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Originally Posted by OregonRose
Whether this means people are getting smarter or not is a matter of great controversy, as is the question of what IQ tests actually measure, if anything besides how well the respondent does on IQ tests.
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Yes, yes and yes.
IQ tests, like most other standardized tests, measure a person's ability to think in a A -> B -> C fashion and "catch" errors or puzzles within statements. They don't measure higher level thinking in any meaningful way.
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Originally Posted by M Levac
Genius and excellence is now a rarity so much so that we celebrate it.
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Brain size to social commentary. Interesting tangent, but let's go with it.
Genius, by definition, is a rarity. You could find a race of super-intelligent humans, far more intelligent than "First World" humans, and even they would have standards of genius.
Put a different way, someone isn't an exceptionally fast runner
because they run at 10MPH. They are exceptionally fast because
everyone else runs at half that pace.
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Originally Posted by M Levac
The argument that our brain shrank due to malnutrition is very plausible since we continue to suffer malnutrition due to a grain-heavy diet which we must supplement with various vitamins and minerals to alleviate this malnutrition.
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As mentioned earlier, domesticated/tamed animals also have smaller brains. Is the shrinkage due to malnutrition, or is it due to a lack of need for larger brains?
I have absolutely no idea if it has been measured or how it would be measured, but I'd be curious to know if different brain storage mechanisms require different space. IE, wild animals must pass along inherent knowledge of what to eat and when to move. Domesticated animals do not. Should that information be stored in a portion of the brain that takes up more real estate, wouldn't it stand to reason that the brain would shrink as those instincts were discarded? OK...contemplating over. =)