetized and
healed our broken bones, having watched rockets shooting into space;
having been exposed to all this and much much more, we are not so apt
to be astounded by such events and artifacts—they are, after all,
simply the everyday material of our everyday lives. Even the
novelties, even those rich changes that still rain down upon us on a
nearly continuous basis, even this nascent fuel of our ongoing human
transformation, even this manages to escape our amazement. Electronic
infant toys, virtual reality, clamorous animations, robotics—these
may be relatively new to us, but let’s face it, they are already
becoming routine.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> If
we want to capture a sense of amazement regarding our own species and
to experience an awareness of just how outrageously atypical humanity
has become, we need to gain some context and perspective. We need to
take a step back from ourselves as it were, disengage from our
everyday lives, and view the human transformation through a lens of
time and space, through a lens of detachment, like an audience
watching a movie. As a hint of what I mean here, there is an Italian
animated film from 1976, </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Allegro
Non Troppo</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
that contains a sequence providing an impressionistic version of the
type of portrayal we seek. The sequence begins with a soft drink
bottle tossed onto a barren planet, with the planet’s first cells
of life germinating and multiplying within the bottle’s residue
liquid, the cells eventually slopping past the bottle’s opening and
onto the planet’s surface. What follows is a whimsical march of
evolution and progress, from simple and strange organisms, to ever
more complex and ever more numerous organisms, including a
mammal-like creature that transforms into a primate-like creature
that transforms into a hominin-like creature. Thus from the quietude
of its beginning, the planet grows increasingly more crowded, more
dynamic, more frightful, more sublime, culminating at last in an
immense eruption of human-built structures, dominating the once
barren landscape—and all this set to the strains of Ravel’s
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Bolero</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
from its hauntingly simple opening melody to its overwhelmingly
crashing crescendo.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Allegro
Non Troppo</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
is of course more fanciful than accurate, but today we do have access
to a similar portrayal, one that is not fanciful but is instead
scientific, comprehensive, and germane to the purpose at hand. I am
speaking of David Christian’s notion of Big History, especially as
set forth in his approachable book </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Origin
Story: A Big History of Everything</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.
Big History describes events that have taken place from the Big Bang
(the beginning of time) through the present day, and highlights the
major transformations—</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>thresholds</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
they are termed—that have shaped our world across that expanse,
such as the formation of the chemical elements, the emergence of
galaxies and solar systems, the genesis of single-cell life and the
not-so-easy transition to multi-cellular big life, and then the
advent of humans and all the stages of that species’ remarkable
transformation. Big History analyzes these events through the lenses
of complexity, energy and entropy, and through a search for the
presence of goldilocks conditions, the just-right circumstances that
allow for a spawning of the next big transition. Big History is a
fifty-thousand-foot view overlooking a 13.8-billion-year process. For
humans, Big History provides a large dose of context and perspective.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> To
that end, </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Origin
Story</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
is noteworthy in three important respects, each of which will warrant
some further discussion:</span></font></font></font></p>
<ol>
<li><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><b>Timeline
and timescale</b></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Origin
Story</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
outlines the latest scientific knowledge and evidence regarding the
timeline of the cosmic and planetary events covered in its pages,
and furthermore the book offers a sense of scale for that timeline.
A sense of scale is critical here, both for an understanding of the
immense temporal expanse that took place before the arrival of
humans, as well as for an appreciation of the relative sliver of
time during which the human species has achieved the entirety of its
transformational turn.</span></font></font></font></p>
<li><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><b>Human
thresholds</b></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.
There are eight major thresholds enumerated by Big History, the last
three of which are human generated. It would be tempting to chalk up
this high percentage of human discussion to an anthropocentric bias,
but </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Origin
Story</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
provides ample argument and abundant evidence that the human
transitions are indeed seismic, unprecedented, and on a level with
the other cosmic and evolutionary milestones on the list.</span></font></font></font></p>
<li><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><b>Impetus
to human reassessment</b></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.
Nearly all the factual evidence presented within </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Origin
Story</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
represents scientific knowledge crystallized only since around the
middle of the twentieth century, with much of that knowledge
directly challenging the traditional ways in which humans have
perceived themselves. The old models, still entrenched within the
collective consciousness, no longer apply.</span></font></font></font></p>
</ol>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> The
first respect in which </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Origin
Story</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
is noteworthy is in its handling of cosmological, geological and
biological timelines and in its acknowledgement that human thinking
is still trying to adjust to the enormous scale that underlies these
timelines. When Charles Darwin’s </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>On
the Origin of Species</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
was first published in 1859, it disquieted the public not only for
its evolutionary theories and their implication for human origins, it
created unease also for its suggestion that the age of the earth and
universe was immense, perhaps hundreds of millions of years. In the
mid-nineteenth century, it was still hardly conceivable that the
interval of prehistory could utterly dwarf that of the known human
era. But as scientific evidence continued to mount over the next
century and a half, and as that evidence became more and more
precise, Darwin’s suggestion proved to be inaccurate only to the
extent of its underestimation. Easy to conceive or not, the age of
the known human era turns out to be as nothing compared to the age of
the universe.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> By
the late twentieth century, radiometric and cosmological dating
techniques had progressed to the point that confirmed and accepted
timelines were taking shape—for the cosmos, for the solar system,
for life, and for humans. Agreement crystallized around the notion
that the universe had started with a singularity event, the Big Bang,
approximately 13.8 billion years ago, followed by a series of
cosmological and biological milestones that bridged the gap to the
present day. </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Origin
Story</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
charts these milestones and their approximate dates, most of which
are reproduced in the following table:</span></font></font></font></p>
<center>
<table width="392" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0">
<col width="206"/>
<col width="166"/>
<thead>
<tr valign="top">
<th width="206" height="30" bgcolor="#bdc0bf" style="background: #bdc0bf; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue-Bold"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt"><b>Event</b></font></font></font></p>
</th>
<th width="166" bgcolor="#bdc0bf" style="background: #bdc0bf; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue-Bold"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt"><b>Approximate
Date</b></font></font></font></p>
</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td width="206" height="30" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Big
Bang</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="166" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">13.8
billion years ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="206" height="30" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">First
Forging of Chemical Elements</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="166" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">13.2
billion years ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="206" height="30" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Formation
of the Solar System</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="166" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">4.5
billion years ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="206" height="30" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Earliest
Life on Earth</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="166" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">3.8
billion years ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="206" height="30" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">First
Large Life on Earth</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="166" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">600
million years ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="206" height="30" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Dinosaurs
Extincted by Asteroid Event</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="166" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">65
million years ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="206" height="30" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Hominin
Branch Splits from Other Great Apes</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="166" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">7
million years ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="206" height="30" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Appearance
of </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="166" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">200,000
years ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="206" height="30" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Farming
and Civilizations Begin</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="166" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">10,000
years ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="206" height="30" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Scientific
and Industrial Revolutions Begin</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="166" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">400
years ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="206" height="30" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Humans
Land on the Moon</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="166" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">50
years ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</center>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> 13.8
billion years is an extremely long period of time, longer than we
humans can easily grasp and internalize, given the length of an
average lifespan. For that matter, two hundred thousand years is also
an extremely long period of time, perhaps a tad more fathomable than
13.8 billion years, but still outside the ken of normal human
experience. So it is perhaps difficult for us to truly appreciate
that there is a significant difference between the two.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> To
help its readers absorb the timescales involved, </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Origin
Story</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
offers an adjusted timeline in which all the approximate dates for
events are divided by one billion years, meaning that on the adjusted
scale, the Big Bang is assumed to have occurred only about 13 years
and 9 months ago. This certainly makes it easier for us to fathom the
interval, although it might give the mistaken impression that the
event is not that far removed, an impression that can be dispelled by
the realization that on the adjusted timescale, the average human
lifespan plays out over a mere two seconds. Accordingly, the
following table repeats the one from above, but now with the
approximate dates adjusted by a division of one billion years:</span></font></font></font></p>
<center>
<table width="408" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0">
<col width="230"/>
<col width="158"/>
<thead>
<tr valign="top">
<th width="230" height="30" bgcolor="#bdc0bf" style="background: #bdc0bf; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue-Bold"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt"><b>Event</b></font></font></font></p>
</th>
<th width="158" bgcolor="#bdc0bf" style="background: #bdc0bf; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue-Bold"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt"><b>Approximate
Date / 1 Billion Years</b></font></font></font></p>
</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td width="230" height="30" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Big
Bang</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="158" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">13
years and 9 months ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="230" height="30" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">First
Forging of Chemical Elements</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="158" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">13
years and 2 months ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="230" height="30" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Formation
of the Solar System</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="158" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">4
years and 6 months ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="230" height="30" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Earliest
Life on Earth</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="158" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">3
years and 9 months ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="230" height="30" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">First
Large Life on Earth</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="158" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">7
months ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="230" height="30" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Dinosaurs
Extincted by Asteroid Event</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="158" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">24
days ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="230" height="30" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Hominin
Branch Splits from Other Great Apes</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="158" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">2
and 1/2 days ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="230" height="30" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Appearance
of </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="158" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">1
hour and 40 minutes ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="230" height="30" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Farming
and Civilizations Begin</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="158" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">5
minutes ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="top">
<td width="230" height="30" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Scientific
and Industrial Revolutions Begin</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="158" style="border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">12
seconds ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="230" height="30" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Humans
Land on the Moon</font></font></font></p>
</td>
<td width="158" bgcolor="#f5f5f5" style="background: #f5f5f5; border: none; padding: 0in"><p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2">
<font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">1
and 1/2 seconds ago</font></font></font></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</center>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> These
comparisons help make it clear that cosmological, biological and
human events play out on very different timescales. Cosmological
forces are enormous not just in their spatial scope but also in their
temporal reach, with significant events typically measured and
compared in billions of years. Of the 13.8 billion years that have
passed from the Big Bang to the present moment, around 67% of that
time had already been spent when the sun and planets of our solar
system first came into being, and another 5% would be consumed
waiting for the first simple life forms to appear on the planet
Earth.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> By
comparison, the biological/evolutionary timescale is a bit more
compact and dynamic, although still lengthy in absolute terms, with
significant events more typically measured in millions or perhaps
hundreds of millions of years. Even here, leaps of complexity
apparently do not come quickly or easily, for on Earth microbial
single-celled life remained without partner for around three billion
years, consuming another 22% of the overall timeline, leaving only
around 6% for the era of multi-celled organisms and big life (that
is, the size and type of flora and fauna we experience on Earth
today).</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> By
comparison again, human events have played out in a time frame that
appears to be essentially negligible relative to those of its
predecessors. The hominin line has been around for only about 0.05%
of the time of the universe, and </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
our species, has been in existence for only about 0.0015% of the
overall timeline. And although the beginning moment of the human
transformation remains somewhat fuzzy, the first unmistakeable and
abundant evidence for the human revolution, the turn that would put
this species on a path clearly different from that of all the other
species, this dates to around fifty to one hundred thousand years
ago, meaning that nearly every significant event of the human
transformation has taken place over an interval covering only about
0.0005% of the universe’s timeline, a chronological splinter that
would be thought hardly significant in almost any other context.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> The
second respect in which </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Origin
Story</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
is noteworthy is in its straightforward demonstration that the
human-generated transitions of the last one hundred thousand years or
so are of a similar nature and carry similar impact as the
cosmological and biological transitions that went before.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Big
History enumerates eight different thresholds—fundamental changes
that have reshaped a critical aspect of our world: 1. Big Bang
Origins, 2. Stars and Galaxies, 3. Chemical Elements and Molecules,
4. Solar System and Earth, 5. Life, 6. Human Difference, 7.
Agriculture, 8. Modern Revolution. A threshold is signified by
several telltale characteristics. The first and perhaps most obvious
of these is a pronounced leap in complexity, often going hand-in-hand
with a more focused and more enriched use of energy. An increase in
complexity runs counter to the effects of entropy, the tendency for
energy and systems to become more ineffective, more diffuse and more
random over time. Entropy is the default condition of the universe,
and so relentless is its impact that it will ultimately, in a distant
future, become the final fate of the universe. But against this
incessant pull towards entropy, eddies of great complexity can still
occur, localized and chaos-defying leaps of increased pattern,
increased structure and increased form, the indications of a new
threshold. Another characteristic of thresholds is their so-called
goldilocks effects, the just-right conditions that make it possible
for the next leap in complexity to occur—conditions that are not
too hot and not too cold, not too dense and not too sparse, not too
oxygen-rich and not too oxygen-poor, etc.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
first five thresholds—the non-human thresholds—demonstrate these
concepts. The Big Bang and its aftermath, chaotic though it was, was
more complex and more energy infused than the nothingness that
apparently gave birth to it. Then as temperatures cooled to just the
right degree and gravity tugged by just the right amount, clusters of
stars and galaxies began to form, more organized than the tumultuous
foam from which they came. Then in certain dying stars, of just the
right magnitude and of just the right composition, the heavier
chemical elements were fused and exploded into space, giving us
carbon, oxygen and the other elements of the periodic table, as well
as all their molecular potential—an enormous increase in chemical
complexity that undergirds our physical world today. Finally, in
certain star systems, such as our own, and on certain planets, such
as planet Earth, conditions came together in just the right way to
support yet another leap in chemical and dynamic complexity—the
leap to biological life. And on Earth at least, life itself seems to
have contained an impetus towards an ever greater complexity, an ever
greater use of energy, with single-cell life leading eventually to
multi-cellular life and finally to big life—a burgeoning cauldron
of evolutionary forces.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> These
first five thresholds had produced the state of affairs that could be
found on Earth around two hundred thousand years ago, and it was into
this state of affairs that </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
emerged. According to Big History, what then followed were three more
thresholds in rapid succession, all human inspired. But we should
probably pause for a moment and ask ourselves first is this really an
accurate depiction of what took place. Three entire thresholds
dedicated solely to the human species? Are we sure this is not just
an instance of anthropocentric bias? Humans have a natural tendency
to be enamored of their own species and of what that species has
done, and scientists and academicians are as susceptible to this
tendency as anyone else. So is this perhaps the explanation for the
self-assignment of three entire thresholds to the human species, is
this maybe just a case of David Christian running amok, unable to
suppress his admiration for his own kind?</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> To
help answer that question, note that biological life, despite its
abundant variety, has a certain predicability to it. In the animal
kingdom, for instance, due to the constant evolutionary pressure to
survive and to procreate, each organism channels its efforts into
just a few select activities: eating, drinking, avoiding danger,
sexual rivalry, mating, fostering young. You may have noticed that
every documentary that chronicles an animal species follows
essentially the same plot line: the search for food and water, the
warding off of predators, sexual rituals, the fragile course from
birth to adulthood—and then the cycle starts all over again. Thus
animal behavior remains remarkably stable and consistent, across time
and across species. The lions, catfish, crows, beavers, etc. of today
behave essentially the same as did the lions, catfish, crows,
beavers, etc. from hundreds of thousands of years ago. And on the
African savanna, around two hundred thousand years ago, the earliest
instances of </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
could have been anticipated to be no different.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> And
yet by fifty to one hundred thousand years ago, the evidence was
quickly mounting that this species was in fact unlike all the rest.
Control of fire, specialized tools, cave art, larger social
structures (pointing to an almost certain use of abstract language).
By ten thousand years ago, the human difference was unmistakable. The
population was increasing at an unprecedented rate, the use of
environmental resources was taking a quantum leap. The species had by
now spread out around the globe, covering nearly all of Africa and
Eurasia, and having forayed for the first time into Australia and the
Americas. </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
had extincted—other than some small DNA assimilation—all the
other hominin lines. </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
had extincted many of the larger mammals as well. Tools, weapons,
art, cooking, clothing, abstract communication, a more concentrated
use of energy—these were undeniable escalations in behavioral
complexity, escalations for which no other species, at no other time,
had even given a hint. A new threshold had indeed been crossed.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> And
humans were not finished. Around ten thousand years ago, in the
vicinity and ideal conditions of the Fertile Crescent, the species
began to develop agricultural techniques, domesticating certain
grains and unleashing their enriched energy, and harnessing certain
animals and employing their augmented power. Farming paved the way to
larger social structures, to what would eventually become
civilizations. Farming spawned an outpouring of construction, from
colossal examples such as the pyramids and the Acropolis, to more
humble yet indispensable instances, such as thousands and thousands
of abodes. Ships began to sail the seas, carts began to cross the
land, speech began to be written down. By the year 1600, the human
difference had turned into a human domination.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> And
yet humans were still not finished. Around four hundred years ago,
another revolution began to take hold, another massive jump in world
complexity. Spurred by scientific and mathematical methods, such as
those epitomized by Newtonian mechanics, and powered by industrial
invention, such as the burning of fossil fuels, humans began to cram
their surroundings with an unprecedented depth and breadth of
structure: railroads, automobiles, airplanes; factories, terminals,
stadiums; radios, televisions, computers; and now so many massive and
skyscrapered cities, all stuffed with plumbing, traffic and
electricity, intricate dances of infrastructure reaching to the
clouds. By the twentieth century, the extent of human knowledge was
bumping against what was surely the universe’s limits:
sub-particles, relativity, genetics. And perhaps a bit on the darker
side, if there were to remain any doubt about the energies now
employable by this species, note that at one irritable push of a
button, we can potentially annihilate every organism on the planet
Earth, bringing to an abrupt halt what has been more than a three and
a half billion year process.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
is not a normal life form. Even with all anthropocentric bias duly
noted, the fact remains that the human species has utterly
transcended the evolutionary boundaries that have confined every
other instance of biological life. Humanity has earned all the
attention it gets.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> The
third respect in which </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Origin
Story</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
is noteworthy is that it establishes a new narrative regarding
humanity—a new narrative about humanity’s environment, a new
narrative about humanity’s origins, and a new narrative about
humanity’s ongoing history. The first glimpses into this new
narrative were becoming apparent in the nineteenth century, but it
was not until the last half of the twentieth century that the story
emerged fully into view, and thus we find ourselves now, early in the
twenty-first century, still in a period of readjustment, still coming
to grips with the new paradigm. But it should also be obvious by now
that this new narrative does not align to the manner in which humans
have traditionally regarded themselves, meaning that a
self-reassessment is becoming quickly overdue.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> There
have been two well-established traditions for explaining humanity and
for describing humanity’s place within the world. For convenience I
will label the first of these approaches as the </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>religious
tradition</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">,
and I will label the second approach as the </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>philosophical
tradition</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> There
are probably as many religious origin stories as there are religions,
but they do tend to share a common theme. A divine force, often
called God, creates the world and its contents—the earth and the
heavens, the rocks and the streams, the plants and the animals. Then
furthermore God </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>specially</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
creates humans, the specialness intended to account for all the
uniquely human traits—intelligence, language, inventiveness, and
all the rest. And because humans are special and because the world
serves as their domain, it is usually stated or implied that the
world was created shortly before, or alongside, the very first
humans. In some religious traditions, creation is seen as God’s one
and final act, but in many, God continues to play a role in ongoing
events, such as when he sends his only begotten son.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> It
is not my intention to disparage religious thought. I have met too
many people who will mindlessly dismiss religion as being irrational
and backwards, entirely misapprehending the subject. No other animal
species has ever had a religious notion, and neither did humans for a
very long time. Religious thinking is evidence of a striving for
greater understanding, it is a signpost on the road towards human
progress. And furthermore, a study of religious history will reveal
that religions have tended to become more sophisticated, more
complex, and more comprehensive with time, fitting into the overall
theme of human transformation and human advancement. Any honest
effort towards religious striving is to be treated with utmost
respect (just as any selfish push towards fundamentalism is to be
confronted with utmost reproach).</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Nonetheless,
the religious tradition does not hold. The world was not created
alongside humans—in fact, the universe had been in existence for
nearly an eternity before humans came along. The world has not served
solely as a human domain—in the spatial-temporal continuum, humans
barely mark a trace. And as for specialness, humans began as animals,
they were once beasts like so many others—intelligence, language,
inventiveness, and all the rest, in the beginning these were nowhere
to be found. But if all this seems a bit too humbling, humans can
take some comfort in the one apparent compensation, that they in fact
owe divinity not a thing in the way of debt for all that humanity has
now become. Intelligence, language, inventiveness, and all the
rest—these have been entirely human forged.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> Turning
to the philosophical tradition, it seems to have arisen to some
extent out of a dissatisfaction with the religious tradition, as well
as out of a dissatisfaction with the turmoil of human change. In the
philosophical tradition, a creator is not the primary focus. Instead
the world and its events are measured against the apotheosis of a
natural or ideal state, a state that is essentially timeless, a state
in which rationality preferably reigns supreme. Thus humans are
special in this tradition too, for they alone are endowed with an
innate faculty of reason, and the challenge of human experience is to
overcome the strife, the confusion, the disruption of ordinary life,
to attain or to regain a rational equilibrium, to establish a
well-ordered stasis. Such ideas were fundamental to both Plato and
Aristotle, and their influence reached forward into the Age of
Enlightenment, where Descartes, Leibniz, Voltaire, Rousseau and
others could refine and foster the tradition. So persuasive has been
this approach in the shaping of how humans have perceived themselves,
it should be noted that even a philosopher such as Kant, so willing
to fathom and to question almost every other human concept, was
nonetheless willing to accept an innate faculty of reason as simply a
given.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> And
yet as with the religious tradition, the philosophical tradition does
not hold. The natural state of a human is to be purely an animal, a
human’s equilibrium condition is to be evolution bound on the
African plains. Not a stasis, but instead a dynamic artificial
construction has been the driver for vaulting this species to its
more ideal place, and thus it is the turmoil of human change, the
turmoil of human transformation—the strife, the confusion, the
disruption—it is to these we owe the formation of our not-so-innate
reason.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
facts as we currently understand them are these, this is the new
narrative:</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Around
13.8 billion years ago, our world began in a tumultuous burst of
energy. As that world expanded and cooled, stars and galaxies were
formed, followed by the chemical elements. On the planets of some of
these star systems, conditions would allow for life, and this is what
happened on the planet Earth, over three and one half billion years
ago. Biological life on Earth remained simple for quite some time,
but eventually evolved to something more complex, to the types of
plants and animals we are more familiar with today. Sometimes
conditions were chaotic for life—asteroid strikes, temperature
swings, volcanic eruptions—producing mass extinctions followed by
evolutionary explosions. But at other times conditions were more
stable, allowing evolution to take a more gradual course, and it was
during the most recent stable period that hominins first emerged,
leading eventually to </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> If
those earliest </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
individuals possessed any of the behaviors of human modernity, those
behaviors must have been inchoate at best. Life for those earliest
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"><i>Homo
sapiens</i></span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
individuals was focused almost entirely on survival and procreation,
just as to be expected. But it was not too long thereafter that the
signs emerged that this species was in fact extraordinary. From life
as simple hunter-gatherers humans quickly turned to becoming world
conquerers, reconstructing their environment almost constantly along
the way. Populations increased by orders of magnitude, geographical
expansion extended around the globe. Farming, writing, civilization,
seafaring, science, industry—in a steady acceleration, humans kept
building on what they had built before. By the twenty-first century
humans had practically obliterated nature from their view,
substituting in its wake a multitude of sprawling, towering monuments
to artificial pattern, structure and form. Behaviors that were once
evolution bound had now reached an almost unlimited expression:
language, computation, constant innovation. And so deeply had this
species now plumbed the depths of its surrounding world that it was
on the verge of conquering the fundamental building blocks of the
universe, and the fundamental building blocks of life itself.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> The
facts as we currently understand them are these, we must see
ourselves in the light of this new narrative.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> </font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> There
is, however, an irony at the heart of this new narrative. As deeply
as humans have now seen into so many different aspects of their
world—biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, logic—there is
one subject, perhaps the most crucial subject of them all, for which
this species has yet to achieve even the most basic understanding.
That one subject is humanity itself. That is to say, humans do not as
yet understand themselves, and they do not as yet understand what has
engendered their remarkable history.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> Note
how during the last several hundred years—the era of Big History’s
final threshold, the modern revolution—humanity has forged a
complete revision of its understanding regarding almost every feature
and every process underlying the observable world. For instance,
humans have long gazed at the moon, the stars, the planets, the other
contents of the cosmos, have observed the patterns and observed the
aberrations, and have asked questions about what is going on. Why the
regularity? Why the aberrations? What are the relationships between
all these heavenly bodies? What drives the celestial dance? Over the
years there have been suggestions, declarations, arguments,
discussion, and occasionally a bit of insight, but it was not until
the modern era that our knowledge turned deep, sophisticated and
effective, and now we have Newton’s laws of motion and gravity, and
Einstein’s relativity, to help us navigate our way around. Humans
have long pondered the material objects of their surrounding
world—the rocks, the water, the air—have observed each
substance’s unique properties, have noticed the combinatory changes
these substances often undergo, and have asked questions about what
is taking place. What are these things made of? Why are some of them
liquid and some of them solid? Why do they combine in such
transformative and fiery ways? What drives the material dance? </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Over
the years there have been suggestions, </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">declarations</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">,
arguments, discussion, and occasionally a bit of insight, but it was
not until the modern era that our knowledge turned deep,
sophisticated and effective,</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">
and now we have atomic and quantum theory to help us comprehend the
scene. Humans have long contemplated the immense variety of
life—trees, flowers, fish, insects, birds—have watched each
organism’s natural behaviors, have witnessed the births and
witnessed the deaths, and have asked questions about how to explain
these events. Why are there so many different kinds? What is the
purpose behind each organism’s behavior? From where do these
organisms come? What drives the organic dance? </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Over
the years there have been suggestions, declarations, arguments,
discussion, and occasionally a bit of insight, but it was not until
the modern era that our knowledge turned deep, sophisticated and
effective, and now we have </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">evolutionary
theory</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
and </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">genetics
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">to
help us </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">clarify
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">the
</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">living
drama</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> But
note this too, that humans have also long observed themselves. Humans
are aware that they are in many respects just like all the other
living creatures—humans must eat and drink, avoid danger, have sex
and procreate, and rear their young. Humans are also aware that they
are utterly unique—language, intelligence, innovation. And humans
have asked questions about how did this situation come to be. Why are
we both the same and different from all the other animals? From what
do we derive our unique abilities? Is there a purpose to what we have
constructed all around us, and what do we do now? What drives the
human dance? </span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">Over
the years there have been suggestions, declarations, arguments,
discussion, and occasionally a bit of insight, bu</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">t…alas,
even in the modern era, there has been only minimal progress.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> We
do know now more about human history, that temporally speaking this
history has been minuscule compared to everything that went before,
and that consequentially speaking this history has been nothing short
of epic. We know now that we began purely as animals, and that once
the transition was set into motion, the pace of change turned into a
constructive acceleration, leading to the outrageously altered
circumstances we find ourselves in today. But these are only
descriptions, they are not insights into what has shaped the human
dance. These are inventories of what has taken place, they are not
elucidations that can help us understand. When it comes to explaining
the processes underlying human events, when it comes to seeing
deeply, sophisticatedly and effectively into the features that have
epitomized the human transformation, we recognize that there are no
equivalents to the laws of motion and gravity, to relativity; no
equivalents to the periodic table, to quantum theory; no equivalents
to evolution, to genetics. Humans do not as yet understand
themselves.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> This
overarching question regarding the human transition—how did humans
change from pure animal to what humans have become today, what
processes underlie this unprecedented and powerful
transformation—this is what I call the riddle of humanity. As a
scientific question it is indeed important, perhaps the most
important scientific question yet to have received much of an answer.
But the importance of the question goes beyond just the demands of
scientific inquiry, for it is also a question that has implications
for the future course of humankind.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US"> If
we could put ourselves beside those earliest farmers in the Fertile
Crescent, and ask them to predict what the future would be like in
another ten thousand years, we recognize that we would be setting
them an impossible task. Airplanes, electricity, calculus, the
internet—hardly a single concept that defines the current age would
have yet to reach those farmers’ ken. And are we in a similar
position today ourselves, trying to anticipate our own future? True,
if we could assume another ten thousand years of transformation
similar to the ten thousand years that have gone before, then indeed
we might expect a world full of artifacts and events that we could
not possibly conceive today. But in a certain sense, this exercise
seems strange and futile. The accelerating pace of human change,
although bringing it with a host of technological marvels and
environmental understandings, has also brought with it the looming
consequences of a runaway recklessness</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">—</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">widespread</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
extinction of </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">many</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
species, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">rapid
</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">deterioration
of the global climate</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.
At</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
times it seems unlikely that </font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">humanity</span></font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt">
will make it through the next ten years, let alone the next ten
thousand</font></font></font><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"><span lang="en-US">.</span></font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> These
are not the kinds of problems that will be solved with conventional
wisdom and half truths; instead these problems will require the
deepest understanding of who we are and how we have arrived at these
circumstances. What part of us is still driven by the pure animal we
once used to be? What part of us is driven by the new constructions
we have been building all around us? What was the original source of
humanity’s innovative turn, and does that source still continue to
work among us? Is there a purpose to what humanity has accomplished
over the last one hundred thousand years, and does humanity
understand the consequences of what it does now? The value of
accurate insights such as Newton’s laws and Darwin’s evolutionary
theory is that they help us navigate an effective path forward, they
allow our further actions to be more constructive than destructive,
they protect us from floundering about. If we could uncover similar
insights regarding human history and human endeavors, then in this
area too we might find the means to begin forging a less reckless
path, a path that still builds upon the wonders that have become the
hallmark features of modern civilization, while leaving the door open
to a more hopeful and sustainable future. Thus there is great
potential to be had by attempting to answer these questions. There is
great value to be gained by shedding light on the riddle of humanity.</font></font></font></p>
<p align="left" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2"><font color="#000000"><font face="HelveticaNeue"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt"> </font></font></font></p>
</body>
</html>Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-87308155439472127642023-03-04T06:14:00.004-05:002023-04-24T20:13:59.185-04:00Autistic Rhapsody<p style="text-align: left;">I've recently finished a draft of a new essay (some of the first writing I've
done in years). It's an organization of ideas I've written about
previously, with a couple of new thoughts thrown in. Links to section pdfs are
below. I'll also try to post the text here when I get a chance. There is still clean up and
proofreading to do, but when I get a final version published, I'll put a link to
it here.</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: left;">(Edit 04/24/2023: The final version of the book can be found <a href="http://www.grizzalan.com/autisticrhapsody/index.html" target="_blank">here</a>.)</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Autistic Rhapsody (pdfs)</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">1. <a href="http://www.grizzalan.com/autisticrhapsody/theriddleofhumanity.pdf" target="_blank">The Riddle of Humanity</a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">2. <a href="http://www.grizzalan.com/autisticrhapsody/evolutionturnedinsideout.pdf" target="_blank">Evolution Turned Inside Out</a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">3. <a href="http://www.grizzalan.com/autisticrhapsody/theconstructionofintelligence.pdf" target="_blank">The Construction of Intelligence</a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">4. <a href="http://www.grizzalan.com/autisticrhapsody/thenatureofautism.pdf" target="_blank">The Nature of Autism</a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">5. <a href="http://www.grizzalan.com/autisticrhapsody/sheddinglightontheriddle.pdf" target="_blank">Shedding Light on the Riddle</a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">6. <a href="http://www.grizzalan.com/autisticrhapsody/consequences.pdf" target="_blank">Conclusions</a></p>
<br/>
<p style="text-align: left;">Autistic Rhapsody (posts)</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">1. <a href="http://autisticaphorisms.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-riddle-of-humanity.html" target="_blank">The Riddle of Humanity</a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">2. <a href="http://autisticaphorisms.blogspot.com/2023/03/evolution-turned-inside-out.html" target="_blank">Evolution Turned Inside Out</a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">3. <a href="http://autisticaphorisms.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-construction-of-intelligence.html" target="_blank">The Construction of Intelligence</a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">4. <a href="http://autisticaphorisms.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-nature-of-autism.html" target="_blank">The Nature of Autism</a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">5. <a href="http://autisticaphorisms.blogspot.com/2023/03/shedding-light-on-riddle.html" target="_blank">Shedding Light on the Riddle</a></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">6. <a href="http://autisticaphorisms.blogspot.com/2023/03/consequences.html" target="_blank">Conclusions</a></p>Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-28634641399890450902017-01-17T22:39:00.000-05:002017-02-11T16:02:20.408-05:00Concerto for Intelligence<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { }</style>
<p>I have finished pulling together another book, this one called <a href="http://www.grizzalan.com/concertoforintelligence/index.html"><i>Concerto for Intelligence</i></a>. It consists of eight essays, all of which I believe saw early versions in this blog. For the book, the essays have been edited somewhat, and in some cases expanded upon, with the intent of making them a little more readable and informative.</p>
<p>The easy and inexpensive way to read <i>Concerto for Intelligence</i> is <a href="http://www.grizzalan.com/concertoforintelligence/index.html">online here</a>. But for those so inclined, the book will also be available through Amazon within a few weeks or so. I will post a note here when that happens.</p>
<p>[Edit 02/11/2017: <i>Concerto for Intelligence</i> is now available for purchase at <a href="http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-001127973/Concerto-for-Intelligence.aspx">iUniverse</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Concerto-Intelligence-Alan-Griswold/dp/1532015151">Amazon</a>.]</p>
Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-2070661744708254532016-04-07T22:01:00.000-04:002016-04-07T22:01:04.723-04:00Autism Researcher Tini Mausbrains<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { }</style>
<p>Lovely bit of satire <a href="http://autisticacademic.com/2016/04/08/autistic-woman-throws-away-empty-juice-container/" target="_blank">here</a>, especially in its choice for expert
commentary. It's amazing how one name can so thoroughly capture an
entire profession.</p>
Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-4622832663466503442015-12-31T08:15:00.000-05:002015-12-31T08:15:06.744-05:00Short Stack<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { }</style>
<p>I was intrigued to discover there is now a <a href="http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/" target="_blank">stack exchange for cognitive science</a>. As a software developer, I make use of the
<a href="http://stackoverflow.com/" target="_blank">computer programming stack exchange</a> several times each week, and I
think many of my colleagues would agree with me it is one of the more
valuable tools available to our profession.</p>
<p>I would also argue that the main reason the computer programming
stack exchange is so successful is that around 98% of the time, the
question actually has an answer. In the case of a cognitive science
stack exchange, I would guess the percentages are just about
reversed.</p>
Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-35922471242476299662015-12-15T21:36:00.000-05:002017-02-11T16:26:52.416-05:00Genius<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { }</style>
<p>[Edit 02/11/2017: The final version of this essay can be found <a href="http://www.grizzalan.com/concertoforintelligence/genius.html">here</a>.]</p>
<p>There is a widespread misunderstanding, common among laypeople and
many academicians too, that genius is the equivalent of great
intelligence. This can be seen for instance in the tendency to
categorize high IQ scores, such as those above 150, as falling within
a genius range, and reciprocally it can be seen in the anachronistic
practice of doling out impressive IQ scores—usually in the
neighborhood of 200 or so—to well-established geniuses such as
Mozart and Newton. To be fair, many researchers recognize that the
possession of a high IQ is not sufficient to establish genius, that
other factors must also be brought to bear. Creativity frequently
gets mentioned as a necessary concomitant to genius, and others have
noted the tendency towards aloofness and oddity that many geniuses
seem to exude. Still, it is hard not to conceive a direct
relationship between genius and greater intelligence—in many
respects the relationship seems so blatantly obvious—and in this
age of the Flynn effect, where intelligence is everywhere measurably
on the rise, it is becoming something of a puzzle as to why genius is
not blossoming around every corner, indeed why it has almost entirely
disappeared.</p>
<p>The irony here is that there <i>is</i> a direct relationship
between genius and greater intelligence—the blatantly obvious turns
out in this case to be actually true—and yet this direct
relationship remains entirely misapprehended. The trouble lies
perhaps not so much with the concept of genius itself, a concept that
remains fluid enough to still be amended. The trouble lies more
fundamentally with the concept of intelligence, a concept that has
now hardened into intransigent dogma. Humanity thoroughly
misunderstands what intelligence is, and thus in turn, it thoroughly
misunderstands what genius is.</p>
<br />
<p>Intelligence is a neural activity, it is what humans produce
inside their evolutionarily superior brain—no statement it would
seem is in less dispute. When humans applaud a high IQ score (and in
the same breath applaud genius), they are paying homage to the
activities of someone's brain, they are giving due to an example of
neural excellence. People are <i>born</i> smart, everyone surely
knows that by now, and if someone has managed to improve their
intelligence through education or some other means, it is because
they have rewired the intricate workings inside their skull, they
have leaned heavily on that marvelous and practically miraculous
concept known as neural plasticity. In the same way that
weightlifters harvest the strength of their over-sized muscles,
intelligent thinkers brandish the power of their super-connected
neurons. This has become the unquestioned dogma of the land.</p>
<p>Like other well-entrenched dogmatic mistakes, this one began
honestly enough with a grain of truth. That there exist natural
intelligence differences from person to person would have been
apparent even before the dawn of civilization, and now with the
advent of intelligence exams and psychometric analysis, these
observable distinctions have not only been experimentally confirmed,
they have also been broadly linked to genetic and neurological
foundations. So the brain certainly plays an important role in human
intelligence, of that there can be no doubt. But that the brain plays
the <i>entire</i> role in human intelligence, or even the most
<i>significant</i> role—well, that is something that could have
been doubted from the very beginning.</p>
<p>The first indication that intelligence cannot be explained by
human neurology alone is the Flynn effect, the observation that
intelligence scores have been increasing population wide since first
being measured (and by logical extension, probably long before that).
If intelligence is entirely a brain-based neurological activity, then
the Flynn effect strongly implies that human neurology must be
rapidly and tangibly changing, becoming physically and substantially
more effective with each generation. Scientists of course hesitate
before such a notion, because it defies every known characteristic of
biology, genetics and evolution. As an alternative, scientists offer
up other explanations—a grand plethora of other
explanations—designed to bridge the seemingly insurmountable gap
between biology and observation. Heterosis, better nutrition, social
multipliers, video games, increased schooling, test familiarity, fast
and slow life—just about everything except the kitchen sink has
been guessed so far, and in one final desperate all-encompassing
guess, the suggestion has been put forth that the Flynn effect is in
fact caused by all of the above, working in some kind of orgiastic
combination. But despite the twisting and turning about, not one of
these efforts has proven to be even remotely plausible or the
slightest bit convincing, and thus the Flynn effect is now awaiting
an inevitability, awaiting that moment when scientists finally tire
of banging their heads against a wall. The unavoidable fact is this:
the Flynn effect is incompatible with an entirely neurological human
intelligence, meaning that ultimately one of those two concepts must
go. And the Flynn effect of course is an observation, while an
entirely neurological human intelligence is merely a prejudice.</p>
<p>Plus it is more than just the Flynn effect that votes a resounding
nay against the notion of a brain-based intelligence. Genius too is
utterly incompatible with the concept. Because if intelligence really
were exclusively a brain-based neurological activity, then the common
wisdom regarding genius would of necessity be true, genius would
consistently belong to the domain of those with the most effective
neural structures, and in this era of an ever increasing
intelligence, genius would now be as plentiful as springtime rain.
The continuing allure of this common wisdom speaks volumes about the
ongoing and widespread acceptance of a brain-based intelligence, but
the observable and obvious inaccuracy of this common wisdom speaks
volumes about the <i>blindness</i> of that acceptance. The
non-equivalence of genius and high intelligence has always been a
puzzle, as puzzling in fact as the Flynn effect, and it is a puzzle
that stems from the exact same root. The characteristics of genius
simply do not fit to the characteristics of an entirely neurological
human intelligence, meaning that ultimately one of those two concepts
must go. And the characteristics of genius are derived from
observation, while an entirely neurological human intelligence is
merely a prejudice.</p>
<br />
<p>This author has detailed <a href="http://autisticaphorisms.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-flynn-effects-unseen-hand-revised.html">elsewhere</a> a description of intelligence
that rejects any primary reliance upon a brain-based, neurological
foundation. In this new description, intelligence is defined quite
literally as the amount of pattern, structure and form tangibly
contained within the human environment. The network of highways, the
symmetry of buildings, the repetition of clocks, the arrangement of
letters on a page—all this and so much more—these mostly
artificial environmental features constitute the material substance
of intelligence itself, directly observable, directly measurable,
directly defined. Intelligence palpably exists <i>around</i> a human,
it does not exist primarily inside his head. Humans of course differ
in their ability to absorb and respond to this surrounding
intelligence, a difference that shows up quite nicely on the relative
scores of an IQ exam, a difference with genetic and neural basis. But
the <i>overall</i> level of human intelligence is not determined by
individual abilities, the overall level of intelligence has nothing
to do with the human brain. Human intelligence grows via the concrete
addition of pattern, structure and form into the human environment,
and this physical accretion of intelligence is the direct source, the
direct driver, the direct cause, of the Flynn effect.</p>
<p>Plus this new description of intelligence provides more than just
an accounting of the Flynn effect, it also produces a straightforward
and observable definition of genius. Accumulation of intelligence
into the human environment does not happen magically; in order for
new intelligence to accrue within the human surroundings something
must put it there. A large portion of this accretion can be
accomplished via replication, by copying the already existent
pattern, structure and form from one context into another.
Blueprints, books, education, communication, plus a myriad of other
means—all these serve to take the intelligence already embodied
within the environment and then spread it further around. But
replication can only go so far; if intelligence is to continue to
grow, then <i>novel</i> pattern, structure and form must eventually
be introduced. And while replication can be achieved by almost anyone
(it is humanity's greatest shared activity), the introduction of
novel intelligence is an activity exceptionally rare. No other animal
species has managed to construct new intelligence within its own
environment, and humans themselves did not do so for a very long
time. What is required for this unusual feat is an individual with an
exceptionally unusual eye, an individual with the ability and
inclination to perceive the world not as it already is and not as
others already perceive it, but to perceive the world quite
differently from everyone else, to cast the world into a whole new
paradigm. And when these anomalous perceptions have been promulgated
far enough, after they have been copied a sufficient enough times, as
they significantly increase the overall amount of pattern, structure
and form contained within the human environment—that is to say, as
they significantly increase the overall level of human
intelligence—then the source of these catalyzing perceptions is
finally recognized, often very much in retrospect, and the
originating individual is given the name he or she most accurately
deserves, is given the name of genius.</p>
<p>In short, genius is the unforeseen spark that fires the Flynn
effect.</p>
<br />
<p>One of the first characteristics to recognize about individual
genius is that it does not require superior intellectual ability;
genius requires only a sufficient understanding of the domain of
interest. A high IQ in fact mostly hinders genius, because superior
intelligence implies superior command of the pattern, structure and
form <i>already contained</i> within the environment, but this
superior command can easily obscure any perception of intelligence <i>as
it might possibly be</i>. The individual genius is more apt to
possess an uneven or contrarian intelligence profile, as though there
is some degree of confusion or dissatisfaction with conventional
answers.</p>
<p>An even more telling characteristic of genius is its deep
fascination with non-biological pattern, structure and form—the
material substance of intelligence itself—a fascination often
bordering on the aberrant. This characteristic already establishes
the rarity of genius, because for the vast majority of the human
population, the primary focus is not on non-biological pattern,
structure and form; for the vast majority of the human population,
the primary focus is on other people. This is in keeping with the
powerful hold that biological perception and conspecific awareness
have upon nearly every animal organism, a hold that is entirely
essential to survival and procreation but is effectively blinding to
the possibilities of new intelligence. The individual genius is one
who has been <i>loosened</i> from this conspecific grip and who in
compensation has turned hungrily towards the structural details of
the external world. This perceptual mismatch between the individual
genius and the remainder of humanity explains in large measure the
oft-mentioned secondary traits of genius: iconoclastic, abrasive,
aloof, a little bit strange. The individual genius simply does not
perceive the world as does everyone else—genius and humanity are
fundamentally at odds.</p>
<p>The characteristics of genius align closely to the characteristics
of the condition known as autism. In each case, these are individuals
conspecifically distanced from the remainder of the population. In
each case, these are individuals focused primarily on non-biological
pattern, structure and form (not focused primarily on other people).
In each case, these are individuals often misunderstood and
frequently disdained by conventional wisdom. For those who have
callously written off the autistic population, including nearly the
entire research and scientific community, the alignment of genius and
autism must seem nothing short of outrageous. But the observable
characteristics speak for themselves, characteristics that align with
typicality hardly at all.</p>
<br />
<p>The retrospective acclaim that attaches to genius is perhaps its
most ironic feature. Although genius truly earns and deserves all its
recognition, it is not because there is always something exclusive or
essential about the ingenious act. In a context of accruing
intelligence, nearly every moment of genius is a discovery destined
to be made sooner or later anyway. Take Newton for instance: if
Newton had not returned home in his twenty-third year but instead had
traveled to London and therein succumbed to the Great Plague, it does
not mean that the differential calculus, the laws of motion and the
theory of gravitation would have never seen the light of day. Other
individuals of eccentric perception would have eventually promoted
these notions, and today such individuals would be heralded as
genius. As far as is known, there might have been several
predecessors to Newton all capable of the exact same feats, but who
through unfortunate circumstance never gained the opportunity.</p>
<p>The more authentic reason to celebrate genius is that it is an act
of individual defiance and individual courage. All the approbation
showered on genius is done so from the safety of retrospective time.
At its moment of birth, novel intelligence always cuts against the
common grain and gathers no immediate stamp of approval. What novel
intelligence usually garners is a heaping dose of neglect, scorn and
derision, because humanity is content with what it already knows,
feels the safest with what it can perceive in unison—each revision
is an unwelcome intruder. To bring pristine pattern, structure and
form into the human environment, the individual genius must weather a
storm of rebukes from without and a flood of doubts from within; the
introduction of new intelligence is one of the loneliest acts
imaginable.</p>
<br />
<p>This past century has seen a grand scale movement to accommodate
genius to a much broader population. Perhaps motivated by the
retrospective acclaim, and certainly unaware of the requisite
isolation, humanity has been pooling its efforts in an attempt to
distill genius's indispensable merits into dispensable recipe.
Scientific method and artistic technique have emerged as the
templates of choice, and the academic institutions, once home to the
most bizarre and misanthropic of creatures, now attract gregarious
millions, each eager to play a role in the next great discovery.
Optimism is announced daily by press release, pending results form
the backbone of nearly every grant proposal, but there is a silence
now surrounding the din of these swelling universities, it is the
silence of genius having walked away from these overcrowded academic
halls.</p>
<p>The ever more tightly prescribed requirements of scientific method
have led to all too predictable results, a tidal-wave of bland
minutiae, more monotonous and more dogmatic with each publication.
The increasingly rote specifications of artistic technique have led
to similarly predictable results, an avalanche of trivial art for
trivial art's sake, more self-conscious and more self-congratulatory
with each debut. Having pooled their efforts to be part of something
intelligently grand, today's university denizens find themselves
herded along in an increasingly frantic push for more: more
requirements, more specifications, more standards, more ethics, more
committees, more peers, more reviews, more co-authors, more
citations, more statistics, more funding, more methods, more
techniques. Everyone must stick together, everyone must follow the
routine, and if all just play their role as specified, then the
promise of genius can flow forth like manna and honey, flow forth as
the combined product of everyone's evolutionarily superior brain.</p>
<p>The grand scale movement has turned into a music hall comedy, full
of bathos and farce.</p>
<p>Genius attaches to individuals, it does not arise from groups.
Genius appears only in those who have mastered that rarest
characteristic of all, the willingness to dare to go it alone.
Although scientific method and artistic technique will always have
their place, as tools in the massive <i>replication</i>
of intelligence—still the honorable work of all
mankind—nonetheless, scientific method and artistic technique
cannot inspire genius. And as the academic institutions become
increasingly shoulder to shoulder, as they sink further into a
slavedom of prescribed routine, expect the individual genius to
continue to hasten away. Expect the next great discovery to come from
someplace unexpected.</p>
Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-68026370440788721332015-11-25T11:49:00.000-05:002015-11-25T11:49:21.177-05:00One Kilo-Author Is Only the Tip of the Herd<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { }</style>
<p>It has become <a href="http://neurodojo.blogspot.com/2015/05/when-does-authorship-stop-meaning.html">something</a> <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/08/12/431959428/research-biologist-coins-term-kilo-author-for-scientific-journal-articles">of</a> <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/mass-authorship-destroying-credibility-papers">a</a> <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-many-scientists-does-it-take-to-write-a-paper-apparently-thousands-1439169200">trend</a> over the past year or so to note the increasing amount of co-authorship on scientific papers (with perhaps a hint of concern this might not be a good thing). Having hundreds or even thousands of authors on a single paper does seem a bit perverse, and of course there is the question of where it all might end. But to be honest, it was not all that long ago that having just <i>five</i> authors on a paper would have seemed perverse, and so in considering limitations might I suggest there is only one obvious place to draw a line. For whether it is five authors or five thousand, the real concern is why no one goes it alone. Have scientists become so utterly unsure of themselves that they now feel obligated to always bring a gang.</p>
<p>Group think is group mediocrity, and I can think of no phrase that better describes the current realm of science than <i>group mediocrity</i>.</p>Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-10318611992213732352015-11-01T14:05:00.000-05:002017-02-11T16:18:45.162-05:00Conspecifics<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { }</style>
<p>[Edit 02/11/2017: The final version of this essay can be found <a href="http://www.grizzalan.com/concertoforintelligence/conspecifics.html">here</a>.]</p>
<p>What makes a biological species such an intriguing concept is its
stasis. From out of a near maelstrom of biological and evolutionary
dynamics—selection, genetics, generation—a species emerges as
something obstinately distinct, stable and enduring. Darwin himself
was puzzled that nature does not formulate instead into a mish-mash
of morphologies and traits, with a more gradual and more frequent
variation across space and across time. This puzzlement—an aspect
of what is often referred to as <i>Darwin's dilemma</i>—has never
been completely resolved. Modern explanations for nature's tendency
to coalesce into well delineated and persistent species usually
center around the notions of reproductive isolation and costs of
rarity, but in many respects these accounts miss a good deal of the
point. A species is not only static and conservative in its
morphology and reproductive viability, a species is also static and
conservative in its overall behavior, to the point of being almost
perfectly predictable across the entirety of its existence. If for
instance one were to film a documentary on almost any plant or animal
species, place it inside a vault for a hundred thousand years, one
could then remove the documentary and promote it as still accurate
and up-to-date, without the slightest need of an edit. This dogged
constancy across the entire reach of the phylogenetic network appears
to be the evidence of an underlying biological invariance—a law if
you will—a law that has not been adequately determined.</p>
<p>And to make the matter yet more puzzling, there is the one notable
exception to the law, the one case of the law having encountered a
blatant violator—that is, the human species.</p>
<p>Humanity certainly did not <i>begin</i> as the most obvious
counterexample to the notion of species stasis. The genus <i>Homo</i>
and its predecessors had for millions of years been unfolding into an
entirely standard set of stable and generally durable groupings:
<i>afarensis</i>, <i>africanus</i>, <i>habilis</i>, <i>ergaster</i>,
<i>erectus</i>, <i>heidelbergensis</i>,
<i>neanderthalensis</i>. And for quite some time <i>Homo sapiens</i>
too appeared to be slated for the same usual course, its members
passing through typical and mostly unvarying animal lives within the
more hospitable corners of the African continent. But it was around
fifty thousand years ago that an unprecedented behavioral
transformation began to take shape within the species, a
transformation that has only accelerated throughout the intervening
years and today shows no signs of abatement. In the early
twenty-first century almost no characteristic of human behavior would
be recognizable to anyone who could have observed or recorded man's
earlier days on the savanna. And although it is indeed <i>behavior</i>
that constitutes the most clearcut difference between the humans of
today and the humans of the past, with the advent of everything from
dental implants to artificial knees, from Viagra to augmented bosoms,
from in vitro fertilization to stem cell technologies, it is evident
that much of the morphological and reproductive intransigence still
lingering within the human species is now on the verge of
disappearing as well.</p>
<p>And so there are two questions to be investigated regarding the
concept of a biological species: one, what compels a species, across
all its generations, to maintain such consistent and stable behavior,
and two, how is it that the human species has managed to escape this
compulsion?</p>
<br /><br />
<p>To better understand the behavior of a species, perhaps the best
place to begin is with Immanuel Kant. Kant was the first to fully
confront the challenge of describing how a behaviorally productive
biological consciousness can arise from the continuous multitude of
sensory impressions that each organism receives, impressions that in
their rawest form would be little more than chaotic and overwhelming,
would be little more than useless noise. Kant's approach, including
its heavy reliance upon syllogistic logic, was perhaps not entirely
adequate to the task (C.S. Peirce would later improve the framework
greatly). Nonetheless, Kant's groundbreaking effort still manages to
capture the essence of what would have to be incorporated into <i>any</i>
proposed solution to the problem, namely a recognition that in order
for biological consciousness to exist at all, an organism's multitude
of sensory impressions would have to be <i>unified</i> under some
kind of structure or rule. Or to put it in the parlance of modern
data science, each organism's raw sensory input would have to be
sorted, filtered, mapped and reduced, resulting finally in the kind
of perceptual foregrounding and targeted awareness that could serve
as the basis for productive behavior. Kant's depiction is too often
taken to be merely philosophical or as applicable to human reasoning
alone, but in fact it is most informative when applied biologically:
the early pages of the <i>Critique of Pure Reason</i> outline a
general framework whereby a manifold of biological stimulus can be
transformed into a precise and targeted response, something no lion
on the prowl could ever do without.</p>
<p>Kant was also the first to recognize that the <i>means</i> of any
sorting, filtering, mapping and reducing would have to be provided (<i>a
priori</i>) by the organism itself, and that the general <i>form</i>
of these means would be the primary determinant of the organism's
perceptual content (and therefore the primary determinant of the
organism's resulting behavior). Kant often used the somewhat vague
and magical-sounding term <i>faculty</i> to delineate these
organism-provided means, but of course it has to be remembered that
Kant was writing well before the advent of Darwin, Mendel and an
accurate rendition of Earth's biological timeline, so some vagueness
and magic are to be excused. Today, post the advent of Darwin, Mendel
and an accurate rendition of Earth's biological timeline, the <i>a
priori</i> means that underlie sensory unification and perceptual
grounding are now richly detailed and more deeply understood, having
shed their vagueness upon a wealth of observable information
regarding biochemistry and genetics, and having cast off their
magical aura behind a well described evolutionary process that has
spanned hundreds of millions of years. In the biological kingdom,
what drives the means for sorting, filtering, mapping and reducing,
what shapes the structure and rule behind stimulus unification and
targeted response, are the ongoing requirements of survival and
procreation—physically manifested within each organism's
biochemical structure and honed into effectiveness through enormously
long stretches of selection and generation.</p>
<p>The capstone of Kant's description, his list of conceptual
categories—organized under such headings and subheadings as
quality, quantity, modality, plurality, negation—was arrived at in
an attempt to achieve maximum generality. But in a certain sense all
this ardent abstraction overshoots the mark when applied in a
biological context, where really only concreteness will do. If one
were to search from the treetops of the Amazonian rain forests all
the way to the depths of the ocean floor, it would be a frustrating
endeavor to find anywhere a biological consciousness unified around
such notions as quality, quantity, modality, plurality, negation. And
yet it would be little more than child's play to find a biological
consciousness unified around such notions as food, water, danger,
shelter, family, sex, predators, prey, conspecifics. It is biological
need that determines the primary structure of biological perception,
and it is the pervasive and unyielding impulse behind these
biologically driven categories that provides the first indication of
why biological behavior remains so consistent and stable. Survival
ceaselessly asserts its decrees, procreation fervently presses its
demands, evolution ruthlessly carries out its mandate, and each
organism, both outwardly and inwardly, must adhere to these strict
regulations or else disappear. And so in broad and inexorable
lockstep, the members of the biological community aim their rapt
attention towards food, water, danger, shelter, family, sex,
predators, prey, conspecifics—and then respond accordingly, and
respond mostly the same.</p>
<br /><br />
<p>Of the biologically driven categories, conspecific awareness and
recognition holds special significance: it is the primary catalyst—at
least within the animal kingdom—behind each species developing a
strong tendency to coalesce, both territorially and behaviorally.
Each organism appears to possess a predisposition to foreground first
and foremost those sensory impressions that are directly associated
with the other members of its species—lions perceive and attend
primarily to other lions, geese perceive and attend predominantly to
other geese, ants perceive and attend chiefly to other ants (and of
course humans perceive and attend first and foremost to other
humans). The principal inducement towards this nearly universal
characteristic is that it is the most direct solution to an otherwise
haphazard reproductive challenge. Successful mating requires that
male and female conjoin at the same time and at the same location, a
rendezvous that would be made problematic, if not downright
impossible, should each member of the species be unable to
distinguish and foreground its own kind from all the remainder—a
perceptual blindness that would be practically guaranteed without
inherent conspecific awareness, since there is nothing within sensory
impressions by themselves that would help promote one class of
perceptions over another. Even in those rare cases where organisms
live solitary lives and egg-laying and fertilization are separated in
time, the species is still bound together by the perceptual
foregrounding of the expected <i>location</i> of egg-laying and
fertilization, in this instance an effective proxy for conspecific
prominence.</p>
<p>And beyond the logistical requirements of procreation itself, many
species make heavy use of conspecific foregrounding to advance a
broad range of beneficial behaviors. Nurturing of the young for
instance necessitates that adults carry a perceptual preference for
the offspring of their own kind—lest lions find themselves randomly
rearing goslings, geese find themselves indiscriminately raising
ants, and so on. Successful foraging, pack hunting and herd defense
all depend upon a keen perceptual attention to the other members of
the population, even when those members occupy no more than a
minuscule portion of the entire sensory field. But perhaps most
importantly of all, conspecific awareness and recognition allows
tried-and-tested species behaviors to be passed along from generation
to generation without the inefficient obligation that each and every
behavior be imprinted genetically or made completely instinctual. The
maturing members of many species go through a period of time in which
their main occupation is to scrutinize parents, siblings, extended
family and other models within the population, imitating observed
activities and eventually taking on those activities with an
increasing faithfulness (and thereby becoming models for the next
generation). This recurrent cycle of learned and transmitted behavior
is always confined to the species itself—lions do not learn from
leopards, geese do not model sparrows, no organism imitates
non-biological objects. Each organism is a fully engaged student of
its own kind—and is nearly oblivious to everything else.</p>
<p>Thus the trait of conspecific awareness and recognition has both
the powerful and the restrictive impact of making a species insular.
Conspecific foregrounding encourages the species to cluster, it turns
the species' members inwards for mutual protection and predatory
assistance, and it promotes generational continuance of the species'
more successful behaviors. But the unrelenting narrowness of this
characteristic also has the consequence of effectively blinding the
species to any alternative information the sensory field might have
to offer—whether that information would come from other species or
from the non-biological world. Nearly all sensory impressions not
directly connected to the species itself or to the immediate
requirements of survival and procreation are relegated to the sensory
background and never gain perceptual prominence, and thus never
influence biological attention or behavior. As a result, the species
is provided little opportunity for change, since perceptually
speaking nothing ever differs from generation to generation. So
powerful and so confining is the impact of conspecific awareness and
recognition that it really needs to be considered an essential part
of the <i>definition</i> of a species, for a species is determined
not only by its morphological similarities and its reproductive
sufficiency, it is also determined by the mutual awareness and
recognition of all its members, the glue that holds the species
together and assures its unvarying continuance.</p>
<br /><br />
<p>The inherent perceptual inclination towards conspecifics, along
with the corresponding disinclination towards other species, suggests
there is a boundary between these two extremes. On one side of the
boundary, conspecific awareness and recognition must function within
a certain range of tolerance, for despite there being varying levels
of genetic and morphological difference among species members,
conspecific foregrounding remains active and strong in nearly all
population circumstances. But this tolerance clearly has its limits,
because it does not extend so far as to include the other species,
and thus it can be assumed that as conspecific distance increases
between organisms (a function most likely of increased morphological
and/or genetic difference), a boundary is eventually reached where
the tolerance is fully extended and then finally exceeded, with a
corresponding attenuation and loss of conspecific awareness and
recognition.</p>
<p>These concepts of conspecific distance, tolerance and boundary
play an important role in assessing the expected outcome and impact
of an organism that introduces genetic alterations into a species. A
new genetic signature carrying differences that are only minor in
effect and/or infrequent in number will likely leave the bearer
within the conspecific tolerance range, meaning that the bearer will
experience typical conspecific foregrounding and typical conspecific
perceptions and behaviors, improving the chance for continuation of
these minor mutations. This must happen to some extent with nearly
all offspring, because each organism possesses a genetic signature
that is unique to some degree, and yet in the large majority of cases
this uniqueness does not interfere with conspecific awareness. By
contrast, a newly introduced genetic signature that carries
differences that are major in effect and/or frequent in number
increases the likelihood that the conspecific distance between the
bearer and the other members of the species will become so large as
to strain or even surpass the conspecific tolerance range, thereby
weakening or even nullifying conspecific awareness and recognition.
To take an extreme example, one might imagine a lion being born with
such an exaggerated level of genetic mutation that it is effectively
a leopard, meaning that this newborn and its “conspecific”
neighbors are destined to become perceptual strangers, with survival
and procreative consequences almost certain to turn negative. Even at
much lesser extremes of conspecific distance, challenging biological
consequences can still be anticipated, and thus conspecific
distancing almost certainly plays a role in the thwarting of
significant genetic change within a species, another manner in which
conspecific awareness and recognition contributes to the ongoing
stasis of a species.</p>
<p>Although the odds of continuation are indeed negligible for an
organism outside the conspecific tolerance range, the prognosis is
more uncertain, and in some ways more intriguing, for an organism
approaching the boundary—near enough that conspecific awareness and
recognition is weakened to some degree but not so near as to make
survival and procreation essentially impossible. There are several
distinguishing characteristics that can be predicted for such an
organism. Mating for instance, although not precluded, will certainly
be more problematic, since the organism's inherent perception for
potential mates, as well as their perception in turn for it, will be
more hazy than is the case for the rest of the species, leading to
coupling behaviors that might seem distant or strange. In species
that make heavy use of conspecific foregrounding for mutual defense
or combined attack, an organism stretching conspecific tolerance will
of necessity be a weaker participant in these group activities and
might come to be regarded as an encumbrance by way of result. And
perhaps most importantly of all, the maturation process for a
conspecifically distanced organism will almost certainly be more
difficult and more delayed than for its peers, its relative inability
and disinclination to scrutinize others in the population and to
imitate their behaviors hampering the typical transmission of species
behaviors. Such an organism will not only <i>physically</i> be an
outsider to the population, it will also <i>perceptually</i> and
<i>behaviorally</i> be an outsider as well.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the challenges faced by an organism near the
conspecific border do provide the potential for an ironic
compensation. It needs to be remembered that the primary purpose
behind an inherent form of biological perception is to unify sensory
impressions, impressions that would otherwise remain chaotic,
overwhelming and useless. And to the extent that an organism's
perceptual mechanisms are diminished by its biological circumstances,
the corresponding unification of sensory experience will be
diminished as well. Such weakening of sensory unification will likely
give rise to an assortment of sensory difficulties—hypersensitivity,
hyposensitivity, synaesthesia. In order to ameliorate these
difficulties, a conspecifically distanced organism, detached in
significant degree from one of its primary means of sensory
unification, will be driven towards <i>alternative</i> means of
sensory unification—which is to say, it will be driven towards
alternative means of perception. This effectively opens the door to a
wider awareness of alternative features within the sensory field,
such as those provided by the other species, and more significantly,
those provided by the non-biological world. It is well known that the
non-biological world provides a rich framework of organizing
principles that can serve as the basis for unification of sensory
experience, principles that go under such names as symmetry,
repetition, pattern, structure and form. These organizing principles
are in theory available to all organisms, but the restrictive effect
of biological perception in general, and conspecific awareness and
recognition in particular, usually pushes awareness of these
non-biological features well into the sensory background. And thus
ironically, it is only the organisms that get <i>loosened</i> from
the strictures of conspecific awareness and recognition that gain the
opportunity to foreground these alternative features from the
surrounding environment, and thereby gain the perceptual freedom to
achieve a broader and deeper awareness of the entire sensory field.</p>
<p>If there were only one such conspecifically distanced organism or
even a few such organisms extant within a population, there would
likely be little impact on the species as a whole. But if the
population were to possess a significant number of such organisms,
and that number were to remain stable for a reasonable period of
time, the species dynamic could begin to change. All the necessary
conditions for a change would be in place: the broader population
would have a conspecific relationship to the population's more
distant members (albeit a looser relationship than normal), and the
more distant members would have access to a wider array of perceptual
experience. The natural workings of conspecific awareness and
recognition would prompt the broader population to begin to notice
the new behaviors and new perceptions being originated by the more
distant members, an awareness that might even encourage imitation. In
this manner the enhanced perceptual experience of the population's
more distant members would begin to infiltrate the perceptual
experience of the species as a whole, and with a change in species
perception would come a corresponding change in species behavior. In
defiance of the universal expectation of a continual species stasis,
this species would be on the verge of a behavioral revolution.</p>
<p>Of course considering the biological fragility that haunts the
conspecific boundary, and observing the non-changing behavior of all
the species to be found in the natural world, it would seem that any
talk of behavioral revolutions being driven by conspecific distancing
would have to qualify as little more than academic exercise, some
hypothetical musing. And indeed that would be the end of the matter,
if it were not for the one piece of unfinished biological
business—namely the one species that has emerged suddenly and
prominently as a blatant violator of the tenets of species stasis,
the same one species (not coincidentally) that has broadly expanded
its perceptual experience of the sensory world, the same one species
(not coincidentally) of which it can no longer be said that it is to
be found in the natural world. The human species.</p>
<br /><br />
<p>The behavioral revolution of the human species has been nothing
short of stunning in both its scope and its speed. There is little in
the way of hard evidence to suggest that prior to around fifty
thousand years ago <i>Homo sapiens</i> individuals lived much
differently than all the other animals—riding the ebbs and flows of
survival and procreation, gazing out upon an entirely natural
landscape, confined to the African continent alone. And then suddenly
everything began to change. Art, symbolism, categorized tools,
sophisticated weaponry—all began appearing in ever increasing
numbers and with ever advancing technique. Humans began to spread
geographically and did not stop until the entire planet had been
covered. They extincted many other species along the way and bred a
chosen few into a domesticated abundance. Today, very few humans gaze
out upon an entirely natural landscape—artificial environments have
become vastly the human norm.</p>
<p>One notable aspect of this human revolution is that has been
accompanied by—indeed it has been <i>driven</i> by—a broadened
perceptual awareness of the sensory world, including a much broadened
perceptual awareness of the non-biological world. Nearly all the
changes that have become the hallmark features of modern human
existence have been built upon a backbone of non-biological
constructs, everything from the grammatical patterns of language all
the way to the structured symmetries of towering skyscrapers.
Literally everywhere one looks, one finds the profuse application of
the organizing principles of pattern, symmetry, repetition, structure
and form, principles that never would have reached the surface of
human ken not that long ago, but today constitute the proliferating
and artificial embodiment of man's ever burgeoning intelligence.</p>
<p>Thus the characteristics of the human behavioral revolution can be
seen as matching the description given above for a species change
brought about by the influence of conspecific distancing. The
enormous human behavioral change has been accompanied by an equally
enormous human perceptual change, by an expanded perceptual
awareness, one that goes far beyond the restrictions of biological
perception alone. Humans still have their conspecific awareness and
recognition for one another, and they still possess their sensory
instincts for survival and procreation, but humans are no longer
<i>confined</i> by these perceptions, the species has been freed
entirely from its former perceptual prison.</p>
<p>The predictions of conspecific distancing would suggest that this
liberation must have been catalyzed through the influence of a
significant and stable sub-population of conspecifically distanced
humans, relative outsiders who driven by biological and sensory
necessity would have been the first to explore a different means of
seeing the world, the species' pathfinders to expanded forms of
perception. And so the question needs to be asked: within the human
population, is there a recognizable subgroup of members who can be
seen as carrying the distinguishing characteristics (including the
challenges) of a conspecifically distanced organism and who also
possess the compensating trait of an expanded perceptual awareness,
an awareness that often shies from typical biological perception but
that gravitates more readily to alternative perceptual targets,
targets such as the non-biological world and its organizing
principles of pattern, symmetry, repetition, structure and form?</p>
<p>Within the human population, there is indeed such a group of
people, and over this past century they have begun to be recognized.
They are defined most accurately as autistic.</p>
<br /><br />
<p>Autism has been giving the scientific community a very difficult
time. The condition was first regarded as extremely rare and almost
always debilitating, but as evidence has mounted over the years it
has become more and more clear that at least one percent of the human
population can be described as autistic, and along with such numbers
has come the inevitable corollary that in the large majority of
circumstances the condition cannot be all that debilitating. Autistic
individuals certainly face some challenges, challenges that can vary
in degree, but that has never prevented autistic individuals from
blending in with the rest of the human population, so much so that
they have gone virtually unrecognized for dozens of millennia.
Nonetheless, even in the face of these accumulating facts, the
scientific community has been unable to let go of its need to
medicalize the condition, somehow convinced, without evidence, that
autism must be the result of biological defect. And so the research
and studies have been growing like weeds, searches for defective
genes, searches for defective neural pathways, searches for defective
metabolisms—massively funded and massively peopled efforts that
have now become laughable in the combined fruitlessness of their
results. And more troubling still—and certainly more shameful—has
been the scientific community's willingness to heap insult and
torture upon its autistic subjects, branding them with an assortment
of inaccurate and unsupported labels (burdens, tragedies) and
stifling them with an assortment of damaging treatments and so-called
cures (applied behavioral analysis, stupefying drugs). The scientific
community's present approach to autism is destined to become one of
that community's more humiliating hours.</p>
<p>A far more accurate approach to understanding autism is to regard
it as a condition of increased conspecific distance. All the core
characteristics of autism—what nearly every autistic individual
shares in common—are the very same characteristics predicted of an
organism that is much nearer to the conspecific border than the
majority of its peers. Autistic individuals, although very much a
biological part of the human population, show less inclination for
and less attention to their conspecific neighbors, a trait which is
often taken as evidence of damaged social functioning but upon
careful observation is more precisely described as a diminished human
awareness, an attenuated human recognition. Autistic children, less
inherently prone to the activities of conspecific observation and
conspecific imitation, mature more slowly than their non-autistic
counterparts, sometimes taking well into adulthood to assume a fuller
role within the broader population. Autistic individuals experience
an assortment of sensory anomalies—hypersensitivity,
hyposensitivity, synaesthesia—conditions that seem to have no
discernible physical cause and no tangible consistency from
individual to individual, evidence that these anomalies stem not from
physical defects but instead from a more generalized difficulty with
the attainment of sensory unification. Finally, and almost
invariably, autistic individuals compensate for their diminished
conspecific awareness and recognition by concentrating instead on
alternative perceptual targets, including a predominance of targets
from the non-biological world. In the youngest autistic individuals
this is most often seen in the rapt attention given to such things as
spinning objects, symmetrical figures, repeated sounds and scenes,
and in older autistic individuals this characteristic often coalesces
into specialized and deeply learned interests. Sadly, the term
<i>repetitive and restricted behaviors</i> is often used to
disparage these concentrations on alternative perceptual targets,
betraying a complete misunderstanding of both their necessary purpose
and their liberating consequence. For these concentrations on
alternative perceptual targets are both the creative antidotes to
what might otherwise be an overwhelming sensory chaos, and they are
also the opening doors to the organizing and intelligence-producing
principles of pattern, symmetry, repetition, structure and form.</p>
<p>The key role that autistic individuals must have played—and are
continuing to play—in the sparking of the human behavioral
revolution can be seen in the oddly consistent feature that has
emerged at each point of human perceptual and behavioral change.
These changes are always launched by individuals and their
discoveries (never by groups), individuals who are inevitably in
possession of a distinguishing and uncommon set of traits. From
Socrates to Newton to Beethoven to Einstein—and at each
transforming moment of genius in between—the human revolution has
been powered by individuals who seem to be mostly detached from the
typical concerns of society and species, and who are instead
obsessively focused on alternative concerns, often non-biological
concerns, concerns that the rest of the population might describe as
worthless or strange. It has never been much of a secret that the
personal characteristics of genius tend to be rather odd; all that is
being noted here is that these personal characteristics tend to be
odd in a predictable and recognizable way. One might call these
individuals of genius autistic, or one might call them
conspecifically distant—there really is no difference—but the
true mark of their genius is that they see the world not as it is and
as others perceive it, the true mark of their genius is that they see
the world exactly <i>not</i> as it is and exactly <i>not</i> as
others have already perceived it, the same compensatory and
distinguishing characteristic of a conspecifically distanced
organism, of an autistic individual.</p>
<br /><br />
<p>Any explanation of the human behavioral revolution would need to
be an explanation of coincident events, because it was at the exact
same moment in Earth's enormous biological/evolutionary timescale
that humans quite suddenly underwent an entire host of unprecedented
transformations:</p>
<ul>
<li>They began perceiving aspects of their sensory world that
went far beyond the elements of survival and procreation alone.<br />
</li>
<li>They began behaving less and less like the animals they had
formerly been, and more and more like the modern humans they were
about to become.<br />
</li>
<li>They began constructing artifacts out of the material
structure of the non-biological world.<br />
</li>
<li>They began displaying the tangible signs of what would become
an ever increasing intelligence.<br />
</li>
<li>They began expanding geographically, conquering climates and
other species, and did not stop until they had blanketed the entire
planet.<br />
</li>
</ul>
<p>The common explanation for the human revolution, that it is simply
a by-product of normal biology and normal evolution, fails to tie
together any of these multi-faceted events and fails to address their
suddenness and simultaneity. The notion of conspecific distancing,
however, has the merit of encompassing nearly all these different
aspects of the human revolution: it provides a direct and observable
source for the expansion of human perception; it contrasts that new
perception with biological perception, providing an explanation for
humanity's departure from animal behavior; it clarifies mankind's
sudden interest and skill with the elements of the non-biological
world; and it describes humanity's ever increasing intelligence as
the embodied reliance upon the organizing principles of pattern,
symmetry, repetition, structure and form.</p>
<p>Furthermore, conspecific distancing associates directly to yet
another event coincident with the human revolution. Concurrent with
the other changes taking place within the species, <i>Homo sapiens</i>
was undergoing a significant introgression of genetic material from
Neanderthals and perhaps other human sub-species, an introgression
sizable and pervasive enough that nearly all non-African humans
living today possess around a 2 to 3 percent admixture of non <i>Homo
sapiens</i> genetic material (Green <i>et al.,</i> 2010).
There is still much to be learned about the nature and impact of this
introgressive event, but it is clear such an occurrence would be
exactly the kind of genetic jolt that could loosen the conspecific
bonds of a species and potentially give rise to many generations of
conspecifically distanced individuals.</p>
<p>All these simultaneous and fast occurring events, along with the
nature of the autistic population living today, serve as the strong
circumstantial evidence that the human behavioral revolution was not
an event of normal biology and normal evolution, but instead was an
event driven by the characteristics of conspecific distancing,
characteristics that ultimately gave rise to an evolution-shattering
and universe-unveiling aberration—the lone counterexample to the
law of species stasis.</p>
<br /><br /><br />
References
<br /><br />
Green, R.E., <i>et al</i>. (2010). A draft sequence of the
Neandertal genome. <i>Science 328</i>, 710–722.<br />
Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-33159512053517852102015-07-11T00:54:00.001-04:002017-02-11T16:17:19.663-05:00Animal Intelligence<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { }</style>
<p>[Edit 02/11/2017: The final version of this essay can be found <a href="http://www.grizzalan.com/concertoforintelligence/ai.html">here</a>.]</p>
<p>Chimpanzees communicating with sign language and lexigrams. Rhesus
macaques accurately adding Arabic numerals. Dolphins employing
sponges as protective gear during foraging. Crows bending wires into
food hooks. Octopi transporting and manipulating coconut shells for
camouflage and shelter. These and many similar examples are showcased
regularly by today's scientists as the evidence that animals—meaning
the animal species other than <i>Homo sapiens</i>—possess
intelligence, intelligence comparable to and in some cases rivaling
that of humans.</p>
<p>But when these examples are examined not for what they are
<i>supposed</i> to demonstrate, but instead for what they <i>actually</i>
demonstrate, they contradict the scientists' conclusion, and what
they reveal instead is a widespread misunderstanding about what
intelligence is. For all but one species on this planet the phrase
<i>animal intelligence</i> is essentially meaningless, a null set.
And for the exception—for the human species—the phrase <i>animal
intelligence</i> is more akin to a contradiction in terms, the
left-to-right juxtaposition of this species' sudden and surprising
turn from the first word of the phrase to the second.</p>
<br /><br />
<p>The many offered examples of animal intelligence fall invariably
into one of just two categories.</p>
<p>The first category comprises those instances typically originated
in the laboratory, such as primates displaying language skills and
numeracy, birds employing an assortment of knick-knacks as tools,
rodents navigating ever more complex mazes, etc. And more broadly,
this category also encompasses the many domesticated animals and
their activities that are frequently portrayed as intelligent, such
as responding to a called name or consistently unlatching the hook
from the pen. Such behaviors, when performed by humans, are taken as
instances of human intelligence, and so it is an easy next step to
assess such behaviors, when performed by animals, as instances of
animal intelligence. Further bolstering this line of reasoning is the
widespread agreement that human intelligence is produced via the
human brain. Animals clearly have brains too, and so what could be
more natural than to characterize their sophisticated laboratory and
domestication behaviors as expressions of animal intelligence
produced via the animal brain. What arises then from all these
seemingly straightforward considerations is the widely held notion
that not just humans but the other animals too must possess a neural
proclivity for intelligence, and although this intelligence might
differ in degree from species to species (for presumably evolutionary
reasons), it certainly does not differ in kind.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, this line of reasoning masks a crucial omission: it
too conveniently forgets the <i>context</i> of all these examples. By
definition, every instance of a laboratory- or domestication-based
animal intelligence behavior manifests exclusively within an
artificial environment, which is to say that it manifests exclusively
under <i>human</i>-generated conditions. Chimpanzees do not respond
to chimpanzee-invented words and lexigrams, they respond instead to
<i>human</i>-invented
words and lexigrams. Crows do not manipulate crow-generated
artifacts, they manipulate <i>human</i>-generated artifacts. Rats do
not navigate rat-engineered mazes, they navigate <i>human</i>-engineered
mazes. The inevitable presence and influence of human-originated
features within the settings of all these examples calls immediately
into question the applicability of the phrase <i>animal intelligence</i>,
because it remains highly uncertain that <i>animal</i> has anything
to do with these cases. It would be more legitimate to say that the
animals in these examples are displaying not a form of animal
intelligence so much as they are simply redisplaying well known forms
of human intelligence, a kind of intelligence irrevocably tied to
human-specific circumstances. This distinction is not merely
semantic, because in fact its <i>consequences</i> are both
consistent and real. Without exception, when the human-originated
features are removed from the setting of any one of these examples,
the corresponding intelligence behaviors disappear right along with
them. No primate ever employs an abstract symbol or lexigram in the
wild, and no cat answers to its given name in the great outdoors.</p>
<p>Perhaps even more tellingly, the presence of human-like animal
intelligence behaviors within artificial settings, and the complete
absence of such behaviors within natural settings, assails the very
notion of an intelligence produced via the brain—be it animal brain
or human brain. The fundamental distinction between wild animals and
animals under human influence is certainly not genetic or neural, not
unless one is prone to believe in biological magic (as some
scientists would seem to be). No, and so the question must be asked:
if laboratory- and domestication-based animal intelligence behaviors
are the evidence of a capacity for intelligence within the animal
brain, then why does this capacity not express itself within
non-artificial settings? If for instance the primate brain possesses
enough intelligence to produce abstract language and arithmetic
within the laboratory, then it certainly possesses enough
intelligence to produce abstract language and arithmetic within the
jungle—and yet it never does so. Thus it is a logical mistake to
attribute animal intelligence behaviors to the animal brain, because
in fact the animal brain does not differ from setting to setting, and
yet animal intelligence behaviors can differ <i>vastly</i> from
setting to setting.</p>
<p>The more logical and direct alternative would be to attribute
human-like animal intelligence behaviors to what is actually <i>distinct</i>
between the circumstances of the laboratory and the circumstances of
the wild, namely the presence of human-generated artifacts and
influences within the former setting and the complete absence of such
artifacts and influences within the latter setting. The
human-originated environment—mostly non-biological, highly
constructed, and abundantly suffused with underlying elements of
pattern, symmetry, repetition, structure and form—this is the only
distinguishing feature to which to attribute human-like animal
intelligence behaviors, behaviors that manifest within its presence
but disappear upon its absence. This human context—this human
<i>intelligence</i> context—cannot be overlooked in the description
of laboratory- and domestication-based animal intelligence behaviors,
because it is this context alone that emerges as the precipitating
factor for the induction of such behaviors.</p>
<p>Furthermore, if human-like animal intelligence behaviors are
attributable solely to the presence of artificial and structural
features within the surrounding environment of such behaviors—and
not attributable to the animal brain—then there is little reason to
expect the situation is any different for humans themselves. It is of
course not possible to observe directly the comparable behaviors of
modern humans versus wild humans (even the few remaining humans yet
living under the most primitive of conditions are still thoroughly
ensconced from birth in artificial features and
circumstances—abstract language, weapons, constructed shelters,
etc.). Nonetheless, the evidence from anthropological history reveals
that for a very long period of time <i>Homo sapiens</i>
individuals lived as little more than animals themselves, engaged
almost entirely in a struggle for survival and procreation, and if
one were to compare the language, arithmetic, tool usage, shelter
creation and other intelligence behaviors between those ancient
humans and modern humans, one would recognize that here too, just as
was the case in the comparison of wild animals versus laboratory- and
domestication-based animals, the gulf in intelligence behaviors is
vast—a nearly complete <i>absence</i> in the former case and
an overwhelming <i>presence</i> in the latter. But again
unless one is prone to believe in biological or evolutionary magic
(as some scientists would seem to be), one cannot attribute this vast
gulf in intelligence behaviors to genetic or neural causes, because
in fact the genetic and neural distinction between ancient humans and
modern humans is minuscule, a comparison of a species against itself.
Instead, the only non-magical, differentiating
influence to which to attribute the vast gulf in intelligence
behaviors from ancient humans to modern humans is the large and
obvious distinction in their environmental circumstances. For ancient
humans their immediate surroundings were as natural as natural can
be, void of all artificial constructions and features, the equivalent
of a wild animal's domain; while for modern humans the natural world
has been practically eclipsed from view, crowded out by surroundings
mostly non-biological, highly constructed, and abundantly suffused
with the underlying characteristics of pattern, symmetry, repetition,
structure and form. For modern humans, the source and inspiration of
their many and varied intelligence behaviors can be found literally
everywhere close at hand, while for ancient humans such sources and
inspirations were literally nowhere to be seen, and this vast
difference in setting, coupled with a near equivalence in biological
underpinning, strongly challenges the notion of an intelligence
produced via the brain.</p>
<p>Thus for this first category of examples offered in support of the
existence of an animal intelligence—examples originated in the
laboratory, the barnyard and the home—it can be seen that the
widespread and unquestioned conclusion that such behaviors are the
evidence of animal intelligence produced via the animal brain
overlooks what these examples actually convey. The presence of such
behaviors exclusively in human-originated circumstances means that
this form of intelligence is more <i>human</i>-inspired than it is
<i>animal</i>-inspired, and means that far from being produced via
the animal brain—a brain that is just as functional and just as
present in the wild—these intelligence behaviors are more directly
attributable to the human-centric features and influences that
constitute the behaviors' surrounding environment, the only type of
environment in which these behaviors manifest.</p>
<br /><br />
<p>The second category of examples offered as evidence for animal
intelligence reverses the circumstances of the first category and
consists solely of those cases that occur entirely within natural
settings, completely removed from any artificial (that is, human)
influence. This includes instances such as dolphins and mollusks
employing found objects for shelter and tool, migratory birds
navigating by landmarks and stars, squirrels employing deception to
safeguard their cache of food, and so on. Indeed the enumeration of
examples from this second category would appear to be potentially
without end, because it could reasonably be argued that <i>any</i>
behavior successfully advancing an animal's quest for survival and
procreation might be a viable candidate for inclusion in this
category. Scientists are of course apt to concentrate only on those
behaviors that have a similarity to well known human
behaviors—behaviors that are considered by the scientists to be
humanly intelligent—but this clearly reflects some anthropocentric
bias and effectively reduces the phrase <i>animal intelligence</i> as
applied to this category to be little more than a synonym for <i>animal
similarity-to-modern-humanness</i>. Yet even under this
tilted approach the ambiguity would still remain. For although a
human might cleverly apply deception to safeguard his valuables in
certain circumstances, he might also smartly employ brute force when
different circumstances arise; and so when the squirrel protects its
stash of acorns via deception within the tree and the lion preserves
its kill via brute force upon the savanna, are both behaviors to be
described as intelligent? In this second category of examples, quite
in contrast to the first, the phrase <i>animal intelligence</i> is no
longer controversial with regard to its first word, but the
controversy now rages full tilt around the aptness of the second
word. Since all the examples within this second category reflect
<i>natural</i> behaviors, behaviors forged through evolution and
generally well ingrained into the species, what justifies the
application of the word <i>intelligence</i> to particular instances
of these behaviors, and how would these particular instances be
distinguished (could they be
distinguished) from all other natural behaviors that effectively
serve the purpose of advancing an animal's quest for survival and
procreation?</p>
<p>If the standard use of the word <i>intelligence</i> within
scientific discourse is to be
given any weight at all, then there is no question it is a
definitional mistake to apply the word <i>intelligence</i> to any
biologically natural behavior, be it successful or otherwise and be
it similar to human behavior or not. This is seen most clearly and
directly by inspecting the <i>contents</i> of that preeminent tool
for measuring intelligence, the IQ exam. Although this feature is
often overlooked, forgotten or ignored, an IQ exam deliberately and
categorically excludes many types of behavior from its jurisdiction.
For instance, a test-taker's athletic ability never comes into
play—one's ability to run, leap or throw neither helps nor hinders
one's performance on an IQ exam. And more germane to the discussion
at hand, an IQ exam never assesses a test-taker's ability to survive
or procreate under primitive conditions—one's ability to vanquish
predator or prey, and one's likelihood to foster a prodigious lineage
neither helps nor hinders one's performance on an IQ exam. What an IQ
exam does measure is a circumscribed and biologically foreign set of
capabilities and behaviors, targeting a test-taker's capacity to
respond productively to a series of challenges constructed almost
entirely out of artificial components, components carrying the
underlying characteristics of pattern, symmetry, repetition,
structure and form. It is by these circumscribed and biologically
foreign means that an IQ exam can capture the type of human-like
intelligence behavior that was the focus of attention under the first
category of examples offered for animal intelligence, but it is also
by these same means that an IQ exam <i>excludes</i> the type of
biologically natural behavior that is the focus of attention under
this second category of
examples offered for animal intelligence. By design and by intent,
biologically natural behaviors are to have no influence on
intelligence as measured by an IQ exam, and thus any resemblance of
natural behaviors to behaviors that <i>are</i> measurable by an IQ
exam must be taken as nothing more than an accidental coincidence.</p>
<p>The <i>fluidity</i> of an IQ exam's contents, along with the
corresponding fluidity of what those contents measure, provides still
more justification for uncoupling entirely all intelligence
behaviors, which are quite malleable, from all biologically natural
behaviors, which are not malleable at all. For instance, it has been
well documented that due to the Flynn effect intelligence exams must
be re-engineered on a regular basis, recasting questions to be more
sophisticated and challenging as time goes on. Questions assessing a
test-taker's general knowledge, which would have been quite localized
in the past, today must encompass a global, indeed a universal,
scale; and questions covering topics such as mathematics, logic,
vocabulary and grammar would have looked quite different if set
hundreds of years ago versus how they are set today, and will morph
still further when presented in the future (think of the way in which
electronic communication is altering the rules of vocabulary and
grammar even today). Plus it is not just the shifting nature of the
IQ exam that attests to this fluidity of intelligence; in everyday
usage and in general application it can be seen that intelligence
behaviors have an inherent tendency to change over time. A human of
the past who could use his scythe to harvest grain would have been
described as reasonably intelligent, but today's farmer who cannot
advance beyond the scythe to the mechanisms of the combine will be
assessed as far less so, and the engineer of the future who cannot
transcend both the scythe and the combine to master the intricacies
of the automated process will be seen as intellectually left behind.
In short, intelligence behaviors do not stand still, they do not
solidify into long-term habit or an enduring nature. Intelligence
behaviors are generalizable, they can be quickly advanced.
Intelligence behaviors are promulgated rapidly and then widely
transformed.</p>
<p>By contrast, biologically natural behaviors are characterized
precisely by the fact they have become so deeply ingrained, the
predictable and enduring aspects of the species in particular and the
animal kingdom in general. Forged through evolution and constrained
by biological pressures, natural behaviors transform on only the
rarest of occasions and under the most extreme of circumstances.
Almost every offered example of animal intelligence that falls within
the domain of this second category—dolphins employing sponges as
tools, birds navigating by landmarks, intricate nest building, insect
communication dances, coordinated pack hunting, etc.—every one of
these behaviors would have been observable exactly as it is today a
hundred thousand years ago, and will be observable exactly as it is
today a hundred thousand years into the future, with no
generalization, no advancement, no promulgation, no transformation.
If there were exams for measuring the capacity for any of these
natural behaviors the exams would never need to be revised but could
serve their purpose faithfully millennium after millennium after
millennium.</p>
<p>One of the more prominent examples of this tendency to mistake an
ingrained natural behavior for an intelligence behavior comes from
the history of humans themselves, in their usage of stone tools.
Although widely accepted as at least a precursor to intelligence, the
ancient employment of edged choppers nonetheless went ungeneralized
and unchanged for hundreds of thousand of years and thus was more
akin to something like nest building in the birds than to anything
artificial or modern. It was not until the human tool set suddenly
transformed, transformed in material and categorization (and quite
recently in human history and accompanied by dozens of other
behavioral changes) that the species found itself rapidly rearranging
its environmental circumstances and marching hurriedly towards an
intelligence age. If there were a man today who could master no more
than the flaking of some flint while at the same time being utterly
dumbfounded by hammers, pliers and awls, he would not be regarded as
intelligent, and neither would his long line of descendants if they
were to somehow become stuck on these same stone choppers generation
after generation after generation.</p>
<p>In comparison to biologically natural behaviors, intelligence
behaviors are strange, fleeting and foreign, traveling almost
exclusively in the company of artificial constructs; intelligence
behaviors share essentially none of the enduring evolutionary
characteristics that define biologically natural behaviors.
Intelligence behaviors are not driven solely by a need for survival
and procreation, intelligence behaviors do not become deeply
entrenched, and intelligence behaviors were nowhere to be seen on
this planet until humans quite recently and quite suddenly and quite
prodigiously took them on. The many offered examples of animal
intelligence that fall within this second category are in fact
<i>contradictions</i> to the word <i>intelligence</i>, their
biological and evolutionary underpinning meaning ipso facto they are
to be excluded. That these instances are so frequently offered as
examples of animal intelligence can be attributed primarily to a
cause that is both obvious and quite benign, namely that these
examples bear an accidental resemblance to modern human behaviors and
scientists are unable to suppress their anthropocentric bias.</p>
<br /><br />
<p>Thus for the animal species other than <i>Homo sapiens</i>, the
phrase <i>animal intelligence</i> finds no meaningful application,
its legitimate instances forming a null set. All the examples that
would fall under the first category of animal intelligence—examples
originated in artificial settings—fail on the word <i>animal</i>,
and all the examples that would fall under the second category of
animal intelligence—examples originated in natural settings—fail
on the word <i>intelligence</i>. On Earth, the phrase <i>animal
intelligence</i> currently attaches to humans and to humans alone.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, even with humans, the phrase <i>animal intelligence</i>
has the most uneasy and paradoxical application, its two words
representing two fundamental and opposing aspects of human nature.
Indeed modern humans might be more articulately described by the
phrase <i>animal versus intelligence</i>. This conflict
arose of course historically, for man was once nothing more than
animal himself and like the other species was a complete stranger to
intelligence, a complete stranger to any artificial construct
composed out of pattern, symmetry, repetition, structure or form. In
those ancient yet not-so-long-ago days (not so long ago, that is, on
any biological or geographical timescale), evolution was still the
primary master, and the quest for survival and procreation was still
the sole motivator. But today, for modern man, the tables have been
nearly turned: nature has been practically eclipsed from view,
survival and procreation have been mostly tamed by artificial means,
and the evolutionary process has been turned completely on its head.
The one great unanswered scientific question of the present day (a
question only humans are capable of asking) is how can this sudden
and prodigious transformation be described and explained—what are
its characteristics, what brought it about, and what are its ultimate
consequences?</p>
<p>The popular and conventional solution to the problem of explaining
modern man and his burgeoning intelligence is to claim everything
must have arisen as an evolutionary event. Some would describe this
event as gradual (to meet the requirements of biological and
evolutionary principles) and others—Richard Klein, for
instance—would describe this event as sudden (to meet the
requirements of man's surprisingly rapid turn), but in any case the
essential requirement is that human intelligence be depicted
primarily as a product of biological evolution, something akin to a
genetic mutation producing a cascading neurological effect, because
of course <i>all</i> animal transformations are products of
evolution, are they not, can there really be such a thing as an
exception?</p>
<p>But in fact intelligence <i>is</i> the exception. Not <i>an</i>
exception, but <i>the</i> exception. Intelligence contravenes
evolution, intelligence is thoroughly anti-evolutionary in its
process, cause and effect. On Earth, man with his newfound
intelligence has become an anti-evolutionary creature, an
anti-evolutionary force, producing astounding environmental impact,
observable literally everywhere close at hand.</p>
<p>Most of the grounds for this determination have already been
stated. When describing the circumstances in which intelligence
behaviors (be they human or animal) exclusively manifest, it was
noted that intelligence behaviors always appear within <i>artificial</i>
settings and are always attached to <i>constructed</i> circumstances.
Intelligence performance is measured primarily by an <i>artificial</i>
instrument, its content composed entirely out of <i>artificial</i>
components and its domain enjoined from measuring any athletic or
instinctive ability. When comparing intelligence behaviors to
biologically natural behaviors, it was noted that intelligence
behaviors are fluid and accumulative, not conservative and ingrained,
and intelligence changes are predictable via generalization and rapid
promulgation, not random (as is the case with geological and gene
mutative events). These already stated observations can be summarized
into one readily apparent fact: the characteristics of intelligence
are <i>incompatible</i> with the characteristics of biology and
nature, the characteristics of intelligence are diametrically <i>opposed</i>
to the characteristics of evolution.</p>
<p>This fact becomes even more apparent when comparing the dynamics
underlying intelligence and evolution. Evolutionary dynamics are well
known and straightforward to describe. Given a stable environment,
organisms (as the genetic representatives of their species) undergo
selection for that environment through a striving for survival and
procreation. The organisms which are best suited to the environment
will more likely emerge as dominant and established, and the
organisms which are less suited to the environment will more likely
diminish by being dominated and crowded out. Environmental change
fosters some transition and churn, as does random genetic mutation,
but since significant environmental change tends to be rare in
typical circumstances and since random genetic mutation tends to be a
long shot for increasing environmental fit, evolution tends to be a
conservative and slow moving process, with significant alteration
often taking place on the scale of hundreds of thousands or even
millions of years.</p>
<p>The dynamics underlying intelligence are composed of these exact
same components—environment, selection, mutation, survival and
procreation—but these components are arranged in an alternative
pattern, producing a fast-moving process that runs in evolution's
counter-direction. Intelligence begins with just one species, a
species that will not undergo any significant genetic mutation. The
organisms of this species, once subject to natural selection as with
all the other species, begin to <i>circumvent</i> selection by
substituting instead its artificial counterpart, selectively mutating
the organisms' environment, mutating it in such a way as to make the
surrounding conditions more supportive of the organisms' survival and
procreation (and generally less supportive of neighboring species'
survival and procreation). The key to this deliberate, non-natural
environmental mutation is an awareness of the environment's
underlying characteristics, characteristics that are mostly
non-biological and abundantly suffused with elements of pattern,
symmetry, repetition, structure and form. The organisms of this
species make use of these characteristics to mutate their environment
in a self-preserving manner—think clothing, shelter, weapons,
abstract words—and these mutations also serve as the prominent,
long-lasting embodiment of the characteristics themselves, spreading
knowledge and awareness to the other members of the species. And
since these non-biological environmental mutations are not subject to
any genetic or geological constraint, they can be attempted with
accumulating impact and with increasing speed, a fact currently being
demonstrated by humankind on a nearly daily basis.</p>
<p>Thus to make use of intelligence is to <i>defy</i> evolution; a
species acquiring intelligence is turning evolution on its head. Or
to make the comparison more direct, with evolution, the environment
selects among mutating organisms for the best environmental fit,
while with intelligence (anti-evolution), the organism selects among
mutable environments for the best organism fit. Evolution and
intelligence are <i>opposing</i> forces, they run in <i>counter</i>
directions.</p>
<br /><br />
<p>The recent history of <i>Homo sapiens</i> might tempt one to think
that in the conflict between evolutionary animal and
anti-evolutionary intelligence, intelligence must be emerging as the
victor. Humans have been moving farther and farther away from their
former animal circumstances and now live in settings where the
artificial features outnumber the natural features on a scale of
perhaps a hundred to one, maybe even a thousand to one. Intelligence
has been measurably increasing population-wide year after year (the
Flynn effect), and intelligence has grown so copious that a good
portion of its augmentation is no longer directed to survival and
procreation (understanding of the Big Bang for instance, intriguing
though it might be, is not likely to impact human continuance anytime
soon). The human transformation has been charting what seems to be a
direct course, straight from all animal and no intelligence to all
intelligence and no animal.</p>
<p>But the temptation to think in this way is merely an illusion. The
abundant increase in human intelligence, admittedly quite real, masks
a reality that is just as important and just as essential, namely
that the animal in man has gone nowhere at all, man's animal nature
has diminished not one bit. The primary justification for this
conclusion is of course the fact that the requirements of survival
and procreation remain in full effect. Although intelligence and its
many constructions have certainly eased the immediate challenges of
survival and procreation for most people, and have sheltered the
human species from a broad array of biological contingencies, these
protections are nonetheless fragile and increasingly complex, and
therefore not guaranteed to last. Nuclear arsenals, the profligate
destruction of climate, eradication of supporting species, plus
hundreds of other unseen vicissitudes—ruinous catastrophe seems to
lurk around nearly every bend and along with it a return (at best) to
an ancient and bestial existence. But even discounting this potential
for civilization collapse, even assuming circumstances will continue
as is, man's animal heritage must still insist on having its say.
Greed, lust, rivalries, nepotism, revenge—these easily traceable
holdovers from man's primate beginnings serve not only as the most
captivating plot devices in popular forms of modern entertainment,
they serve also as the most compelling motivators of day-to-day
action in a modern human society. So resilient has been the primitive
impulse within human temperament that the efforts of intelligence
have often been the most successful not when <i>confronting</i>
the lingering animal within man but instead when assimilating it,
even sublimating it, and thereby channeling and dissipating much of
its pent-up energy. Anyone who has ever witnessed up close the inner
workings of a modern corporation, and has experienced first hand the
often devious and sometimes brutal scramble towards executive office
and boardroom key, will have a perfect acquaintance with the
vestigial features of a hierarchical clan. Anyone who has ever
attended the clamorous and furious taking up of sides in the giant
arenas of battle—the home warriors clashing against the invading
marauders—will have an intimate familiarity with the fears
accompanying territorial battle and will have rediscovered a hunger
for the spoils of conquest. Even when intelligence has been at its
most powerful and progressive, even when building sophisticated
constructions capable of advancing the entirety of the human species,
intelligence has been nonetheless helpless against the visceral
traits of that species permeating the final results. Witness one of
the more recent triumphs of intelligence, witness the development of
widespread electronic communication, capable of spreading advancement
to literally all, and then witness the most popular and frequent use
of that instrument, as the preferred and efficient conduit of gossip,
fraud and pornography.</p>
<p>Some humans will no doubt feel an urge to pull back towards man's
more familiar animal past, not comprehending that such a retreat
means a return to the exigencies and stasis of a primordial
existence. Other humans will desire that the forces of intelligence
eventually conquer the animal within man, not recognizing that such
an outcome puts an end to all vitality. What remains elusive is what
might be the <i>purpose</i> behind the introduction of intelligence
into an animal species—what could be the ultimate goal—but
whatever that purpose or goal may be, the fundamental conflict so
engendered appears to be at its most productive only while it is
being waged, or perhaps while it is being transcended, and not when
it is being won. The fate of modern humans is tied to this ongoing
struggle between animal and intelligence, between evolution and
anti-evolution, and it is in this way (and in this way only) that the
phrase <i>animal intelligence</i> acquires legitimate and substantive
meaning.</p>
<br /><br />
<p>A remaining challenge regarding the human transformation from
animal to intelligent being is to pinpoint exactly what was it that
set this transformation in motion, and what continues to sustain its
energy through the present day. One of the more logical answers to
this challenge turns out to be both unexpected and provocative—far
too unexpected and provocative to be taken up here—but one of the
characteristics of this answer can be anticipated from the present
discussion, anticipated from what has been said about the enormous
opposing gulf that lies between animal and intelligence. Any species
transitioning from animal to intelligence is performing a gigantic
about-face, a turn from evolution towards anti-evolution, and is
performing this turn against what must be an overwhelming inertia.
There have been thousands and thousands of species come and go on
this planet over millions and millions of years, and yet the human
acquisition of intelligence has been an unprecedented occurrence, the
rarest of biological happenings, the most atypical event since life
began. So if one were to go in search of a <i>cause</i> for this
atypical event, the places that one need not bother to look, the
places almost guaranteed to supply essentially nothing in the way of
meaningful information, would be the <i>usual</i> locations (the
places where today's scientists are most likely to gather): <i>normal</i>
biology, <i>normal</i> neurology, <i>normal</i> genetics, these are
almost certain to be normal dead ends. And if one were to go in
search of a cause for this atypical event within humans themselves,
within the actual members of the population, then the one type of
person one need not bother to consider, the one type of person almost
guaranteed to supply essentially nothing in the way of meaningful
information, would be the <i>typical</i> person (the type of person
today's scientists are most likely to examine): the <i>average</i>
primate neighbor, the <i>average</i> representative of the species,
these are almost certain to be average dead ends. The atypical human
transformation, the unexpected and provocative turn from animal to
intelligence, the abnormal about-face from evolution to
anti-evolution—if all this is to be explained, it will be explained
not by what is usual but by what is unusual. If all this is to be
explained by reference to humans themselves, it will be explained not
by those who are normal but by those who are abnormal, explained by
reference to those who are the most atypical members of the
population.</p>
Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-40390703000987573722015-03-26T02:28:00.000-04:002017-02-11T16:09:01.731-05:00The Flynn Effect's Unseen Hand, Revised<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { }</style>
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[Three years ago I
wrote <a href="http://autisticaphorisms.blogspot.com/2012/02/flynn-effects-unseen-hand.html" target="_blank">an essay</a> summarizing my ideas regarding human intelligence and
the Flynn effect. I would describe that effort as less than
successful. There are several reasons for this—laziness, too much
excitement, too little time, trying to fit to an academic form. And
unfortunately I have had little opportunity in recent years to make
the necessary revisions. Recently however I have managed to revisit
the work and insert some improvements—mostly changes in
terminology, expansions of explanations, and a simpler tone. I won't
suggest that the new version will prove any more influential than its
predecessor, but it does set my mind at ease to know that when I had
something I thought worthy to say, I at least made the attempt to say
it well.]</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />[Edit 02/11/2017: The final version of this essay can be found <a href="http://www.grizzalan.com/concertoforintelligence/feuh.html">here</a>.]</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>The Flynn Effect's
Unseen Hand</b></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<b>
</b>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<i><b>Introduction</b></i>. The Flynn effect is a well known but
insufficiently explained phenomenon. Many different causes have been
suggested for the population-wide generational increases in raw
intelligence scores—including heterosis, better nutrition, more
abundant education, environmental complexity and various combinations
of the above—but no explanation offered so far has proven to be
scientifically or logically compelling. This lack of progress might
be indicative of a misunderstanding of human intelligence itself,
which is depicted these days almost entirely in terms of brain-based
functioning alone. That brain-based focus however has often been the
bedevilment in the many offered explanations of the Flynn effect, for
it has been difficult to reconcile purported neural mechanisms
producing individual intelligence differences with purported neural
mechanisms producing widespread intelligence gains.<br />
<br />
Accordingly, this essay will propose an alternative model of human
intelligence, one decidedly not centered on the human brain. This
model will highlight two complementary aspects of human intelligence:
1. <i>environmental intelligence</i>, defined as the total amount of
non-biological pattern, structure and form tangibly contained within
the human environment, and 2. <i>neuronal</i><i> intelligence</i>,
defined as an individual's capacity to absorb and respond to
<i>environmental intelligence</i>. It can be shown that it is
<i>environmental intelligence</i> that serves as the sole driver of
the Flynn effect, independently of <i>neuronal </i><i>intelligenc</i><i>e</i>.
It will also be demonstrated how <i>environmental intelligence</i> is
similar to but far more comprehensive than the concept known as
environmental complexity. Finally, it will be shown that this
dual-aspect model of human intelligence can effectively answer many
of the Flynn effect paradoxes enumerated by James Flynn himself.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>Background</b></i>. Generational gains in raw intelligence
scores were first noticed by several individuals—including Reed
Tuddenham and Richard Lynn—but it was James Flynn in the 1980s who
most clearly demonstrated the ubiquitous nature of what has come to
be known as the Flynn effect. In the thirty years since, the Flynn
effect has attracted a good deal of study and ink—in part because
the phenomenon has been regarded as surprising, and in part because
the phenomenon has continued to defy adequate explanation.<br />
<br />
This situation stands in contrast to many other areas of
intelligence research, including investigations into the source and
impact of individual and group intelligence differences. Using factor
analysis, identical twin studies and many other tools of modern
cognitive science, researchers have been able to demonstrate
consistently that individual intelligence differences produce
significant impact in such areas as academics and career, and that
these individual differences are driven mostly by genetics and are
almost certainly neuronally based. These discoveries and achievements
have led to a nearly unanimous consensus that intelligence is to be
regarded exclusively as a brain-produced activity—in short, greater
intelligence is spawned by a more effective brain.<br />
<br />
The Flynn effect, however, throws something of a monkey wrench
into this widely held view. To accept the conclusion that
intelligence is exclusively a brain-produced activity—an activity
determined primarily by genetics—one must anticipate that overall
human intelligence will remain relatively stable across time, in
accordance with all standard biological and evolutionary principles.
That is why the Flynn effect has been regarded as so surprising: the
sizable and widespread raw intelligence gains recorded across the
entire twentieth century far outstrip any brain-based improvements
that might be anticipated under a biological/neuronal/evolutionary
framework.<br />
<br />
One response to this dilemma has been to search for an orthogonal
influence underlying the Flynn effect, and James Flynn himself (1999)
has uttered that very reaction in almost those exact same terms ("it
is as if some unseen hand is propelling scores upward"). Richard
Lewontin (1976) has already provided a convincing description for how
such an orthogonal influence would work [Flynn's description of
Lewontin's idea: "(Lewontin) distinguished the role of genes
within groups from the role of genes between groups. He imagined a
sack of seedcorn with plenty of genetic variation randomly divided
into two batches, each of which would therefore be equal for overall
genetic quality. Batch A is grown in a uniform and optimal
environment, so within that group all height differences at maturity
are due to genetic variation; batch B is grown in a uniform
environment which lacks enough nitrates, so within that group all
height differences are also genetic. However, the difference in
average height between the two groups will, of course, be due
entirely to the unequal quality of their two environments....genes
(could) explain 100 percent of IQ differences within generations, and
yet, environment might explain 100 percent of the average IQ
difference between generations."]. But no one has ever pursued
this line of reasoning to its ultimate conclusion, in part because
what paralyzes the pursuit is the widespread certainty—a dogma
really—that intelligence is strictly a brain-produced phenomenon.
Any offered explanation for the Flynn effect—be it heterosis,
better nutrition, improved education, environmental complexity, or
any combination or alternative to the above—any explanation it
seems has to be brought back ultimately to human neurology, has to
induce a material impact upon the human brain. Vigor, nutrients,
schooling, video games—<i>whatever</i> is driving intelligence
gains, it must somehow <i>change</i> the human brain, must make it
more effective, make it more intelligent. Unfortunately, this
circling back to neurology serves only to heighten the original
tension of the problem: if there are neural mechanisms explaining
individual intelligence differences, and there are <i>different</i>
neural mechanisms driving population-wide intelligence gains, how are
these mechanisms supposed to co-exist within the same human brain and
not interfere with the intelligence-producing impact of the other. If
Lewontin's suggestion has been offered as the pathway to a more
straightforward explanation of human intelligence, its application to
human neurology has proven to be anything but.<br />
<br />
A decisive alternative would be to drop the dogma altogether.
Nothing actually compels acceptance of the idea that intelligence is
strictly a brain-produced phenomenon. Despite the widespread
consensus, no one has yet to demonstrate an actual neural mechanism
producing an actual intelligence effect. Neural activity certainly
<i>accompanies</i> intelligence behavior—there is plenty of
evidence for that—but the correlation does not go so far as to
prove causation. Furthermore, with the Flynn effect still a puzzle
and a mystery, bumping against many fundamental assumptions regarding
biology, evolution and intelligence, it would seem there is
reasonable motivation for casting the cognitive net a little wider.<br />
<br />
This essay describes a model of human intelligence that removes
the <i>location</i> of intelligence away from the human brain and
places it more squarely within the human environment, a concept that
will be dubbed <i>environmental intelligence</i>. Thus freed from the
constraints of biology, neurology and evolution (that is, freed from
the constraints of the human brain), human intelligence can be seen
as able to change and accumulate at a significant pace, which indeed
it must if it is going to produce the phenomenon known as the Flynn
effect. The human brain still gets to play an important role within
this new model—under a concept defined as <i>neuronal
intelligence</i>—but this role will be seen as necessarily
secondary. Instead of <i>producing</i> human intelligence, the human
brain will be depicted as <i>responding</i> to the intelligence
contained within the surrounding environment, an idea not as radical
as it might at first appear, since <i>responsiveness</i> of course
has always been the activity traditionally reserved for neural
systems.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>Environmental </b></i><i><b>i</b></i><i><b>ntelligence and
neuronal intelligence</b></i>. A fresh perspective can be gained on
human intelligence by considering it as the product of two orthogonal
components—<i>environmental intelligence</i> and <i>neuronal
intelligence</i>.<br />
<br />
<i>Environmental intelligence</i> is defined as the total amount
of non-biological pattern, structure and form tangibly contained
within the human environment. Every artifact a human encounters,
every synthesized product that crosses his path, every constructed
invention helping to mark his way—all the way from the simplest
spoken <i>hello</i> to the intricacies of the latest and greatest
microchip—each formulated element enveloping a modern man's
existence, an envelopment now so thorough it practically eclipses the
natural world from view, all of this, every last patterned piece of
it, forms the sum total of <i>environmental intelligence</i>. Even
the human body, still the most biological, non-artificial entity to
be found within a modern human's sensory world, even the human body
comes these days invariably clothed, manicured, bespectacled,
bejeweled and perfumed, which is to say the human body comes these
days abundantly encased in many of the diverse varieties of
<i>environmental intelligence</i>. Everywhere a man looks, every
moment he listens, every texture he brushes against, he finds himself
inundated with a constructed cornucopia built up out of order, shape,
number, rule; and this cornucopia in turn incessantly broadcasts back
into his neural system the elements of its underlying
characteristics—symmetry, repetition, pattern, structure, form.
<i>Environmental intelligence</i> is the influence so easily
overlooked because it is the influence so invariably right <i>there</i>,
right before one's very eyes. These days <i>e</i><i>nvironmental
intelligence</i> is utterly ubiquitous, composing the very fabric of
modern human existence, thoroughly embodied in the furniture, the
transportation, the words, the games, the weapons, the gifts, the
gardens, the laboratories, the music—thoroughly embodied in quite
literally, or at least quite literally once the few remaining
biological elements have been removed, quite literally the
<i>everything</i>.<br />
<br />
One advantage of this definition of <i>environmental intelligence</i>
is that it directly and observably connects human intelligence to the
sudden advancement of the human species. Prior to the human great
leap forward, there would have been essentially no <i>environmental
intelligence</i> to be found anywhere within the human surroundings.
No written words. No constructed buildings. No artifacts of even the
simplest kind. Prior to the human great leap forward, man would have
been surrounded by only the most natural of settings, all the way
from his skin to the farthest horizon, exactly as would have been the
case for all the other animals; and not coincidentally it would have
been perfectly correct to assess man's overall, absolute level of
intelligence at that time as essentially zero. (Ancient <i>homo
sapiens</i> certainly were not capable of <i>taking</i> an IQ exam,
let alone answering its questions correctly, let alone constructing
such an exam in the first place.) But beginning with ostrich shell
beads, bone awls, rudimentary clothing and cave paintings, and
proceeding straight through to domesticated crops, mud-plastered
abodes and towering pyramids, and crescendoing today in highways,
skyscrapers, televisions and rockets to the moon, the one
indisputable observation that can be made throughout that entire
course of recent human progress is that no matter in what environs
man suddenly found himself, he found himself always surrounded by an
ever growing totality of non-biological pattern, structure, symmetry,
repetition and form. For the last fifty thousand years, man has been
increasingly enveloping himself in the many and diverse material
artifacts that ultimately compose the sum total of <i>environmental
intelligence</i>, and not coincidentally, man has been displaying
throughout that entire fifty thousand year interval the ever more
abundant signs of intelligence.<br />
<br />
To actually measure <i>environmental intelligence</i> would be
admittedly a pragmatic nightmare. The sheer enormity of pattern,
structure and form contained within the modern world would alone
overwhelm any genuine effort to size it, and furthermore, there could
be no easy agreement on how best to quantify the structure contained
within for instance an automobile or a library book. But these
practical difficulties do not nullify the material certainty of
measurement—<i>environmental intelligence</i> tangibly exists, one
can touch it, hear it, talk about it, it is there right before one's
very eyes. Plus there is no need to actually measure <i>environmental
intelligence</i> in order to attest to its ever increasing presence
and influence. Think of the North American continent alone. Only a
few hundred years ago, man dwelled there in but a handful of places,
and outside of a few isolated civilizations the amount of
non-biological pattern, structure and form to be found within the
Western Hemisphere would have been extremely modest. But by one
hundred years ago, man had taken up residence from nearly coast to
coast and had augmented his New World surroundings with an entire
patchwork of fields, houses, roads, signs and machines. Today just
one glance at the skylines of such cities as Chicago and Toronto
would be more than sufficient to convince even the most dire skeptic
that by almost <i>any</i> reasonable means of measurement, it would
have to be calculated that the total amount of human <i>environmental
intelligence</i> has been persistently, indeed rapidly, on the rise.<br />
<br />
<br />
The second component of human intelligence, <i>neuronal
intelligence</i>, is in nearly every respect nothing at all like the
first. <i>N</i><i>euronal intelligence</i> is defined as an
individual's capacity to absorb and respond to <i>environmental
intelligence</i>, making it clear that <i>neuronal intelligence</i>
is considered here to be a secondary (a responding) construct. This
of course runs counter to the prevailing wisdom. The prevailing
wisdom would claim that all the many material artifacts forming the
sum total of <i>environmental intelligence</i> are not so much the
<i>embodiment</i> of intelligence as they are the <i>results</i> of
intelligence, the results of the wondrous if still somewhat
mysterious mechanisms of the human brain (where indeed all the
intelligence must reside). This presumed equivalence between
intelligence and human neurology has arisen in large measure—and
quite understandably enough—from the many successful results and
findings of modern intelligence research. With the employment of IQ
exams now widespread, and with the correlation of their results
against twin and other family studies, against career and academic
outcomes, against neuroimaging and other laboratory techniques,
intelligence researchers have been able to formulate a great deal of
predictive insight into what drives individual and group intelligence
differences and have been able to demonstrate with a high degree of
confidence that such differences are for the most part genetically
derived and are almost entirely neuronally based. <i>Neuronal
intelligence</i> has become the component of intelligence with which
everyone is most familiar, because it is the component of
intelligence that has been the most accurately and thoroughly
measured, and the most successfully understood.<br />
<br />
The one pitfall in these many informative findings of modern
intelligence research is that they have been <i>so</i> successful in
tying individual and group intelligence differences to genetics and
neurology that they have managed to convince researchers—to the
point of near unanimity and to the point of dogma—that <i>all</i>
intelligence differences must be tied to genetics and/or neurology,
including intelligence differences that manifest across time (the
Flynn effect). Invariably these days, when an explanation for the
Flynn effect is offered—whatever that explanation may be—it is
offered first and foremost as a temporal and population-wide
influence on the human brain. But in point of fact, all the evidence
backing the neuronal, genetic basis for individual and group
intelligence differences is evidence both gathered at and applicable
for only a particular moment in time; the evidence remains utterly
silent when applied <i>across</i> time. All the illuminating findings
of statistical analysis, including the resultant concept of a general
intelligence (Spearman's g), arise strictly from comparisons made
against one's contemporaries, and not against one's ancestors or
descendants. Indeed most intelligence researchers recognize this
distinction well enough to realize that any neural mechanisms that
might explain individual intelligence differences would likely be
very poor candidates as neural mechanisms underlying the Flynn
effect; and yet no researcher is able to carry this distinction to
its most logical conclusion, namely that there might not be <i>any</i>
neural mechanisms to be associated with the Flynn effect, not in any
way whatsoever. Having been witness to so much present-moment
evidence for the neural/genetic causation of individual intelligence
differences—causation that is perfectly plausible applied across
the range of biological diversity within the human
population—researchers then cannot let the idea go, even when
considering intelligence differences that span an entirely separate
domain. And thus nearly every explanation for the Flynn effect
continues to be offered with its seemingly mandatory tie back to
human neurology, and thus nearly every explanation for the Flynn
effect continues to fail, and fail for nearly the same reason—the
seemingly mandatory tie back to human neurology becomes downright
implausible applied across just a handful of generations.<br />
<br />
The way past this predicament begins first with a more thorough
examination of that preeminent tool for measuring <i>neuronal
intelligence</i>—the IQ test. It is the comparative, normed <i>results</i>
of IQ tests that provide nearly all the basis for the present
understanding regarding individual and group intelligence
differences, and so naturally it is the results that get most of the
attention. But an IQ test is more than just its normed results; an IQ
test has content—and not just any content. An IQ test does not
assess for instance an individual's capacity to scavenge food, ward
off predators or procreate, and an IQ test does not measure one's
ability to run, leap or throw. The challenges that one faces on an IQ
test are challenges composed almost entirely out of a particular set
of material artifacts—language, arithmetic, geometrical puzzles,
and so on—artifacts which are in turn built up out of a basic set
of underlying characteristics—symmetry, pattern, structure,
repetition, form. These underlying characteristics are of course the
very same characteristics already encountered under the description
of <i>environmental intelligence</i>. When examined carefully, an IQ
test reveals its content as made up out of miniaturized, formalized
versions of the types of structural material artifacts one encounters
nearly everywhere in the everyday world; which is to say, the content
of an IQ test stands as a proxy for <i>environmental intelligence</i>.
When an individual takes an IQ test, what he demonstrates is his
relative capacity for absorbing and responding to these proxies for
<i>environmental intelligence</i>, which in turn points to his
relative capacity for absorbing and responding to the <i>environmental
intelligence</i> he will encounter in his everyday world. Therefore
it is not in the least bit surprising that those individuals who
demonstrate greater ability in mastering the complexities of an IQ
test are also the individuals who tend to demonstrate greater ability
when navigating the complexities of the real world. This analysis of
the content and challenge of an IQ test leads directly back to the
stated definition of <i>neuronal intelligence</i>: <i>neuronal
intelligence</i> is an individual's capacity to absorb and respond to
<i>environmental intelligence</i>, with a strong emphasis to be
placed on both a. capacity, and b. response to <i>environmental
intelligence</i>. By itself, <i>neuronal intelligence</i> cannot
explain human intelligence, because by itself, <i>neuronal
intelligence</i> is merely a capacity in need of a target. That
target is <i>environmental intelligence</i>—the total amount of
non-biological pattern, structure and form tangibly contained within
the human environment, the other essential component in any
comprehensive description of human intelligence.<br />
<br />
<br />
It is important to emphasize one more time the orthogonal
relationship of <i>environmental intelligence</i> and <i>neuronal
intelligence</i>. <i>N</i><i>euronal intelligence</i> is a biological
capacity, a human behavioral ability, and thus there is no objection
to associating <i>neuronal intelligence</i> with neural and genetic
causes. But <i>environmental intelligence</i> is not biological at
all; it is instead a collection of characteristics from physical,
mostly man-made artifacts, quantifiable, changeable and accumulative
within the material world, and thus <i>environmental intelligence</i>
stands completely independent of any neurological or evolutionary
constraint.<br />
<br />
<i>Environmental intelligence</i> and <i>neuronal intelligence</i>
are each an essential component of human intelligence, but each
delivers its influence in an entirely separate domain.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>The Model</b></i>. With the path now prepared by these
definitions and descriptions of <i>environmental intelligence</i> and
<i>neuronal intelligence</i>, an example can be developed
illustrating how these two components, working simultaneously and yet
independently, combine to explain the known and observable
characteristics of intelligence as a whole, including the
characteristic known as the Flynn effect. All that is required
further are two straightforward assumptions: 1. the practical
difficulties in measuring <i>environmental intelligence</i> can be
theoretically overcome; and 2. consistent with observations from
human history, <i>environmental intelligence</i> can be assumed to
increase over any significant interval of time.<br />
<br />
In the example to be developed, intelligence characteristics will
be assessed at two different moments in time, call them Time 1 and
Time 2, with an interval of several generations passing between these
moments. The intelligence characteristics of the individuals living
at Time 1 and Time 2 will be described in the usual way, via results
on intelligence exams, and at these two moments the intelligence
characteristics of the environment will <i>also</i> need to be
detailed. Drawing upon the assumption that the practical difficulties
in measuring <i>environmen</i><i>tal</i><i> intelligence</i> can be
theoretically overcome, a system of measurement will be assumed that
is able to accurately assess the total amount of non-biological
pattern, structure and form tangibly contained within the human
environment, quantifying this amount in something called
environmental intelligence units (EIU). At Time 1, the total amount
of pattern, structure and form within the human environment will be
assumed to be measured at 200 EIU. Then several generations later, at
Time 2, the total amount of pattern, structure and form within the
human environment will be measured at double the previous amount, at
400 EIU. Such a sizable increase across several generations might
seem too large at first but is actually quite reasonable by recent
human standards (consider for instance the enormous amount of
environmental change from the late 1800s to the late 1900s). And at
any rate, the hypothesized numbers are not critical in and of
themselves: <i>any</i> significant increase in <i>environmental
intelligence</i> across the interval of time being considered will be
sufficient to demonstrate the principles pertinent to the example.<br />
<br />
At Time 1, with the amount of <i>environmental intelligence</i>
having been measured at 200 EIU, a standard battery of intelligence
tests is administered to a broad sampling from the population, and as
is done with real world intelligence exams, the raw scores are then
normed and delineated into ranked categories. The essential outcome
of this process can be summarized through the exam results of just
three individuals—call them A1, B1 and C1—individuals who
represent respectively results consistent with high intelligence,
medium intelligence, and low intelligence. Their raw scores might be
stated in a variety of ways: a) as the actual number of questions
answered correctly, or b) as the percentage of questions answered
correctly, or c) as the percentage of <i>environmental intelligence</i>
successfully absorbed and mastered. This last approach is derived
from the discussion above, where the content of an IQ exam has been
described as a proxy for <i>environmental intelligence</i>. If the
battery of tests administered to A1, B1 and C1 is in fact a <i>perfect</i>
proxy for <i>environmental intelligence</i>, then the percentage of
questions answered correctly can stand as a percentage measure of the
amount of <i>environmental intelligence</i> successfully mastered.
For instance, when it is discovered that A1 can correctly answer 80%
of the test questions, the result could be stated as follows: A1 has
demonstrated the capacity to master roughly 80% of the <i>environmental
intelligence</i> contained in the IQ exam, which indicates a capacity
to master roughly 80% of the <i>environmental intelligence</i> to be
found in his everyday world. In a similar vein, when B1 and C1
respectively answer 70% and 60% of the test questions correctly, it
can be said they are demonstrating the capacity to master
corresponding percentages of <i>environmental intelligence</i>.<br />
<br />
The results of both the environmental and individual intelligence
measures at Time 1 are summarized in the following chart:<br />
<h2 align="center" class="western">
<i><b>Time 1</b></i><i>
(Environmental Intelligence: 200 EIU)</i></h2>
<center>
<table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="width: 261px;">
<colgroup><col width="24"></col>
<col width="79"></col>
<col width="136"></col>
<col width="6"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="24"><br /></td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="79"><div align="center">
<u><b>Test Scores</b></u></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="136"><div align="center">
<u><b>Population Rank</b></u></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="6"><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="24"><div align="center">
<b>A1</b></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="79"><div align="center">
80%</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="136"><div align="center">
High Intelligence</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="6"><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="24"><div align="center">
<b>B1</b></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="79"><div align="center">
70%</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="136"><div align="center">
Medium Intelligence</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="6"><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="24"><div align="center">
<b>C1</b></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="79"><div align="center">
60%</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="136"><div align="center">
Low Intelligence</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="6"><br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</center>
<br />
At this point, all the standard types of analysis regarding
individual intelligence differences can be performed quite
adequately, leading to the type of informative findings that fall
under the heading of <i>neuronal intelligence</i>. Using relative
intelligence rankings, and employing factor analysis and
incorporating an assortment of statistical and biological information
gathered from the population at large, scientists will be able to
show with considerable confidence that, all other things being equal,
A1 can expect greater success than his B1 and C1 peers in such areas
as academics and career, and that the individual intelligence
differences between A1, B1 and C1 can be attributed in large degree
to biological and genetic causes. The comparative, normed
intelligence scores at Time 1 (or at any given time) are sufficient
to provide a wealth of information regarding the characteristics of
<i>neuronal intelligence</i>.<br />
<br />
An <span style="font-style: normal;">absolute</span> measure of
intelligence for A1, B1 and C1 has not yet been determined, but it
would be a simple matter to do so. With a measurement of 200 EIU
having been assigned to Time 1's <i>environmental intelligence</i>,
and with the raw test results able to be stated as a percentage of
<i>environmental intelligence</i> effectively mastered, a quick
calculation reveals that A1's absolute level of intelligence is 160
EIU (200 EIU x 80%), B1's is 140 EIU, and C1's is 120 EIU. The chart
can be updated to reflect these figures:<br />
<h2 align="center" class="western">
<i><b>Time 1</b> (Environmental
Intelligence: 200 EIU)</i></h2>
<center>
<table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="width: 404px;">
<colgroup><col width="24"></col>
<col width="79"></col>
<col width="136"></col>
<col width="149"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="24"><br /></td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="79"><div align="center">
<u><b>Test Scores</b></u></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="136"><div align="center">
<u><b>Population Rank</b></u></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="149"><div align="center">
<u><b>Absolute Intelligence</b></u></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="24"><div align="center">
<b>A1</b></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="79"><div align="center">
80%</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="136"><div align="center">
High Intelligence</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="149"><div align="center">
160 EIU</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="24"><div align="center">
<b>B1</b></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="79"><div align="center">
70%</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="136"><div align="center">
Medium Intelligence</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="149"><div align="center">
140 EIU</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="24"><div align="center">
<b>C1</b></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="79"><div align="center">
60%</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="136"><div align="center">
Low Intelligence</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="149"><div align="center">
120 EIU</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</center>
<br />
It should be noted that this additional calculation of an absolute
intelligence score does not aid at all in the understanding of
<i>neuronal intelligence</i>. As far as individual and group
intelligence differences are concerned, the inclusion of an absolute
intelligence score is nothing but a superfluous addendum—the
normed, relative intelligence rankings are more than sufficient by
themselves to make present-moment findings regarding <i>neuronal
intelligence</i>. However, the inclusion of an absolute intelligence
score will nonetheless prove to be invaluable, for it will turn out
to be an essential feature in the comparison of intelligence
characteristics between Time 1 and Time 2.<br />
<br />
<br />
As a reminder, <i>environmental intelligence</i> is assumed to
increase over time, and at Time 2 the total amount of pattern,
structure and form contained within the human environment is assessed
to have increased to 400 EIU. Since Time 2 occurs several generations
after Time 1, A1, B1 and C1 are no longer alive. But since A1, B1 and
C1 were only representative individuals culled from the overall Time
1 test results, it is perfectly reasonable at Time 2 to call upon
their equivalent descendants—call them A2, B2 and C2—all of whom
can be taken as biologically and genetically similar to their Time 1
ancestors. Indeed, when the standard battery of intelligence tests is
administered to the Time 2 population, A2, B2 and C2 score in a
familiar pattern: A2 answers 80% of the test questions correctly,
which is interpreted as reflecting an 80% mastery of Time 2's
<i>environmental intelligence</i>, and B2 and C2, to no surprise,
score 70% and 60% respectively. Once again the population results are
normed and delineated into ranked categories, and just as was the
case with their ancestors, A2 falls within the range of high
intelligence, B2 falls within the range of medium intelligence, and
C2 falls within the range of low intelligence. These Time 2 results
can be summarized as follows:<br />
<h2 align="center" class="western">
<i><b>Time 2</b> (Environmental
Intelligence: 400 EIU)</i></h2>
<center>
<table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="width: 261px;">
<colgroup><col width="24"></col>
<col width="79"></col>
<col width="136"></col>
<col width="6"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="24"><br /></td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="79"><div align="center">
<u><b>Test Scores</b></u></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="136"><div align="center">
<u><b>Population Rank</b></u></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="6"><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="24"><div align="center">
<b>A2</b></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="79"><div align="center">
80%</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="136"><div align="center">
High Intelligence</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="6"><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="24"><div align="center">
<b>B2</b></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="79"><div align="center">
70%</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="136"><div align="center">
Medium Intelligence</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="6"><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="24"><div align="center">
<b>C2</b></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="79"><div align="center">
60%</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="136"><div align="center">
Low Intelligence</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="6"><br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</center>
<br />
Once again, all the standard types of analysis regarding
individual and group intelligence differences can now be performed
quite adequately, and at Time 2 the findings regarding <i>neuronal
intelligence</i> will look almost identical to the findings from Time
1. Using factor analysis and population statistics, scientists will
once again be able to state that A2 can anticipate greater success
than his B2 and C2 peers, and that the individual intelligence
differences between A2, B2 and C2 are to be attributed in large
degree to biological and genetic influences. If the scientists were
to look at just the pattern of individual and group intelligence
differences from Time 1 to Time 2, they would be led to believe that
the overall intelligence characteristics are quite stable within this
population, just as might be anticipated for a capacity strongly
under the influence of biological/evolutionary forces.<br />
<br />
And yet at Time 2, the scientists will decidedly <i>not</i> be
talking about the stability of intelligence. Instead they will be
talking about a significant anomaly that has taken place.<br />
<br />
There are several ways to characterize this anomaly. The first is
to begin by examining what has taken place as the IQ tests have been
administered to the general population. The first intelligence tests
offered to the Time 2 population were the exact same tests given to
the Time 1 population, but as it turns out, those tests are now
laughably easy, to the point that nearly everyone scores in the
uppermost ranges. This prevents a meaningful comparison of results,
since no one is being challenged anymore and nearly everyone is
scoring the same. In order to restore the tests to their former
condition of being able to provide meaningful comparisons, the test
producers find they must beef up the exams, make the questions more
difficult, after which the relative rankings reemerge. It is only
after such modifications have been made that the tests can be
effectively administered to the population, with the resulting scores
as shown.<br />
<br />
In one sense, the reason that the IQ tests have to be modified at
Time 2 is clear from the parameters of the example itself. Since the
content of an IQ test stands as a proxy for <i>environmental
intelligence</i>, and since <i>environmental intelligence</i> has
significantly increased from Time 1 to Time 2, the tests must be
reconstituted in order to reflect this fact; that is, the additional
amount of pattern, structure and form to be found within the Time 2
environment must be incorporated into the Time 2 exams in order to
assess the population's relative dexterity with this new structural
material. But in an entirely different sense, another reason emerges
for explaining why the Time 2 exams have to be modified—namely,
that this is precisely what has been taking place in the real world
throughout the entire last century. Ever since IQ exams were first
administered, each successive generation has been scoring
progressively better on the existing exams, to the point that test
makers find they must modify the exams in order to keep them
challenging, in order to maintain their usefulness for comparative
purposes. These modifications generally take the shape of more
difficult questions, questions that incorporate a greater amount of
pattern, structure and form. Thus by virtue of the parameters of the
example itself and by virtue of the evidence from the real world, it
can be seen that intelligence tests must be strengthened in order to
counteract the persistent influence of the increasing amount of
complexity within the human environment.<br />
<br />
And it is not just the tests that need to be reconsidered. The
intelligence characteristics of A2, B2 and C2 must also be
reexamined, because they are now evincing two seemingly contradictory
facts:<br />
<ol>
<li>The <i>neuronal intelligence</i> characteristics of A2, B2
and C2 are essentially identical to the <i>neuronal intelligence</i>
characteristics of their A1, B1 and C1 ancestors.<br />
</li>
<li>The overall amount of intelligence being displayed by A2, B2
and C2 is essentially double the amount of intelligence that was
displayed by their A1, B1 and C1 ancestors.<br />
</li>
</ol>
The second fact arises from recognizing that A2, B2 and C2 are
correctly answering the same percentage of questions as did their
Time 1 ancestors but are doing so while taking a far more difficult
test. This comes out also through the calculation of absolute
intelligence scores for A2, B2 and C2. With Time 2 <i>environmental
intelligence</i> assessed at 400 EIU, A2's test results reflect an
absolute intelligence score of 320 EIU (400 EIU x 80%). B2 scores at
280 EIU, and C2 scores at 240 EIU—in each case a doubling over A1,
B1 and C1:<br />
<h2 align="center" class="western">
<i><b>Time 2</b> (Environmental
Intelligence: 400 EIU)</i></h2>
<center>
<table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="width: 404px;">
<colgroup><col width="24"></col>
<col width="79"></col>
<col width="136"></col>
<col width="149"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="24"><br /></td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="79"><div align="center">
<u><b>Test Scores</b></u></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="136"><div align="center">
<u><b>Population Rank</b></u></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="149"><div align="center">
<u><b>Absolute Intelligence</b></u></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="24"><div align="center">
<b>A2</b></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="79"><div align="center">
80%</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="136"><div align="center">
High Intelligence</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="149"><div align="center">
320 EIU</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="24"><div align="center">
<b>B2</b></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="79"><div align="center">
70%</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="136"><div align="center">
Medium Intelligence</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="149"><div align="center">
280 EIU</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="24"><div align="center">
<b>C2</b></div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="79"><div align="center">
60%</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="136"><div align="center">
Low Intelligence</div>
</td>
<td style="border: none; padding: 0in;" width="149"><div align="center">
240 EIU</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
</center>
<br />
As contradictory as these results might at first appear, this
example reflects exactly what has been happening in the real world.
The only difference is that the example also includes an assessment
of <i>environmental intelligence</i>, as well as an analysis of the
impact of <i>environmental intelligence</i> on individual
intelligence differences, differences that in this instance manifest
<i>over an interval of time</i>. And what arises from this example is
a clear indication of exactly what produces the population-wide
generational increases in raw intelligence scores. The sole driver of
raw intelligence gains is the increasing amount of <i>environmental
intelligence</i>, the increasing amount of non-biological pattern,
structure and form tangibly contained within the human environment.<br />
<br />
And by corollary, <i>neuronal intelligence</i>—including any
mention at all of neurology or genetics—has absolutely <i>nothing</i>
to do with intelligence gains over time. <i>N</i><i>euronal
intelligence</i>, the biological capacity to absorb and respond to
<i>environmental intelligence</i>, that capacity will remain nearly
constant over time, but that capacity will encounter an ever
expanding target.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>Flynn's Paradoxes</b></i>. In his book <i>What is
Intelligence?</i>, Flynn (2007) describes four paradoxes he
associates with the Flynn effect. To someone not obsessed with the
brain's monopoly on human intelligence, however, these paradoxes are
not paradoxical at all—each can be answered simply and directly
using this essay's dual-component model of human intelligence.<br />
<br />
Two of the paradoxes, labeled as <i>the intelligence paradox</i>
and <i>the mental retardation paradox</i>, state the apparent
incongruity that if the Flynn effect were literally true, then humans
from one generation would be too implausibly dumb or too implausibly
smart compared to humans from a different generation. In Flynn's
words:<br />
<blockquote>
"If huge IQ gains are intelligence gains, why are we
not struck by the extraordinary subtlety of our children's
conversation? Why do we not have to make allowances for the
limitations of our parents? A difference of some 18 points in Full
Scale IQ over two generations ought to be highly visible.<br />
<br />
"If we project IQ gains back to 1900, the average IQ
scored against current norms was somewhere between 50 and 70. If IQ
gains are in any sense real, we are driven to the absurd conclusion
that a majority of our ancestors were mentally retarded."</blockquote>
The resolution to these two paradoxes is to recognize that Flynn
is confusing the two different aspects of intelligence; he is
confusing <i>environmental intelligence</i> with <i>neuronal
intelligence</i>. In particular, he is using the changed levels in
one aspect (<i>environmental intelligence</i>) to infer a
corresponding change in the other aspect (<i>neuronal intelligence</i>).
That inference is entirely unwarranted.<br />
<br />
Consider the individual named A1 in the model. At Time 1, A1 is
assessed to be highly intelligent. He demonstrates an above-average
ability to absorb and respond to <i>environmental intelligence</i> by
correctly answering 80% of the test questions presented to him, and
as A1 navigates through his Time 1 world, it can be anticipated he
will experience relatively greater achievement in such areas as
academics and career compared for instance to his B1 and C1 peers.
But when A1's absolute (raw) intelligence score of 160 EIU is
compared to the population of Time 2, A1 suddenly appears much less
smart. 160 EIU scores far below the 240 EIU of C2, a person assessed
to be of low intelligence at Time 2. If 240 EIU is considered to be
of low intelligence at Time 2, then A1's score of 160 EIU seems to
mark him as a borderline imbecile.<br />
<br />
So which is it? Is A1 highly intelligent or is he an imbecile?
This paradox is resolved by recognizing that A1's <i>neuronal
intelligence</i> is not subject to change. A1's absolute intelligence
score of 160 EIU has as much to do with the time period during which
it was registered as it has to do with A1's biological capacity. If
A1 could be magically transported forward in time and raised in the
Time 2 world, he would absorb and respond to about 80% of the Time 2
<i>environmental intelligence</i> and would score correspondingly on
a Time 2 intelligence exam, making it clear once again that he is a
highly intelligent individual. A1's apparently low score of 160 EIU
has nothing to do with A1's intelligence abilities; it has everything
to do with the change in <i>environmental intelligence</i> from Time
1 to Time 2.<br />
<br />
This works exactly the same way going backwards in time. Consider
C2, who is assessed at Time 2 to be of low intelligence. But when
C2's absolute (raw) intelligence score of 240 EIU is compared to the
Time 1 population, where a score of 160 EIU is considered to be
highly intelligent, C2 suddenly comes across as a Mensa candidate,
and one wonders if C2 simply had the misfortune of being born too
late.<br />
<br />
So which is it? Is C2 of low intelligence or a Mensa candidate?
Once again, the resolution is to recognize that C2's <i>neuronal
intelligence</i> is not subject to change. If C2 could be magically
transported back in time and raised in the Time 1 world, he would
absorb only about 60% of the Time 1 <i>environmental intelligence</i>
and would score relatively poorly on the Time 1 intelligence exam.
The timing of one's birth does not alter one's personal intellectual
ability.<br />
<br />
In addition to these hypothetical examples from the model, Flynn
provides a real world scenario that brings out both the paradox and
its resolution in the most enlightening of ways. After noting that
the average raw intelligence score from around the year 1900 would
translate to an IQ of about 50 to 70 on today's scale, Flynn raises
the specter of the following tableau:<br />
<blockquote>
"Jensen relates an interview with a young man with a
Wechsler IQ of 75. Despite the fact that he attended baseball games
frequently, he was vague about the rules, did not know how many
players were on a team, could not name the teams his home team
played, and could not name any of the most famous players.<br />
<br />
"When Americans attended baseball games a century
ago, were almost half of them too dull to follow the game or use a
scorecard? My father who was born in 1885 taught me to keep score and
spoke as if this was something virtually everyone did when he was a
boy. How did Englishmen play cricket in 1900? Taking their mean IQ at
face value, most of them would need a minder to position them in the
field, tell them when to bat, and tell them when the innings was
over."</blockquote>
This is a quintessential example of mistaking a change in raw
intelligence scores as evidence for a change in <i>neuronal
intelligence</i>, when in fact it is evidence for a change in
<i>environmental intelligence</i>. Think about incorporating
questions dealing with baseball rules into an intelligence test. If
such questions had appeared on an exam in say the year 1800, no one
at all, including the smartest people who then lived, would have been
able to answer such questions correctly (other than by random luck).
By contrast, if such questions were to appear on today's intelligence
exams, many individuals, including those of low-to-average
intelligence, would be able to answer the questions
correctly—baseball and its rules have become an established part of
the human environment, their widespread presence and influence are
now thoroughly absorbed by a large percentage of the human
population. As Flynn indicates, it would be only those with an IQ of
around 75 or under who would have limited potential to answer such
questions correctly.<br />
<br />
So does this imply that the smartest people from the year 1800
must have had the same intellectual capacity as Jensen's young man?
It of course does not imply that at all.<br />
<br />
The critical moment in time would have been around the year 1900.
If intelligence questions regarding baseball rules had appeared on
intelligence exams at that time, the results would have been
decidedly mixed. Some people would have been able to answer such
questions correctly, but many others would not, including those of
otherwise average-to-high intelligence, and this only because
baseball had not yet become widely entrenched within the human
environment (it was just then catching on). But after the exam was
finished, if one of those baseball-ignorant, question-misanswering
persons of average-to-high intelligence had been taken to the
ballpark, bought a ticket, sat with in the grandstands, explained the
rules, given a scorecard and pencil, a perfectly capable set of
behaviors would have swiftly emerged. After all, this is a person of
average-to-high intelligence, he can absorb and respond to baseball
rules just fine, they will give him not the slightest bit of trouble.
And around the year 1900, this scene would have actually been taking
place, again and again and again, not just a hypothetical example but
instead a real world, fully surveyable experience—an experience of
human intelligence observably on the rise.<br />
<br />
The increase in raw intelligence scores from 1900 to 2000 has
everything to do with the increasing amount of <i>environmental
intelligence</i> (including the addition of baseball rules). It has
nothing to do with individual intellectual abilities. It has nothing
to do with <i>neuronal intelligence</i>.<br />
<br />
<br />
Another Flynn paradox is called <i>the identical twins paradox</i>.
Flynn's words again:<br />
<blockquote>
"There is no doubt that twins separated at birth,
and raised apart, have very similar IQs, presumably because of their
identical genes. Indeed a wide range of studies show that genes
dominate individual differences in IQ and that environment is feeble.
And yet, IQ gains are so great as to signal the existence of
environmental factors of enormous potency. How can environment be
both so feeble and so potent?"</blockquote>
The short answer to this paradox is to say that environment,
despite Flynn's doubts, is indeed both feeble and potent. It is
feeble when considering individual and group intelligence differences
that manifest <i>at a particular moment in time</i>—the domain in
which neurology and genetics hold full sway. And environment is
potent when considering intelligence differences that manifest <i>across
time</i>—the domain in which neurology and genetics remain utterly
silent. But although the short answer resolves the paradox precisely,
it does not address what is actually the problem here, namely why
does Flynn think this is a paradox.<br />
<br />
There could be several ways one might analogize this essay's model
of human intelligence. For instance, Lewontin's example of the seed
corn would do fine. Also, one might consider the height of ships
floating in a harbor, which differ from one another because of each
ship's inherent characteristics (individual differences at a moment
in time) and yet might change overall because of the rising and
falling tide (environmental influence across time). Flynn would not
find either Lewontin's seed corn or the rising and falling ships to
be paradoxical, and yet the exact same mechanism applied to human
intelligence seems to leave him utterly baffled. The question is why.<br />
<br />
Flynn's bafflement arises from the ingrained assumption common to
all intelligence researchers: each has become completely convinced
that all intelligence differences and characteristics must ultimately
be described as <i>neural</i> differences and characteristics. In
other words, if an influence has no direct or indirect impact upon
the human brain, then it cannot be an influence related to human
intelligence. And so when Flynn considers environmental forces, which
he can see have the perfect potential for explaining the Flynn
effect, he stops short when he cannot find a plausible,
straightforward way to tie those forces back to the supposedly
requisite change in human genetics and/or neurology. This would be
equivalent to not seeing how the nitrates in the soil can impact the
seed corn's genetic structure, or not seeing how the water in the
harbor can alter the ships' physical characteristics. But Flynn does
not fall for this false dilemma with the seed corn or with the ships
because he understands that the actions of the nitrates are
<i>orthogonal</i> to the seed corn's genetics, and he understands
that the water level in the harbor is <i>independent</i> of each
ship's physical characteristics. It is only in the field of human
intelligence that he finds himself unable to countenance this
orthogonality and independence.<br />
<br />
And yet that is all it takes. When one accepts the orthogonal
relationship between <i>neuronal intelligence</i> and <i>environmental
intelligence</i>, when one finally drops the the unnecessary and
unsupported requirement that all intelligence characteristics are
essentially neural characteristics, then the bafflement of the
identical twins paradox swiftly disappears.<br />
<br />
<br />
The remaining Flynn paradox is called <i>the factor analysis
paradox</i>:<br />
<blockquote>
"How can intelligence be both one and many at the
same time or how can IQ gains be so contemptuous of g loadings? How
can people get more intelligent and have no larger vocabularies, no
larger stores of general information, no greater ability to solve
arithmetical problems?"</blockquote>
The first part of Flynn's statement is handled with ease: IQ gains
across time can be so contemptuous of g loadings because IQ gains
across time have absolutely nothing to do with <i>neuronal
intelligence</i>, and therefore have absolutely nothing to do with
Spearman's g. In fact, <i>c</i><i>ontemptuous</i> is not the right
word; <i>utter indifference</i> would more precisely capture the
relationship.<br />
<br />
The second part of the statement—why are intelligence gains
differential across the many aspects of intelligence—that question
is more intriguing and brings out additional features of
<i>environmental intelligence</i>. In this essay so far,
<i>environmental intelligence</i> has always been taken as a whole,
with an emphasis on the principle that as a whole, <i>environmental
intelligence</i> will be inexorably increasing. But when
<i>environmental intelligence</i> is broken down into its component
pieces and aspects, differing rates of increase can emerge. This will
be seen for instance geographically, where around this planet's
surface the rate of increase in <i>environmental intelligence</i> can
vary from place to place. In the late 1900s through today, for
example, the largest gains in <i>environmental intelligence</i>, and
therefore the largest gains in IQ scores, most likely occurred in
locales such as India and China, where there was a sudden and
tangible surge of the overall amount of pattern, structure and form
being added into the surroundings. Flynn's subcategories of
vocabulary, arithmetic and general knowledge too, although more
stable now, must have passed through epics where rapid increases
undoubtedly occurred. Words, both spoken and written, obviously
infiltrated the human environment at some point, as did numbers and
their practical uses, and although no one was recording the surge in
corresponding intelligence at that time, the surge clearly had to
have taken place. That fewer common words and numerical techniques
are being added into the environment today is compensated for by the
palpable expansions in such areas as electronic logic, transportation
networks, and so on. Plus none of these variable rates within the
components of <i>environmental intelligence</i> should cause one to
lose sight of the bigger picture, which is that the total amount of
<i>environmental intelligence</i> will tend to increase persistently,
and will do so without any influence upon, or any influence from,
<i>neuronal intelligence</i>. These several features of <i>environmental
intelligence</i> can be summarized as follows:<br />
<ol>
<li>Over time, the total amount of <i>environmental intelligence</i>
will increase.<br />
</li>
<li>Different aspects of <i>environmental intelligence</i> will
increase at different rates at different times.<br />
</li>
<li>Increases in <i>environmental intelligence</i> are
independent of <i>neuronal intelligence</i>.<br />
</li>
</ol>
These principles of <i>environmental intelligence</i> (in
particular, principle 2) are adequate to address the questions raised
by the factor analysis paradox, and can do so without any unnecessary
reliance upon the characteristics of the human brain.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>Environmental Complexity</b></i>. Of the many offered
explanations for the Flynn effect, the one most similar to the model
proposed here is the notion of environmental complexity. Schooler
(1998) and Greenfield (1998) offer introductions to the idea, and it
is not uncommon in general discussion to hear someone suggest that
the modern usage of such things as puzzles, graphics and games might
have something to do with the increasing levels of tested
intelligence. Such suggestions are certainly on the right track, but
when they are examined carefully and thoroughly, it can be seen that
in many crucial respects their overall ability to explain the Flynn
effect falls a good deal short.<br />
<br />
The first problem with the notion of environmental complexity is
that its proponents focus on certain <i>things</i> within the human
environment, and ignore the impact of the environment as a whole. For
instance, two commonly cited examples of the type of environmental
complexity that can increase intelligence are the widespread use of
video games, and the growing complexity and multivariate plot lines
in television shows and movies. Others might highlight the expanded
presence of visual imagery and puzzles within everyday life. But no
matter what thing or set of things is being considered, it becomes
immediately clear that by itself it cannot account for the ubiquitous
and relentless nature of the Flynn effect. The Flynn effect was
working its magic long before there even were video games and
television sets, and the Flynn effect remains prominent in locations
where video games and sophisticated dramas have yet to take much
hold. Alternative candidates for environment complexity might be
offered instead, but inevitably all must fall victim to the same
problem of limited temporal and spatial impact. The Flynn effect is a
population-wide, time-persistent phenomenon, and so any explanation
for the Flynn effect has to have population-wide, time-persistent
effect. Specific instances of environmental complexity are almost
guaranteed to never fit the bill.<br />
<br />
The second problem with the notion of environmental complexity is
that its proponents—like nearly everyone else—insist on tying
their explanation back to human neurology. Playing video games, for
instance, is seen as expanding the capacity of working memory. Modern
movie plots are described as forming a larger number of simultaneous
connections within the logical neural circuitry. It would seem that
environmental complexity by itself is rather useless, that its only
real purpose is to prompt a major restructuring within the neurons, a
massive rewiring between the ears. Such ideas now run amok within
modern science, but they lack biological parsimoniousness and
plausibility, they beg plasticity miracles within the human head. In
truth, the human brain does not need to be <i>changed</i> by
instances of environmental complexity, the human brain needs merely
to <span style="font-style: normal;">respond</span> to the <i>stimulus</i>
of environmental complexity, a mechanism conforming quite nicely—and
quite plausibly—to the traditional description of a neural system.<br />
<br />
This essay's model of <i>environmental intelligence</i>, while
similar to the notion of environmental complexity, avoids the
shortcomings of environmental complexity by incorporating two
significant improvements. One, <i>environmental intelligence</i>
embraces a far more comprehensive context than does the notion of
environmental complexity—comprehensive enough to have
population-wide, time-persistent impact. <i>Environmental
intelligence</i> achieves this comprehensiveness by eschewing the
focus on particular <i>things</i> within the human environment and
incorporating instead nothing short of the <i>total amount</i> of
non-biological pattern, structure and form tangibly contained within
the human environment. Two, <i>environmental intelligence</i>, unlike
the notion of environmental complexity, severs the unnecessary tie
back to human neurology, allowing <i>environmental intelligence</i>
to accumulate and change without biological restriction and without
resort to any biological miracle. <i>Environmental intelligence</i>
takes the seed offered by the notion of environmental complexity and
expands it to its full logical limit, expands it into a fully
functioning component of human intelligence, one capable of serving
as the <i>embodiment</i> of human intelligence, and one capable of
serving as the orthogonal partner to the workings of the human brain.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>Conclusion</b></i>. A consequence that becomes readily
apparent from this essay's dual-component model of human intelligence
is that the Flynn effect cannot be regarded—as it too often is—as
merely a twentieth-century anomaly. Tracking the historical increase
in <i>environmental intelligence</i>, the Flynn effect must have
begun near the time of the human great leap forward and will have
been shadowing human existence ever since. And there is no reason to
expect the Flynn effect will end anytime soon.<br />
<br />
The unseen hand propelling intelligence scores upward is
<i>environmental intelligence</i>, the total amount of non-biological
pattern, structure and form tangibly contained within the human
environment. It has remained unseen for so long because it has become
so inextricably right <i>there</i>, right before one's very eyes, the
very fabric of modern human existence, the map by which humans now
navigate their world. If there is something worthy of being called a
miracle in human intelligence, it would have to be this,
<i>environmental intelligence</i>, for no other species on this
planet has built its own version of <i>environmental intelligence</i>,
and humans did not build theirs for a very long time.<br />
<br />
The human brain—or at least researchers' obsessive focus on the
human brain—has been given a thorough chastening within this essay,
but that does not nullify the importance of the brain to human
intelligence. The human neural system is still a <i>necessary</i>
component of human intelligence; all that has been demonstrated here
is that the human neural system is not a <i>sufficient</i> component
of human intelligence. Any comprehensive description of intelligence,
one capable of explaining individual and group intelligence
differences as well as explaining the Flynn effect, will incorporate
both <i>neuronal intelligence</i> and <i>environmental intelligence</i>,
two components working simultaneously and orthogonally, producing an
overall human intelligence that varies throughout the population and
that increases year after year after year.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="center">
<b>References</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;">
Flynn, J. R. (1999). Searching for justice: The discovery of IQ gains
over time. <i>American Psychologist, 54</i>, 5–20.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;">
Flynn, J. R. (2007). <i>What is intelligence? Beyond the Flynn
effect</i>. New York: Cambridge University Press.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;">
Greenfield, P. (1998). The cultural evolution of IQ. In U. Neisser
(Ed.), <i>The rising curve</i>. Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;">
Lewontin, R. C. (1976). Further remarks on race and the genetics of
intelligence; Race and intelligence. In N. J. Block & G. Dworkin
(eds.), <i>The IQ controversy</i>. New York: Pantheon Books.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;">
Schooler, C. (1998). Environmental complexity and the Flynn effect.
In U. Neisser (Ed.), <i>The rising curve</i>. Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<br /></div>
Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-47254916001387470172015-03-21T16:16:00.000-04:002015-03-21T16:16:04.806-04:00There Are Cesspools, and Then There Are Cesspools
<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }a:link { }</style>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Some of you may be following Dorothy
Bishop's <a href="http://deevybee.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/journals-without-editors-what-is-going.html" target="_blank">series</a> of <a href="http://deevybee.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/editors-behaving-badly.html" target="_blank">hubbub</a> regarding Johnny Matson's reign of
self-serving dishonor while in the role of editor for two Elsevier
journals, <i>Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders</i> (RASD) and
<i>Research in Developmental Disabilities</i> (RIDD). Really, the
whole episode is kind of humorous and sad, in the way that most human
activities are. But I would be remiss if I were not to point out here
some observations that I am certain Bishop will overlook.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
First of all, Matson's activities,
while certainly extreme, are not at all unfamiliar. His reliance upon
self citation, reciprocating citation and collegial nepotism differ
from the remainder of the research community only in degree, not in
kind. Everyone knows (wink, wink) that such activities have become
the bedrock of survival for those scrambling to stay afloat in
today's competitive academic industry. I am certain some might try to
deny it or try to justify it, but if I were to rule out protests from
those who have ever cited themselves, have ever cited a mentor or
colleague, or have ever curried favor for position or assignment,
then I am going to anticipate the push-back will be rather meager.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Second of all, Matson's activities are
extremely old news (if they can even be <i>called</i> news, given how
out in the open they were). I myself had noted all the way <a href="http://autisticaphorisms.blogspot.com/2009/09/broad-survey-of-autism-research.html" target="_blank">back in 2009</a> that RASD should be renamed <i>The Matson Mouthpiece</i>, and
Michelle Dawson has been tweeting about Matson's self-referencing
cesspool on practically a weekly basis since she opened her <a href="https://twitter.com/autismcrisis" target="_blank">Twitter account</a>. Bishop—who was acquainted with Matson, was aware of his
work, and was listed as an editor on RASD—Bishop arrived
extraordinarily late and ingénue to the party. But perhaps because
<i>she</i> has been so successful in <a href="http://autisticaphorisms.blogspot.com/2013/05/you-reap-what-you-sow.html" target="_blank">getting grant funding and publishing papers</a>, when <i>she</i> raised a ruckus the research
community finally took some notice.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Bishop's <a href="http://deevybee.blogspot.com/2015/03/will-elsevier-say-sorry.html" target="_blank">latest contribution</a> to this
episode is an attempt to shame Elsevier into apologizing for the
Matson incident. The reason Bishop believes that an apology is in
order is about as informative and revealing as any reason can be. Her
words:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It matters because RIDD and RASD are
presented to the world as peer-reviewed journals, backed up by the
'distinguished brand' of Elsevier. We live in times when there is
competition for jobs and prizes, and these will go to those who have
plenty of publications in peer-reviewed journals, preferably with
high citations. If an editor bypasses peer review and encourages
self-citation, then the quality of the work in the journal is
misrepresented and some people gain unfair advantages from this. The
main victims here are those who published in RASD and RIDD in good
faith, thinking that acceptance in the journal was a marker of
quality. They will be feeling pretty bitter about the 'added value'
of Elsevier right now, as the value of their own work will be
degraded by association with these journals.
</div>
</blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Think about that statement for a
moment. Think about it good and hard. Any of you who have ever put
forth science as the preeminent means for acquiring truth and
understanding about our world, think good and hard about what that
statement must imply about what is actually valued in today's
science. I certainly cannot fault the statement for being inaccurate,
but I would think that for many of today's scientists, the exposure
is just too embarrassing.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Or let me put it this way. If in
today's research environment, Einstein were to publish his special
relativity essay in a journal such as <i>Science</i>, the essay would
of course be held in the highest regard by everyone—and this before
anyone had even bothered to read it or understand it. On the other
hand, if Einstein were to publish his essay in something like RASD as
it was run under Johnny Matson's leadership, then the essay would now
be regarded as forever tainted. And if Einstein were to publish his
essay on the back of a set of cocktail napkins, it would be
universally and instantaneously panned as totally worthless, not
worth a glance. The <i>contents</i> of the essay? Well, what do <i>they</i>
have to do with anything? (By the way, for anyone interested, the
journal in which Einstein's essay first appeared was run with many
remarkable similarities to Matson's RASD. Just saying.)</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Listen, I am going to be blunt and
crude about what I think is going on here: today's scientists do not
give a shit about science. What they give a shit about is
publication, reputation, grants and jobs. End of story.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-67075161943381864522014-11-01T14:43:00.001-04:002014-11-01T14:43:34.963-04:00MiredIt was almost exactly ten years ago I was introduced into the world of autism. Much has changed for me since then, nearly all of it good. I can't say the same however for the world of autism -- if anything it has taken a few steps backwards.Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-10783296685213687992014-04-04T19:30:00.001-04:002014-04-04T19:34:39.830-04:00The Flynn Effect In Its EntiretyHere are two recent research articles
highlighting the ongoing relentlessness of the Flynn effect:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028961400035X" target="_blank">A Flynn effect among deaf boys in Saudi Arabia</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613000901" target="_blank">An increase of intelligence in China 1986–2012</a></li>
</ul>
The appearance of these articles is in
no way surprising: reports such as these have been popping up on a
regular basis for nearly thirty years now. Of course, it was all the
rage around ten years ago to proclaim the Flynn effect had been just
a twentieth-century anomaly and now was coming to an end. I guess
someone must have forgotten to tell the Saudi Arabian deaf children.
I guess someone must have forgotten to tell the Chinese. I guess
someone must have forgotten to tell just about everyone.<br />
<br />
So let's make the current status of the
Flynn effect a little more explicit, shall we: <i>the Flynn effect is
an ongoing phenomenon within the human population and all its
subpopulations</i>. That is, the Flynn effect is both active and
ubiquitous. But I can go much further than that, because of course
every piece of evidence from human history insists we <i>must</i> go
further. Eschewing the narrowness of modern scientific vision, I
insist we add a clause: <i>the Flynn effect is an ongoing phenomenon
within the human population and all its subpopulations, and has been
so for at least the last ten thousand years, probably much longer
than that</i>. That is, the Flynn effect has been active, ubiquitous
and relentless ever since man first displayed signs of intelligence
and began scattering off the savannas. Far from being just a
twentieth-century anomaly, the Flynn effect has become a deeply
ingrained aspect of the human condition, and holds the key to
intelligence itself and its <a href="http://autisticaphorisms.blogspot.com/2013/06/intelligence-and-flynn-effect-one-more.html" target="_blank">significant non-neuronal component</a>.<br />
<br />
At the present time, no intelligence
researcher recognizes the depth and breadth of the Flynn effect. Even
James Flynn, who probably <a href="http://www.alrasub.com/interview-with-james-flynn/" target="_blank">comes the nearest</a> to understanding we are
dealing with an ideal measure of human modernity, insists nonetheless
on limiting the temporal range of that insight to mostly the last
century alone, and certainly no further back than the industrial
revolution. Such limited perspective is an unnecessary mistake.
Limited perspectives engender limited explanations, and limited
explanations are <i>a priori</i> inadequate, because the Flynn effect
shows no evidence of being a limited phenomenon.<br />
<br />
The latest Flynn effect explanatory fad
has the Flynn effect being produced by <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1041608013001556" target="_blank">greater guessing</a> on
standardized tests, a perfectly suitable hypothesis I would say, as
long as the theory's authors are willing to boldly and courageously
step forward and insist the entire human population is currently
engaged in greater guessing on standardized tests and has been doing
so for at least the last ten thousand years. However, if the theory's
authors are for some reason hesitant to make such a claim, then I am
going to insist on dismissing their puny hypothesis as entirely
inadequate to the task, a dismissal they need not feel all that bad
about, since of course they will have plenty of company.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Liu,
J. & Lynn, R. (2013). An increase of intelligence in China
1986–2012. <i>Intelligence</i>, 40, 139–144.
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2013.06.017" target="doilink">http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2013.06.017</a><br />
<br />
Bakhiet, S., Barakat, S. & Lynn, R.
(2014). A Flynn
effect among deaf boys in Saudi Arabia. <i>Intelligence</i>,
44, 75–77. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2014.03.003" target="doilink">http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2014.03.003</a><br />
<br />
Armstrong,
E. & Woodley, M. A. (2013). The rule-dependence model explains
the commonalities between the Flynn effect and IQ gains via
retesting. <i>Learning and
Individual Differences</i>,
29, 41–49. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2013.10.009" target="doilink">http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2013.10.009</a><br />
<br />Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-78076013488934934932013-12-03T23:41:00.000-05:002013-12-03T23:41:24.550-05:00Connectivity Explained<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
There seems to be a <a href="http://sfari.org/sfari-community/community-blog/cross-talk/2013/what-to-make-of-contradictions-in-connectivity-findings/" target="_blank">bit of a hullabaloo</a>
developing over the state of neural connectivity in autism. But to be
honest, I fail to see what all the fuss is about — a little autism
science logic can clear up the matter instantly. To wit:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<ul>
<li>Some studies have shown that various
regions of autistic brains are under-connected relative to typical
controls. This is a problem because everything associated with autism
is bad.</li>
<li>Some studies have demonstrated that
various regions of the autistic brain are over-connected
(hyper-connected) relative to typical controls. This is a problem
because everything associated with autism is bad.</li>
<li>Some studies have suggested that
various regions of the autistic brain are indistinguishable from
typical controls. This is a problem because everything associated
with autism is bad.</li>
</ul>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
There, see how easy it is to clear up
these matters when you apply a little autism science logic.</div>
Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510682683427247658.post-76347944668741378042013-09-23T22:50:00.000-04:002013-09-23T23:05:35.424-04:00Every Disney Drama Has a Cruel VillainI'll tell you what Autism Speaks
understands: the big money it garners from corporations like Disney.<br />
<br />
And I'll tell you what Autism Speaks
<i>doesn't</i> understand: autistic kids.
Alan Griswoldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09942081543800127341noreply@blogger.com1